During World War II, across America the war effort was everything. Rationing was the norm on a wide range of everyday merchandise, both essentials and luxuries. Manpower was in short supply even in industries deemed essential.
And yet, Christmas after Christmas came and went throughout World War II. Families tried to create their Christmas as best they could, while trying to do the same for servicemen and servicewomen overseas.
It was a transformative period for Christmas in America, producing many of the traditions we still celebrate today.
Even the most basic secular symbol of Christmas, the family Christmas tree, was in short supply. Plenty of trees were growing out in the countryside, but enough manpower and railroad space to cut those trees and get them to market was another thing entirely.
Artificial trees of various materials began to rise in popularity.
Going into the war years, blown-glass ornaments from Germany and exotic ornaments from Japan, like feathered birds, were a Christmas treasure in many American homes. With the onset of the war, many of those treasures went right into the trash.
In their place, Americans were encouraged to make their own ornaments from materials not essential to the war effort, like paper and ribbons already on hand, and natural materials, like pine cones and acorns. Magazine pages were filled with how-to, designs and patterns.
After the war, the Corning Glass Company in New York converted a light-bulb factory to mass-produce Christmas tree balls to fill the void. Not only did the factory make American-made bulbs, it also produced them 60 times faster than a German glass blower could manage.
Outdoor Christmas lights similarly were an early sacrifice to the war effort. Mandatory blackouts, dim-outs to reduce fuel use on the home front, personal patriotic decisions to suspend home lighting during the war and a shortage of materials to produce new light sets all worked to reduce both home and community decoration.
Another Christmas icon – Santa Claus – saw similarly drastic alterations during World War II. With fewer men on the home front, there were not enough men to dress up and play Santa Claus everywhere his presence was wanted. As they did in so many niches at the time, women filled in as substitute St. Nicks, even in department stores, including Saks Fifth Avenue in New York City.
Santa’s look also was Americanized as the war years progressed. The “jolly old elf” received a makeover from his former European look, which was more of a tall, bearded saint with Germanic touches to something closer to the Santa described by Clement Clarke Moore’s 1823 poem, A Visit from St. Nicholas:
“With a little old driver so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment he must be St. Nick…
“… He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.
His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly
That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf…”
The need to ship packages to servicemen and servicewomen overseas by mid-October for them to arrive at their destinations by Christmas gave rise to some of the first early Christmas shopping by masses across America.
Gift-giving itself was a challenge, both for home front and the battlefield. Shortages of raw materials, particularly metals and rubber; the conversion of factories to the production of military needs; and rationing on a wide range of consumer goods, even some of the most basic commodities, meant there was less of everything to go around. Wood, cardboard, paper and the emerging plastics replaced metals and rubber in many popular toys of the day, from miniature jeeps and airplanes to dollhouses and building sets.
The U.S. government pushed war bonds, which provided funding for the war effort, as Christmas presents during the war.
Sugar and butter were rationed during the war, which meant fewer sweets like cookies and candies. Some meats, like ham, were rationed as well, and others, like turkey, weren’t rationed, but military demand to supply turkey dinners cut supplies for domestic consumption drastically.
