The sacralization of Christmas commerce
研究了美国东北部自17世纪以来圣诞节的演变，指出清教徒神学使圣诞商业逐渐神圣化，甚至部分取代了宗教纪念活动。
Discussions of Christmas sometimes focus on the paradox of its being both a Christian Holy Day and a secular shopping season, implicitly suggesting their equivalence. In this article we demonstrate the inadequacy of such statements. We explore the ongoing evolution of Christmas in the Northeast United States since the 17th century, and we show how, thanks in part to Calvinist theology brought by the early Puritan settlers, commerce associated with Christmas has been sacralized over time, become sacred, to the extent that it now, to a considerable extent, subsumes the religious commemoration of Christmas. We suggest some implications of this process.