(Radio Iowa) – Christmas 2025 has come and gone, but did you know that the Iowa Legislature declared Christmas as an official state holiday in 1862 — eight years before Congress declared Christmas a federal holiday. Michael Swanger is editor of the Iowa History Journal, which has a cover story in its current issue about how European immigrants brought their Christmas customs to Iowa.

“It goes back to even before statehood in terms of the roots of the traditions,” Swanger said. Swanger says holding candle-light church services on Christmas Eve, for example, came from Moravia — which is now part of the Czech Republic. “The Moravian congregations in eastern Iowa, they really helped shape the way that we celebrate Christmas in Iowa still today,” Swanger said.

According to the Archives of the Moravian Church in America, Moravians started coming to the U-S in the 17-hundreds and many brought with them the figures for Nativity Scenes. The town of Moravia, in southern Iowa’s Appanoose County, was founded by a group of Moravian families just five years after Iowa became a state. By the way, Sunday is Iowa’s 179th birthday.

Iowa became the 29th state on December 28th, 1846.