With Christmas just two days away, it’s an appropriate time to take note of Alabama’s historical role in the national holiday.

For decades, historians have speculated that the Yellowhammer State was the first in the country to officially celebrate the religious holiday in 1836. If accurate, it would mean that Alabama proceeded the federal government in recognizing Christmas by over thirty years.  It wasn’t until June 26, 1870, that President Ulysses S. Grant signed a bill officially recognizing December 25th as an unpaid national holiday.

According to The History Channel, the Heart of Dixie was followed shortly by Oklahoma and Arkansas in 1838 in making Christmas official. The dates are repeated in multiple online sources and have been accepted by many historians as accurate.

The Alabama Department of Archives and History has traced the speculation that Alabama led the nation in establishing Christmas as an official holiday to at least 1954, when it appeared in James H. Barnett’s The American Christmas, A Study in National Culture, without citation.

Austen Shipley is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on X @ShipleyAusten