One does not expect the word “bum” to be associated with Christmas, but here we are. First a lexicographic discussion of the term. In Britain and the Commonwealth bum refers to one’s bottom; one sits on one’s bum. Thus in Australia a “Christmas bummer” is underwear decorated with pictures of Santa or reindeer or candy canes.
In the United States, however, bum refers to a hobo or mendicant. To bum around is to wander as a vagrant; to bum is to beg. Throughout the nineteenth-century, American churches differed as to celebrating Christmas. The feast was fully supported by Catholics, Lutherans, Episcopalians, and northern Methodists; it was opposed by Baptists, Quakers, southern Methodists, and a host of independent sects. As the years went by, more and more denominations succumbed to the lure of Christmas. Many churches began to eye Santa Claus as a figure of tremendous appeal who could attract children (and thus their parents) to Christian worship. Churches, particularly those involved in missions to the urban poor, began to compete with each other in the mounting of December pageants and ceremonies of gift-giving. The Pilgrim Unitarian Church in San Francisco hired a public hall and featured songs, recitations and tableaux, a giant Christmas tree hung with lights and presents, artificial snow falling from the ceiling, and a Santa driven into the room in a sleigh drawn by two real deer. Even on the sparsely settled prairie, Christmas productions were deemed indispensable. In December 1886 churchgoers in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, could choose from the Congregationalists’ “Santa Clausville,” the Baptists’ literary musical entertainment and supper, the Presbyterians’ “Gathering of the Nations to Meet Santa Claus,” or the Methodist-Episcopal “Christmas House” with Santa. The latter, a playlet by Edward Eggleton, was a popular one in churches and is noteworthy for the character of Santa Claus condemning “Christmas bummers”—children who only made an appearance in Sunday School at Christmas and who often went from one church to another to gather yet more loot in the spirit of Halloween.
In the twenty-first century “Christmas bummer” has come to refer to an aspect of the holiday that makes one depressed. Sad Christmas songs such as “Christmas Eve Can Kill You” by the Everley Brothers, “Santa Can’t Stay” by Dwight Yoakam, or Joni Mitchell’s “River” are guaranteed to provoke tears.