Origins of Christmas in July

Because of the retail tie-in, it might come as a surprise that Christmas in July did not originate as a marketing ploy. Nope, the first reference to this prelude to the season came in an 1894 English translation of an 1892 French opera, “Werther.” In the story, a group of children rehearses a Christmas song in July, to which a character responds: “When you sing Christmas in July, you rush the season.”

Country Living magazine has traced the origins of Christmas in July celebrations to a summer camp in North Carolina. As part of their experience at Keystone Camp in Brevard, about 35 miles south of Asheville, campers would use their arts-and-crafts skills to create a gift for a fellow camper. At the end of the week, campers would dress in flannel pajamas and drink mugs of hot cocoa while they waited for Santa to arrive on the back of a maintenance truck. The only way to summon the man in red, Page Ives Lemel recalls, was to sing Christmas carols at the top of their lungs.

Lemel is director of Keystone, the fourth generation in her family to hold the title. Last year, to commemorate its 100th anniversary, the camp chronicled its history in a new book. Lemel says that as she flipped through an early draft, she learned that the first time anyone was known to have celebrated Christmas in July was at Keystone, at the behest of the camp’s whimsical, creative co-founder Fannie Holt.

The camp’s first midsummer noel was held July 24-25, 1933, Lemel says in the magazine. Eventually, elves, reindeer and Mrs. Claus would accompany Santa, who always wore his cozy red suit, despite the smoldering summer temps.

“The fact that we didn’t lose Santa to a heat stroke was pretty fortunate,” she says.