Americans in 2025 whine about their holiday stress while sipping overpriced lattes and scrolling through Instagram.
Your ancestors probably actually suffered to build this country.
And one annual tradition from American heroes put today's complainers to shame.
Lewis And Clark Spent Three Brutal Christmases Away From Civilization
Americans today think they've got it rough during the holidays.
Traffic's a nightmare, the in-laws are coming over, and Amazon Prime delivery is running two days late.
Meanwhile, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark spent three consecutive Christmases freezing in the wilderness thousands of miles from civilization—and many Americans back east had given them up for dead.¹
The Corps of Discovery celebrated Christmas in 1803, 1804, and 1805 during their grueling expedition to explore President Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase.
These weren't cozy family gatherings around a fireplace with presents under the tree.
These were desperate men huddled in crude log huts, surviving on spoiled elk meat, enduring temperatures that plunged 10 degrees below freezing, and facing the very real possibility they'd never see home again.²
The first Christmas at Camp River Dubois in 1803 came just 13 days after they'd arrived in wind, hail, and snow.³
The men woke Captain Clark with a round of gunfire—a Southern tradition—and celebrated with deer, turkey, cheese, and fresh butter.
Some got drunk. Two fought. But they were still relatively close to St. Louis, just 22 miles away.
That luxury wouldn't last.
Fort Mandan Christmas Revealed What Real American Grit Looked Like
By Christmas 1804, the expedition had pushed deep into present-day North Dakota near the Mandan Indian villages.
They'd built Fort Mandan from cottonwood logs in brutal conditions, moving into unfinished huts when the weather turned deadly cold.⁴
On Christmas morning, snow fell and temperatures barely cracked 20 degrees.
The men awakened Lewis and Clark before dawn with three volleys of rifle fire and cannon shots.
Clark recorded they were "merily Disposed" and gave them "a little Taffia"—rum mixed with water—before they spent the day "Dancing and Continued untill 9oClock P.M. when the frolick ended."⁵
The journals don't reveal exactly what they ate, but it likely included corn from the Mandan farmers and whatever buffalo meat remained from their December 7th hunt.
This was the Christmas where they met Sacagawea, the 16-year-old Shoshone woman who'd been kidnapped and sold into marriage but would become invaluable to their survival.⁶
No complaints about dry turkey or relatives asking about their job prospects.
Just grateful men celebrating they'd made it through another brutal month alive.
Fort Clatsop Christmas Proved Americans Once Knew Real Sacrifice
The third Christmas at Fort Clatsop near present-day Astoria, Oregon was by far the worst.
After reaching the Pacific Ocean in November 1805—or what they thought was the ocean, actually the Columbia River's estuary—the Corps endured 11 days of "abject misery" in constant rain before building their winter quarters.⁷
They moved into Fort Clatsop on Christmas Eve 1805, the buildings barely finished.
Christmas morning came with the traditional rifle salute, but the celebration ended there.
Captain Clark's journal entry was brutally honest: "We would have Spent this day the nativity of Christ in feasting, had we any thing either to raise our Sperits or even gratify our appetites."⁸
Their Christmas dinner consisted of "pore Elk, So much Spoiled that we eate it thro' mear necessity. Some Spoiled pounded fish and a fiew roots."
Clark emphasized: "a bad Christmass diner."⁹
The captains divided their last tobacco between the men who used it and gave silk handkerchiefs to the others as Christmas gifts.
That's it. That was Christmas 1805.
Spoiled meat, no alcohol, constant rain, and the knowledge they still had to survive winter before attempting the journey home.
Private Joseph Whitehouse wrote they were "mostly in good health, A blessing, which we esteem more, than all the luxuries this life can afford, and the party are all thankful to the Supreme Being."¹⁰
Read that again.
These men—eating rotten elk in crude huts thousands of miles from home with no guarantee they'd survive—were thankful to God they had their health.
Many Of Today's Americans Have Forgotten What Real Hardship Looks Like
The Lewis and Clark expedition lasted two years, four months, and 10 days covering more than 8,000 miles.¹¹
The Corps faced mosquito swarms, grizzly bears, dysentery, boils, near-starvation, hostile encounters, and brutal weather that would kill unprepared men.
They portaged 18 miles around the Great Falls in scorching heat, their feet cut and bleeding from prickly pear cactus.¹²
They crossed the Continental Divide and Bitterroot Mountains through deep snow with no trails.
They endured hunger so severe the Nez Perce tribe likely saved them from starvation.¹³
Only one man died during the entire expedition—Sergeant Charles Floyd from apparent appendicitis in August 1804.
The rest survived through grit, determination, faith, and an understanding that sacrifice built something greater than themselves.
These men knew Christmas wasn't about getting the latest gadget or the perfect Instagram-worthy table setting.
Christmas was about being alive, having companions who'd risk their lives for you, and thanking God for another day to serve a purpose bigger than comfort.
Americans today complain their Christmas is "ruined" because flights got delayed or the wrong gift arrived.
Our ancestors spent three Christmases eating spoiled meat in frozen huts thousands of miles from civilization and called themselves blessed.
Every comfort we take for granted—from climate-controlled homes to next-day delivery—exists because men like Lewis and Clark endured conditions that would break modern Americans in 48 hours.
That's a Christmas lesson modern America desperately needs to relearn.
¹ Diane L. Gruber, "Christmas With Lewis & Clark," America First Re-Ignited, December 24, 2024.
² Ibid.
³ Ibid.
⁴ "Winter Holidays on the Lewis and Clark Expedition December 1804 – January 1805," U.S. National Park Service.
⁵ Ibid.
⁶ "Lewis and Clark Expedition," Wikipedia.
⁷ Gruber, "Christmas With Lewis & Clark."
⁸ "December 25, 1805," Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
⁹ Ibid.
¹⁰ Ibid.
¹¹ "Lewis and Clark: A Timeline of the Extraordinary Expedition," History Channel, July 24, 2025.
¹² "A medical journey with Lewis and Clark," AAO-HNS Bulletin.
¹³ "What Was the Purpose of the Lewis and Clark Expedition?" Mometrix, August 6, 2025.
