We Americans have a way of taking European customs and cultural items, reinventing them to our liking, and as often as not sending them back (or at least trying to) to the Mother Continent. So it has been with Disney’s Fantasyland (based on European folktales), historical re-enactment, Renaissance “faires”, the Society for Creative Anachronism, and much else. But nowhere is this truer than with holiday celebrations. St Patrick’s Day, Halloween, Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, and the Kirking of the Tartans come to mind – although Burns suppers and Lessons and Carols services retain more or less the style of their British counterparts.
2:30 PM
How America helped revive the Boar's Head feast
we americans have a way of taking european customs and cultural items, reinventing them to our liking, and as often as not sending them back...
Charles Coulombe

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