CHRISTMAS
CHRISTMAS
Christmas, annual Christian holiday commemorating the
birth of Jesus Christ. Most members of the Roman
Catholic Church and followers of Protestantism celebrate
Christmas on December 25, and many celebrate on the
evening of December 24 as well. Members of the Eastern
Orthodox Church usually delay their most important
seasonal ceremonies until January 6, when they celebrate
Epiphany, a commemoration of the baptism of Jesus.
Epiphany also traditionally commemorates the arrival of
the Three Wise Men of the East in Bethlehem (near
Jerusalem, Israel), where they adored the infant Jesus
and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense, and
myrrh. The official Christmas season, popularly known as
either Christmastide or the Twelve Days of Christmas,
extends from the anniversary of Christ’s birth on
December 25 to the feast of Epiphany on January 6.
The most important holiday on the Christian
calendar is Easter, which commemorates the
Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus .
Nevertheless, many people, particularly in
the United States and Canada, consider
Christmas to be the most significant annual
Christian event. In addition to being a
religious holiday, Christmas is a widely
observed secular festival. For most people
who celebrate Christmas, the holiday season
is characterized by gatherings among family
and friends, feasting, and gift giving.
Christmas is based on the story of Jesus’ birth as
described in the Gospel according to Matthew and
the Gospel according to Luke . Roman Catholics first
celebrated Christmas, then known as the Feast of
the Nativity, as early as 336 ad. The word Christmas
entered the English language sometime around 1050
as the Old English phrase Christes maesse, meaning
―festival of Christ.‖ Scholars believe the frequently
used shortened form of Christmas—Xmas—may have
come into use in the 13th century. The X stands for
the Greek letter chi, an abbreviation of Khristos
(Christ), and also represents the cross on which
Jesus was crucified.
II
ORIGINS
OF
CHRISTMAS
Historians are unsure exactly when Christians first
began celebrating the Nativity of Christ. However,
most scholars believe that Christmas originated in the
4th century as a Christian substitute for pagan
celebrations of the winter solstice. Before the
introduction of Christmas, each year beginning on
December 17 Romans honored Saturn, the ancient god
of agriculture, in a festival called Saturnalia. This
festival lasted for seven days and included the winter
solstice, which usually occurred around December 25
on the ancient Julian calendar. During Saturnalia the
Romans feasted, postponed all business and warfare,
exchanged gifts, and temporarily freed their slaves.
Many Romans also celebrated the lengthening of
daylight following the winter solstice by participating
in rituals to glorify Mithra, the ancient Persian god of
light (see Mithraism). These and other winter
festivities continued through January 1, the festival
of Kalends, when Romans marked the day of the new
moon and the first day of the month and year.
Although the Gospels describe Jesus’ birth in detail, they
never mention the date, so historians do not know on what
date he was born. The Roman Catholic Church chose
December 25 as the day for the Feast of the Nativity in
order to give Christian meaning to existing pagan rituals. For
example, the Church replaced festivities honoring the birth
of Mithra, the god of light, with festivities to commemorate
the birth of Jesus, whom the Bible calls the light of the
world. The Catholic Church hoped to draw pagans into its
religion by allowing them to continue their revelry while
simultaneously honoring the birthday of Jesus. The Eastern
Orthodox Church took a slightly different course. By the
end of the 4th century the Eastern Church in Constantinople
had also begun to acknowledge December 25 as Jesus’
birthday, but it emphasized the celebration of Christ’s
baptism on January 6 as the more important holiday.
Over the next 1000 years, the observance of Christmas
followed the expansion of Christianity into the rest of
Europe and into Egypt. Along the way, Christian beliefs
combined with existing pagan feasts and winter rituals to
create many long-standing traditions of Christmas
celebrations. For example, ancient Europeans believed
that the mistletoe plant held magic powers to bestow life
and fertility, to bring about peace, and to protect against
disease. Northern Europeans associated the plant with
the Norse goddess of love, Freya, and developed the
custom of kissing underneath mistletoe branches.
Christians incorporated this custom into their Christmas
celebrations, and kissing under a mistletoe branch
eventually became a part of secular Christmas tradition.
During the Reformation of the 16th
century, Protestants challenged the
authority of the Catholic Church,
including its toleration of surviving
pagan traditions during Christmas
festivities. For a brief time during
the 17th century, Puritans banned
Christmas in England and in some
English colonies in North America
because they felt it had become a
season best known for gambling,
flamboyant public behavior, and
overindulgence in food and drink.
Europeans who settled in North America often found
they had to change their Christmas celebrations because
they could not faithfully recreate the traditions of their
homelands. For example, colonists in the American South
may have aspired to recreate a sense of the English
Christmas. But colonial accounts of Christmas
celebrations in the South do not mention the presence of
mummers (masked or costumed merrymakers) or waits
(musicians or carolers paid to perform at Christmastime),
both of which were central figures of the traditional
English Christmas. Nor do historical accounts describe
settlers engaging in such traditional English customs as
feasting on boars’ heads or drinking from wassail bowls
(bowls filled with spiced ale or wine).
Colonists from England, France, Holland,
Spain, and other countries also gradually
modified their Christmas ceremonies as they
encountered new cultures and traditions in
the New World. For example, in large towns,
where diverse groups lived close together,
the common ground for celebration could
often be found in public and secular
festivities rather than in potentially divisive
religious ceremonies. Thus, at least in New
York City, the winter’s holidays often
culminated on New Year’s, not Christmas.
III
RISE OF THE
MODERN
AMERICAN
CHRISTMAS
In the United States and Canada, many elements of modern
Christmas celebrations did not emerge until the 19th century.
Before then Christmas had been an ordinary workday in many
communities, particularly in New England, where early Puritan
objections to Christmas celebrations remained highly
influential. Among some groups, Christmas was an especially
boisterous event, characterized by huge feasts, drunkenness,
and raucous public revelry. In an English tradition that survived
in some parts of North America, Christmas revelers would
dress in costume and progress from door to door to receive
gifts of food and drink. Most holiday gifts were limited to small
amounts of money and modest presents passed from the
wealthy to the poor and from masters to their servants.
Families almost never exchanged Christmas gifts among
themselves.
The rapidly expanding industrial economy of
the 19th century not only flooded the market
with new goods for sale, but also helped
establish a new middle class, one that placed
special value on home and family life.
Christmas gained increased prominence
largely because many people believed it could
draw families together and honor children.
Giving gifts to children and loved ones
eventually replaced the raucous public
celebrations of the past, and Christmas
became primarily a domestic holiday.
The new custom of Christmas gift giving
allowed the marketplace to exert an
unprecedented influence on holiday
celebrations. Commercial innovations such as
department stores and mass advertising
further expanded the custom of exchanging
Christmas gifts. Seasonal retail sales helped
fuel the economy, causing merchants and
advertisers to become some of the season’s
most ardent promoters. Many holiday
celebrants regretted these changes,
however, and began voicing the now common
lament that Christmas had become too
commercial.
Christmas also gained new importance among
urban residents. Cities became crowded with
immigrants, who introduced a wide variety of
religious and cultural practices to North
American life. Celebrating Christmas emerged as
a way for people from different parts of the
world to create a sense of community in the city.
The holiday forged a broad, nondenominational
sense of Christian spirit while promoting an
idealized sense of communal good will.
SANTA CLAUS
As Christmas evolved in the United States, new
customs were adopted and many old ones were
reworked. The legend of Santa Claus, for example,
had origins in Europe and was brought by Dutch
settlers to New York in the early 18th century.
Traditionally, Santa Claus—from the Dutch Sinter
Klaas—was depicted as a tall, dignified, religious
figure riding a white horse through the air. Known as
Saint Nicholas in Germany, he was usually
accompanied by Black Peter, an elf who punished
disobedient children. In North America he eventually
developed into a fat, jolly old gentleman who had
neither the religious attributes of Saint Nicholas nor
the strict disciplinarian character of Black Peter.
Santa’s transformation began in 1823, when a New York
newspaper published the poem ―A Visit from Saint Nicholas,‖
which Clement Clark Moore had
Written to amuse his daughter. The poem introduced many
Americans to the story of a kindly saint who flew over
housetops in a reindeer–drawn sleigh. Portraits and drawings of
Santa Claus by American illustrator Thomas Nast further
strengthened the legend during the second half of the 19th
century. Living at the North Pole and assisted by elves, the
modern Santa produced and delivered toys to all good children.
By the late 19th century he had become such a prominent figure
of American folklore that in 1897, when Virginia O’Hanlon wrote
to the New York Sun newspaper asking if Santa were real, she
received a direct answer: ―Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.‖
THE
CHRISTMAS
TREE