To deaden or lessen the pain, there is no want of preachers and editorialists to explain the real or true meaning of Christmas, though the bumpy history of the holiday suggests that its real meaning is whatever the deuce you want it to mean. Holidays do not have one meaning for all time. A few years ago Kwanzaa didn't exist, and now it does, with its own intricate semiotic overlays. Nov. 11 used to be Armistice Day, a bitter moment of reflection on the needlessly dead; now it's a pep rally for the next war.

Marley's ghost notwithstanding, looking into the past will not yield up any meaning of the Christmas holiday that most of us will recognize. The December date on the festive calendar two centuries ago was an occasion for public brawling by wandering crowds of inebriates.

Until Christmas was transformed in the 1830's and 40's, it was not unlike Mardi Gras. Men dressed as women and vice versa; off-key, discordant, squeaky, tub-thumping bands marched through the streets; liquored-up groups of revelers would force their way into the households of honest burghers to demand money, food and drink. When they managed to get what they came for, it wasn't Christmas alms or charity, but something close to extortion-the same begging by menace that New Yorkers, prior to Rudolph Giuliani's administration, used to have to put up with. These bands of not-so-merry makers would stand in front of homes and wassail those inside with such songs as this:

We've come here to claim our right …

And if you don't open your door

We will lay you flat upon the floor.

Twenty-first-century New Yorkers, putting cash into envelopes for doormen, cleaning staff, janitors, trash personnel, etc. under threat of rotten service next year, are observing the last of the not-so-nice Christmas customs of the 17th century.

(Incidentally, the carol quoted above is from The Battle for Christmas: A Cultural History of America's Most Cherished Holiday by Stephen Nissenbaum, from which the other information about Christmas' history in this piece is drawn.)

In 1659, Massachusetts outlawed Christmas. A five-shilling fine was to be imposed on anybody "found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting or any other way." So how did this non-family-holiday become the epitome of domestic celebrations for American Christians and others taken in by the thought of everyone gathered round the bright, gleaming tree?

The bright, gleaming tree is itself supposed to have been an ancient bit of folkloric ritual brought over here from Germany, which is true as far as it goes. Apparently there was nothing ancient about it in Germany, where it was nearly unknown until the middle of the 18th century, when it may been popularized by the description of one in a Goethe novel. The tree doesn't seem to have arrived in the U.S. much before 1820, and the first reference to it in an English-speaking community dates from 1835, when one was set up in Cambridge, Mass., by a German professor at Harvard.

Santa Claus, evidently with a similar developmental history, arrives in roughly the same time period as the tree. He was imported from Holland in 1810 by John Pintard, the founder of the New-York Historical Society, with an eye toward suppressing lower-class misbehavior.

It appears from what Mr. Nissenbaum has found out that our contemporary child-centered Christmas cum tree and Claus was first popularized by that least of all Christian sects or churches, the Unitarians. To the extent that the modern child has become the tender, protected and special being that he/she is, the Unitarians must shoulder more than a little of the credit or blame. Turning Christmas into a children's holiday was one of the ways they achieved their ends.

And yet, although tree and Claus were important elements in shaping the commercial horror that is the modern American Christmas, it was the work of three writers who tamed the holiday and converted it into the form we recognize today. The first was Washington Irving, whose description of Squire Bracebridge in The Sketch Book making Christmas in the ancient (if largely fictitious) way seems to have had a great effect on the nascent middle-class American reader. Next came Clement Clarke Moore, a crusty, slave-owning reactionary who opposed abolitionism, and his relentlessly anapestic "A Visit from St. Nicholas"-or, as it is better known these days, "The Night Before Christmas." Finally, Charles Dickens did the rest when, in 1843, he gave us A Christmas Carol. For enduring impact, nothing compares with it, not even the Christian Bible (a document whose connection with the American way of Christmas demands a reach of the imagination): The sacred writing for this holiday was supplied by Dickens, who, given his antipathies for the uptrodden, might not welcome how his tale seems to have become propaganda for the rich. The message conveyed by the story in 2004-even though it doesn't reflect the author's intent-is that the best course is to stay cheerful and pray.

Look at the Cratchets. Without health insurance, their best-beloved child is a sickly cripple. Like millions of Americans in the same fix, the parents worry about their child, but the last thing on God's green earth to occur to them is that a society which lets little boys waste and die is one asking for a few adjustments. In the first half of the 19th century, the time of William Blake's "satanic mills," no money was available for public medicine. Extra capital in that epoch was being spent on new factories and technologies. As things worked out, those profits became seed corn for today's wealth and a society that does have enough money to attend to the medical needs of sickly youngsters-if the people have the means to pay.

Bob Cratchet is the precursor of the office-working armies to come. Like his white-collar successors, Bob is powerless against any petty cruelty or wage cut that his employer inflicts on him. He can't tell Scrooge to "Take this job and shove it," since he is living from paycheck to paycheck; he has no back-up resources, no power to defend himself. No law, no union, no professional association will intervene if Scrooge decides to can him. He and his little family are alone, utter isolates. Read in our time, A Christmas Carol counsels that Bob should work harder, grovel more enthusiastically, and throw himself ever more into the work of making a profit for an employer who is not going to share the extra money with the ever-pleasant, obsequious bookkeeper scratching away in the ledgers in the next room.

In the end, the long hours in the cold and the sweet optimism of the almost saintly naïf (or, if you will, the sucker) pay off: Scrooge has a nightmare in which it is revealed to his miserly self how cruelly he has treated poor Cratchet, whose faithful obedience could not even be found in an adoring dog. We know the rest of the story. It's New York's 100 Neediest Cases writ large. The Christmas goose and other goodies arrive at the Cratchet house, where Tiny Tim in his modest gratitude brings tears to our eyes.

Whatever the dark origins of Christmas in the Roman feast of Saturn, this is a tale of Christian virtues being rewarded. For the humble, the obedient, the happy striver, the dependent thinker, the cheerleader and the cheer follower, the possibility exists that those with power and money will have a bad dream, wake up and do right by those whom they employ.

It may have taken a couple of hundred years, but the starch has been purged from Christmas. No more bricks through the windows: The mobs of long ago have become the agitated shoppers of today, the office-party lechers, the Yuletide hysterics going further into debt to achieve a sparkly Christmas, for all is right and all is well, and the lesson of the day is trust to charity and the kindness of billionaires.

"As I see it, everyone is sick of minimalism and wearing black"-said she who wore head-to-toe black Helmut Lang pants and sweater and five-inch python Christian Louboutin boots dyed purple. "Everyone wants the obvious, Richie Rich trinkets: a big gold Tank Française Cartier watch. A cranberry-colored big BMW. Jewelry, obviously-duh, hello! Diamond drop earrings or a diamond choker from Fred Leighton. Even if last year you hated fur, this year you want a fur coat from Narciso Rodriguez at Saks. Really lightweight. So lightweight it doesn't look like fur, but like velvet. And it's about gadgets," Ms. Betts continued. "The new Startac cellular phone. The new Apple thin, thin desktop computer. All the things the crowd at Balthazar has, or will have."

Ms. Betts even added a couple of personal wishes. For instance, a new New York apartment "with Sub-Zero everything," decorated by Sharon Simonaire. According to another source, it is Ms. Simonaire whom Richard Gere has hired to do his new Greenwich Village town house.

Isn't it rich? Economists have forecast that holiday shoppers in the United States, inspired by the glad tidings of the current economy, will help boost retail sales anywhere from 3 to 5 percent this year over last year. ABC World News reported on Nov. 30 that retail sales over the Thanksgiving holiday were already up 2.2 percent. On the other hand, reports in The New York Times and Women's Wear Daily for the same weekend said retailers' cash registers hadn't reached "Jingle Bells" pitch yet; most shoppers will wait until a few days before Christmas to spend. A poll by an economic research organization called the Conference Board said the average American will drop $465 this season on Christmas presents. People polled in New England will be the nation's biggest spenders, at about $593 per shopper. Meanwhile, in upper-income Manhattan, that's just about what our town's most anxious movers and shakers might tip the reservations person at Balthazar, or any watering hole of their choice.

In New York, Christmastime has landed. From Genre magazine ("Gucci, Gucci, Gucci," a "yearlong subscription to Wallpaper magazine") to Martha Stewart Living ("candle sets," "themed stockings"); from Paper magazine ("camouflage camera from Union," "boots by Todd Oldham," "red velvet hot pants by Bongo") to Town & Country ("Tiffany & Company's moonstone tiara," "Harry Winston's 'Sparkle Plenty' earrings"), nary a chronicle or magazine cannot be gleaned for holiday gift suggestions this month.

Asked what he thinks fashion people want most for Christmas, Simon Doonan, the executive vice president of creative services at Barneys New York, produced a list more Nobu than Ms. Betts' Balthazar, more green tea than boom-boom beef. Of course, everything on his most wanted list was available at Barneys: custom-made shirts, assorted fragrances, an Hermès bicycle, a tiara made of healing crystals and, said Mr. Doonan, "You're insane not to buy something by Yohji [Yamamoto] if you're a woman. His collection is amazing." Barneys has early delivery on Yamamoto.

For the uninitiated: The stylish, British-born Mr. Doonan has been with Barneys since 1986. He is in charge of the emporium's design and display, including its always merry windows and its elaborate and amusing Christmas installations. In the retail world, no one is quite as involved in Christmas as Mr. Doonan.

When we met on Nov. 24 at Fred's, the store's restaurant, this year's Christmas windows were just completed, and Mr. Doonan and his team were conceiving the holiday windows for 1998. "By July, we'll have sketches of the windows. As nightmarish as it sounds, it's a year-round activity. It does mean," confided Mr. Doonan, leaning forward in his crisp brown Prada suit, "my personal interest in Christmas is vastly diminished. When the actual event rolls around, I just lie in bed in the fetal position and wait until it is over."

A jazzy "Silent Night" was heard from the store's stereo, the song distinguished from more sophisticated, seasonless melodies. "We have a system," Mr. Doonan explained. "The Christmas music increases the closer we come to Dec. 25. It's 20 percent now. After Thanksgiving, it goes up to 60 percent. Once December really kicks in, everything is Christmas music, but we try to have groovy things." He smiled. "This is the Modern Jazz Quartet."

As one has come to expect, Barneys' holiday windows are as irreverent this year as ever. The theme is a global tour of fashion and popular culture. The English window, for instance, includes Queen Elizabeth as a bearskin-style fur rug that is labeled "Fake."

So what's wrong with a nice Santa Claus?

"I'm always berated by people who don't get our windows," Mr. Doonan said. In particular, he remembered when small Christmas trees decorated with condoms in gold foil were featured several years ago. "We got grief from people who said the Christmas tree was a religious symbol. In fact, it isn't. I thought it was a pagan symbol, and it really isn't even that. Santa Claus and Christmas trees are inventions of retailers. I think to really show what Christmas means in a religious sense would be bad taste in a store window."

Indeed, The Battle for Christmas , by Stephen Nissenbaum, a fascinating cultural history of America's favorite holiday that was recently published in paperback by Vintage, describes how John Pintard, one of the founding members of the New-York Historical Society, concocted Christmas sentimentality in 1810 to control noisy immigrants who reveled too loudly at the holiday. The idea was to focus their energies during Christmas week on their home lives, not on their revelries in the streets. Later on, to attract shoppers at the turn of the century, department stores filled their windows with decorated evergreens, probably an idea brought from Germany. "There never was a time when Christmas existed as unsullied domestic idyll, immune to the taint of commercialism," writes Mr. Nissenbaum.

Mr. Doonan, who is writing a book titled Confessions of a Window Dresser that Calloway Publishing is expected to publish in the fall of 1999, was headed downtown after our chat to decorate his apartment for Christmas. "It consists of placing two Christmas balls bought at the Liberace Museum gift shop on either side of the mantel; that's it. Even though I have a high-level job in retail," he joked, "I'm clinging onto my soul with Lee Press-On nails."