Which President Made Christmas a National Holiday?

So many people love celebrating Christmas; however, Christmas was not always celebrated in the United States. The celebrations started in the early 19th century and in 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant made Christmas a national holiday.

Representative Burton Chauncey Cook from Illinois introduced the bill to make Christmas a national holiday into the House of Representatives early in 1870. On June 24, 1870, the bill was approved and it was passed on to the Senate. Shortly after, both the Senate and the House of Representatives agreed upon the wording of the bill. On June 28, 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant signed the bill, putting it into effect and giving people plenty of time to prepare for the holiday!

Christmas in America

You might think that Christmas was celebrated in America for hundreds of years before Grant made it a national holiday, but that is not exactly the case. In the 1600s, the Puritans made it illegal to celebrate Christmas, and anyone who did so was punished. They did not want any of the decadence associated with Christmas to potentially taint the real meaning of the day.

It was not really until the early 19th century that people began to celebrate Christmas again. As the century progressed, prominent figures such as Washington Irving, Clement Clarke Moore, and Thomas Nast contributed to the continual development of Christmas in the United States, which ultimately ended up in the bill signed by Grant.