Traditions of Christmas – Part One

For millions, Christmas is a time of treasured traditions, decorating the tree, sending cards, giving gifts, singing carols, and anxiously awaiting the arrival of Santa Claus.  Christmastime is family time and it is centered on children.  But how did these traditions come to be?

 In the weekly messages for December we will be going over various Christmas traditions and their origins.  (Warning: This is not an attempt to create any doctrine or say that any traditions are or are not right. It is not an attempt to make anyone feel justified or guilty in what traditions they keep.)   In this way we can bring knowledge and understanding to each of us.  We each can know the history of various customs so that we may determine and choose which customs we wish to honor, keep and teach in the future.  I personally have lived most of my life piously not keeping Christmas and have only recently in the last ten years or so have I embraced the holiday and its customs.

The first tradition we should talk about is the choice of the day itself.  How is it that we started celebrating December 25^th?

How -- when did Christmas originate?  

Was Jesus born on December 25th?

Did the original apostles celebrate Jesus’ birthday?

If Christmas is a Christian custom then why do many non-Christians celebrate it?

Going first to the dictionaries and Encyclopedias

Be sure to check what other sources you have as well. I’ll quote a few I have found.  Here’s the description I found on Wikipedia:

Christmas or Christmas Day is a holiday observed generally on December 25 to commemorate the birth of Jesus, the central figure of Christianity. The date is not known to be the actual birthday of Jesus, and may have initially been chosen to correspond with either the day exactly nine months after some early Christians believed Jesus had been conceived, the date of the winter solstice on the ancient Roman calendar, or one of various ancient winter festivals. Christmas is central to the Christmas and holiday season, and in Christianity marks the beginning of the larger season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days.

Although nominally a Christian holiday, Christmas is also widely celebrated by many non-Christians, and many of its popular celebratory customs have pre-Christian or secular themes and origins. Popular modern customs of the holiday include gift-giving, music, an exchange of greeting cards, church celebrations, a special meal, and the display of various decorations; including Christmas trees, lights, garlands, mistletoe, nativity scenes, and holly.

(There is much evidence that Christ’s birthday actually occurred in the springtime during the time of year when the Roman Census was taken, also near a feast time for the Jews of the day, and a time when the flocks would be out in the field.  The Jews would bring their flocks in during the colder months.  No sheep would be out in the fields during December.)

The word "Christmas" means "Mass of Christ," or, as it came to be shortened, "Christ-Mass." The word came to non-Christians and Protestants from the early Roman Catholic Church.  The celebration gravitated into the Roman Church custom apparently from paganism in the fourth century AD.

Let’s take a look at the Catholic Encyclopedia (I’m using the 1911 edition but here is an online link: http://oce.catholic.com/index.php?title=Christmas.)  Under the heading "Christmas," here’s what we find:

"Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the Church ... the

first evidence of the feast is from Egypt." "Pagan customs centering

around the January calends gravitated to Christmas."

And in the same Catholic encyclopedia, under the heading "Natal Day," we find

that the early Catholic father, Origen, acknowledged this truth:

"... In the Scriptures, no one is recorded to have kept a feast or held a great banquet on his birthday."

Encyclopedia Britannica, 1946 edition, has this:

"Christmas (i.e., the Massof Christ) .... Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the church ...."

The Encyclopedia Americana,1944 edition, says:

 "Christmas .... It was, according to many authorities,not celebrated in the first centuries of the Christian church, as the Christian usage in general was to celebrate the death ofremarkablepersons rather than their birth ...." (The "Communion," which isinstituted by New Testament Bible authority, is a memorial of the deathof Christ.) "... A feast was established in memory of this event [Christ's birth] in the fourth century. In the fifth century the Western Church ordered it to be celebrated forever on the day of the old Roman feast ofthe birth of Sol, as no certain knowledge of the day of Christ's birth existed."

These recognized historical authorities show Christmas was not observed by Christians for the first three hundred years -- a period longer than the history of the United States as a nation! Christmas came into the Western,or Roman Church, by the fourth century A.D. and in the fifthcentury A.D. the Roman Church ordered it to be celebrated as an officialChristian festival.

From the beginning of civilization agrarian societies celebrated the time of the winter solstice.  It really didn’t matter what calendar was in use at the time.  It really didn’t matter what gods they believed in.  (Some worshipped Mithra, the sun god, others Saturn, the god of harvest.)  The people were very aware of the shortening amount of sunlight or daylight, when the days became the shortest and when they started to grow again.  They relied on the sun for their crops and general welfare.  As for agriculture this was the time of year when most of the work was done.  Livestock which had been fattened in the fields during the summer months could not be fed through the winter and were slaughtered.  In early days of civilization the fresh meat had to be eaten quickly before it spoiled.  There was plenty of other food from the harvests and newly brewed drink.  To them it was a time when one year was ending and the return of the sun provided the promise that planting would soon begin again and that life would go on, the beginning of a new year.  What better time to celebrate?  The festivities were marked by civilized good will as well as by barbaric hedonism, and it was into this world that the Christian faith was born.

As the early Catholic Church struggled to become established, its leaders understood the powerful hold the midwinter festival had on pagan worshippers.  December 25^th was celebrated by many in honor of the Hindu sun god Mithra or the Roman sun god Sol Invictus or the Greek sun god Helios.  Interestingly the beliefs of Mithraism included monotheism, baptism, a doctrine of an Intercessor and Redeemer, a future life, and judgment to come.  It is not surprising that in the middle of the fourth century, the early Catholic Church decreed that henceforth the 25^th of December would be recognized as the Day of Christ’s Nativity.  The church hoped to draw the pagans from worship of the sun god to worship of the Son of God.  Many sun-god believers were won over.  They were willing to become Christians but they weren’t willing to give up all the customs of their midwinter festival.  Even today Christmas has a somewhat split personality: religious and secular, sacred and profane, pious and pagan.

From the Middle Ages until the Reformation, the royal courts of Europe set the Christmas pace.  Long church services, with ponderous mind numbing sermons, were offset with elaborate festivities with huge consumption of food and drink. Lords of Misrule were elected to preside over the festivities (harking back to the pagan custom of role reversal.)

Jock Elliott in his book Inventing Christmas How Our Holiday Came To Be says:

“By the time of the reformation, the vulgar, pagan celebrations of Christmas had so over shadowed the religious that the reformers finally put their foot down.  The argued there was no biblical or historical reason to place the birth of Jesus on December 25; if God had wanted the anniversary of the Nativity to be observed, He would have at least given a clue as to when the event took place.  They argued that the excessive festivities of the holiday not only had nothing to do with true Christian tradition, they actually violated it.”

Here in the New World, under Puritan government in 1659, it was made illegal to celebrate Christmas.  The Puritans had decided that since they couldn’t Christianize Christmas, they would abolish it all together. Christmas was actually stricken from their calendars.  That law was revoked in 1681 but Christmas was slow to recover.  As late as the end of the eighteenth century, when the New World became the Untied States of America, there was little resemblance to the Christmas we know today.  There was no family togetherness, no gift giving or shopping even for children, no Christmas trees, no Christmas cards, and no Santa Claus.

At the turn of the nineteenth century the social order in the United States was in an upheaval.  Cities were growing but so was the unemployment rate and gangs of angry hoodlums.  There was racial strife and widespread violence and many workers laid off during the holidays.  This is not unlike the troubled times we live in right now. Something had to change or was all this simply the signal of the change that was about to happen?  A new kind of Christmas was coming forth.

It was into this setting in America that Santa Claus was invented.  Some of our leading men, New Yorkers all, like Washington Irving, John Pintard, and Clement Clarke Moore introduced St. Nicholas to America.  St. Nicholas was a real man.  He was born about A.D. 280 in the little city of Patara, in the country now known as Turkey. Nicolaos (as he was christened) was the son of  relatively well-to-do Greek speaking followers of Christ only a few generations away from knowing Christ themselves. In his religious upbringing, and even before he became a priest, Nicolaos demonstrated the unusual caring for others that was to typify his life.  There are many stories about St. Nicholas, the miracles he performed, the good and caring things he did.

Washington Irving wrote Diedrich Knickerbocker’s History of New York, a tongue in cheek satire of contemporary life in which he referred to St. Nicholas as the patron saint of the city and added some new inventions about the person of St. Nicholas.  John Pintard, a prosperous merchant and leading citizen of New York founded the New York Historical Society and helped establish public holidays such as Columbus Day, Washington’s Birthday, the Fourth of July and Christmas.  Pintard cared deeply about the plight of the poor and the unrest and violence going on.  He thought that a resurrection of old-time customs where the rich and the poor celebrated together in harmony might be the answer.  Trouble was no traditions or old time customs really existed.  Like Washington Irving he simply invented some “customs”.

Shortly after Clement Clarke Moore was credited with writing the poem which has come to be known  as:  “The Night Before Christmas”.   Where most celebrations of Christmas up until this day had been held outside the home, this story takes place in the home. Interesting how the words of Irving, Pintard and Moore blended together so well to tell the story of “Santa Clause” and Christmas became the family affair we know of today.    Thomas Nast, a young German immigrant and illustrator for Harper’s Weekly,  was just as responsible for the invention of Santa Claus as he provided a Christmas illustration of Santa every year from 1863 to 1886.  Just like that new traditions were born.  Christmas didn’t really celebrate the birth of Christ though many Christians like to think so.  Nor did it follow the customs of worshiping gods or even the agrarian societies.  The new traditions and the invention of Santa Claus have improved over time to what we know today.

What are the true teachings of Christ?

God set the sun, the moon and the stars.  It is an actual physical observation that the days get shorter and then longer.  Agriculture is dependent on that cycle.  It is permissible to celebrate.  It doesn’t mean believing in other gods.  It is enough to believe in the one and be thankful.  It is a celebration of our years and our life as well.

There is enough evidence showing us that Christ was not born anywhere near December 25^th.  There is more evidence pointing toward Christ being born in the spring.  I am hard pressed to celebrating Christmas as the birth date of Christ.  I have known Christians though who think about every aspect of Christmas and attribute it to Christ.  My mother-in-law was that way.  Everything about Christmas was so very special to her and she had a Christian reason for everything.  She was a big family person as well and loved her children so.

Santa Claus is a good story.  We should be truthful with our children.  While we may ‘play’ Santa we must also be truthful with our children about Santa.  In no way should Santa be compared to Christ.  One is real.  One is a myth or story.  “The Night before Christmas” is a really nice story to tell our children but let us also teach our children to be good Santa’s by being thoughtful and giving ourselves.

I invite each and every one of you to talk about your own Christmas traditions on the Yahoo groups or in the General Auditorium in the Church Forums.  Let each of us think about the things we do and the things we want to do at Christmas time.

Next week I hope to talk more about gift giving, greeting cards, and the Christmas tree.  Until then, may God bless each and every one of us.

Blessings, Reverend Sharra