‘It is the most wonderful time of the year’... but since when do we celebrate Christmas?
According to the History Channel’s documentary The real story of Christmas[1], Christmas traditions go back hundreds of years.
In the Biblical times, Christmas was the birth of Jesus, the son of God. However, centuries before that, the North European Cultures celebrated ‘the Light and Birth in the darkest days of winter’ every December. In Rome, festivals to honour Saturnalia which was a festival of food and celebrations addressing a kind of disorder in the universe was taking place in December whereas the upper classes celebrated the birth of the god Mithra (the most important god of Rome) at the same time.
Christianity eventually adopted all those traditions. At first the birth of Christ was not celebrated since the resurrection was more important, however, in the 4th century things changed. The bible doesn’t define when Christ was born but in the 4th century the church made it official as December 25th, connecting it to the celebration of the Roman god Mithra.
Today, Christmas is widely celebrated, but in 4th century England, it was not considered to be a Christian celebration! Their traditions included people crowning a ‘Lord of Misrule’ and behaving in inappropriate ways until the religious Reform in the 17th century. People were expected to follow rules and not to celebrate in such ways. Shops were forced to stay open and churches to remain closed but people never stopped celebrating. All those celebrations eventually went underground and the only way to convince people to restore the Monarchy and accept Charles II as the King, was under the condition to get their Christmas celebrations back.
‘It seems the English could live without a king but not without Christmas!’
Similar thoughts on Christmas were also evident in America. In 1620, America did not celebrate Christmas and whoever did so, was fined. Eventually the independence, allowed people to celebrate and America was the nation that reinvented Christmas for the rest of the world as well. The class conflict during Industrialism was the result of several writers writing novels about the meaning of Christmas. Charles Dicken’s novel A Christmas carol also addresses the problems that society faced during Christmas supporting that upper, middle, and lower classes are all equal. Eventually society was ready to accept the Christmas celebrations and buying presents for children became a joy for all.
The Christmas tree:
Traditions such as the Christmas tree became widely known during the Victorian times. This was originally a tradition in Germany and became widely known when Prince Albert brought his German influences in the palaces of England.
Santa Claus:
Santa Claus on the other hand was created in America. The original idea came from St. Nicholas, a Greek Orthodox saint that helped the poor and gave presents to children. At first it wasn’t clear what Santa Claus looked like until 1863 when Thomas Nast, a cartoonist, drew his version of Santa Claus which success remains until today.
Even though all those traditions hide some magic during this time of the year, the real magic of Christmas does lies within us. Being able to give to our loved ones as well as the ones in need not only helps in keeping the religion in place but remind each and every one of us that there is good in the world. If we can be kind to one another during Christmas that means, we can be kind to one another every day for the rest of year!
Have a very Merry Christmas!
©2016
[1] Smith, Harry, The real story of Christmas, History Channel, Youtube, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyqAmfKCPX0>
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