Christmas music, lights, and trees seemingly sprout up as soon as Thanksgiving is over and the winter weather starts to come in. Christmas is celebrated a bit differently around the world as the practice of the holiday is impacted by religion, culture, and family traditions.
Always falling on December 25th, the holiday is to commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ based in Christian faith and has grown to popular costumes of exchanging gifts, decorating the house, sharing meals, going to church, and waiting for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve.
Before getting into it, it’s important to recognize the context before Christmas, the Feast of Nativity that impacted its popularity.
The middle of winter for the longest time has been a reason to celebrate in Europe with the winter solstice, when the winter was now half way done, so the people would look forward to longer days and more sun.
Yule, which is the Norse holiday to celebrate winter solstice, was a reason to feast with a fire burning for days to celebrate the return of the sun. With the end of December being well timed for cattle to be slaughtered to save resources as well as most alcohol being done fermenting from the summer, it gave people reason to feast.
In Rome though, Saturnalia, to celebrate Saturn – the God of agriculture- was celebrated for a full month. It was celebrated in a time when resources were abundant and the normal roman social order was turned upside down. Around the same time, the Romans also observed Juvenalia, a feast honoring children, as well as the birthday of Mithra, the god of the unconquerable sun, which is December 25th.
Christmas, though originally from Christianity, wasn’t celebrated Early on. It wasn’t until the fourth century that the church decided to celebrate it.
Although the bible doesn’t point out a specific date of Jesus’ Birthday, Pope Julius chose December 25th to be the day, possibly in connection to absorbing the Saturnalia, pagan holiday, and winter solstice festivals.
It spread to Egypt by 432 and then England by the 6th century.
By the Middle ages, Christianity had mostly replaced pagan religion. It became popularly embraced, but wasn’t strictly dictated on how to be celebrated.
On Christmas, those who were religious attended Church and celebrated hard with drinking and feasts. It became a holiday where the upper class would repay the debt to society by helping the less fortunate as the poor would go to the houses and demand their food and drink.
To which if they failed to comply, visitors would be mischievous.
Christmas was celebrated too by bringing in winter foliage, like mistletoe, ivy, and holly to ward against evil spirits and bring fertility. Traditions of entertainment also emerged in medieval times with games, music, and the ‘king of the feast’ where one is selected to be a king, or Lord of Misrule, for the night.
When religious reform came in the early 17th century it changed the way Christmas was celebrated in Europe. Puritans took over England in 1645, cancelled Christmas and was later restored when Charls II came to the throne. The pilgrims which came to America didn’t celebrate Christmas, so early on it wasn’t even a holiday and rather in Boston up to 1681 Christmas was outlawed.
However in Jamestown, it was celebrated where eggnog was also invented. After the American Revolution and the push against English costumes, Christmas fell out of favor.
It made a Comeback though in the 19th century, where it was reinvented to being a family centered holiday. In the 19th century, a period of class conflict and tension, unemployment was high and in 1828 a gang riot occurred during the Christmas season. This became a catalyst for how the upper class celebrated the holiday.
The author Washington Irving wrote The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, a series about the celebration of Christmas, which featured peasants and a squire mingling effortlessly during the holiday. Irving felt Christmas should be a peaceful and warm hearted holiday that brings groups together.
Historians believe that this book was not based on anything Irving actually experienced but rather invented the cotsums described in the book.
Similarly the author Charles Dickens created the story ‘A Christmas Carol’ which displayed the importance of charity and good will, which struck a chord across England and the United States. Combined with the family in the 1800’s becoming more focused on kids, families were provided a day to celebrate Chirtsmas which brought attention and gifts for children.
Americans looked towards recent immigrants to see how the holiday should be celebrated and with the next century America built Christmas traditions of their own such as decorating trees, sending cards, and gift giving which filled the cultural needs of a growing nation.
So whether your family celebrates Christmas with gift giving, attending church, or giving to charity, the history of Christmas goes back centuries and has evolved greatly to what it is today.
