Using as a focus the last Christmas celebrations at the Confederate White House and associated events, Dr. Luskey described long-term holiday practices and temporary gaiety with the background of an increasingly failing nationhood.

"Starvation Parties," celebrations by the Davis family with the orphans of St. Paul's Church, the Christmas-Day promenade of well-dressed ladies from the White House to Capitol Square, the previous Bread Riot, and charity and benevolence for the poor were juxtaposed to provide sharp contrasts of living among "the quality" of Richmond. All this with the fear of an uprising of slaves, and the lower classes "making the nights hideous" as social order decayed.