HISTORICAL ORIGIN OF CHRISTMAS THAT WILL SHOCK YOU
The origins of Christmas stem from both the pagan and Roman cultures. The Romans actually celebrated two holidays in the month of December. The first was Saturnalia, which was a two-week festival honoring their god of agriculture Saturn. On December 25th, they celebrated the birth of Mithra, their sun god. Both celebrations were raucous, drunken parties.
The precise origin of assigning December 25 as the birth date of Jesus is unclear. The New Testament provides no clues in this regard. December 25 was first identified as the date of Jesus’ birth by Sextus Julius Africanus in 221 and later became the universally accepted date. One widespread explanation of the origin of this date is that December 25 was the Christianizing of the "dies solis invicti nati" (“day of the birth of the unconquered sun”), a popular holiday in the Roman Empire that celebrated the winter solstice as a symbol of the resurgence of the sun, the casting away of winter and the heralding of the rebirth of spring and summer.
Also in December, in which the darkest day of the year falls, the pagan cultures lit bonfires and candles to keep the darkness at bay. The Romans also incorporated this tradition into their own celebrations.
As Christianity spread across Europe, the Christian clergy were not able to curb the pagan customs and celebrations. Since no one knew Jesus’s date of birth, they adapted the pagan ritual into a celebration of His birthday.
CHRISTMAS TREES
As part of the solstice celebrations, the pagan cultures decorated their homes with greens in anticipation of the spring to come. Evergreen trees remained green during the coldest and darkest days, so they were thought to hold special powers. The Romans also decorated their temples with fir trees during Saturnalia and decorated them with bits of metal. There are even records of the Greeks decorating trees in honor of their gods. Interestingly, the first trees brought into the pagan homes were hung from the ceiling, upside down.
The tree tradition we are accustomed to today hails from Northern Europe, where Germanic pagan tribes decorated evergreen trees in worship of the god Woden with candles and dried fruit. The tradition was incorporated into the Christian faith in Germany during the 1500’s. They decorated trees in their homes with sweets, lights, and toys.
SANTA CLAUS
Inspired by St. Nicholas, this Christmas tradition has Christian roots, rather than pagan ones. Born in southern Turkey around 280, he was a bishop in the early Christian church and suffered persecution and imprisonment for his faith. Coming from a wealthy family, he was renowned for his generosity towards the poor and disenfranchised. The legends surrounding him abound, but the most famous is how he saved three daughters from being sold into slavery. There was no dowry to entice a man to marry them, so it was their father’s last resort. St. Nicholas is said to have tossed gold through an open window into the home, thus saving them from their fate. Legend has it that the gold landed in a sock drying by the fire, so children started hanging stockings by their fires in hopes St. Nicholas would toss gifts into them.
In honor of his passing, December 6th was declared St. Nicholas day. As time went on, each European culture adapted versions of St. Nicholas. In Swiss and German cultures, Christkind or Kris Kringle (Christ child) accompanied St. Nicholas to deliver presents to well-behaved children. Jultomten was a happy elf delivering gifts via a sleigh drawn by goats in Sweden. Then there was Father Christmas in England and Pere Noel in France. In the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Lorraine, France, and parts of Germany, he was known as Sinter Klaas. (Klaas, for the record, is a shortened version of the name Nicholas). This is where the Americanized Santa Claus comes from.
The origins of Christmas stretch back thousands of years to prehistoric celebrations around the midwinter solstice. And many of the traditions we cherish today have been shaped by centuries of changing beliefs, politics, technology, taste and commerce.
The Romans celebrated midwinter with at least five days of feasting and partying called the Saturnalia, which began on 17 December. Honouring Saturn, chief of the Roman gods, it was a time when all the usual rules about rank and etiquette were overturned. Slaves were served at meals by their masters, and everyone wore a pileus, the conical 'cap of liberty' presented to slaves when they were freed. Gambling with dice, usually forbidden, was allowed, and instead of white togas or dresses everyone wore bright party clothes. Public feasts were followed by celebrations at home, and people exchanged small gifts, especially sigillaria (little figures made of wax or pottery), or jokily satirical presents, songs or poems. Slaves could even criticise their masters, and (just this once in the year) got time off.
Medieval people really let rip with twelve full days of Christmas festivities, reaching a crescendo on 6 January, 'Twelfth Night', when presents were exchanged. These celebrations commemorated Christ's birth and the name Christmas (Christ's Mass) is first recorded in England in 1038. Medieval celebrations also combined the servants-as-masters antics and gift-giving of Roman Saturnalia with customs belonging to the midwinter feast of Yule. These included the Yule Log (kept burning throughout the season), decorating houses with evergreens and eating richly decorated boar's heads, sometimes washed down with mulled 'braggot', extra-strong ale with honey and cinnamon, spiked with brandy.