ORIGIN OF CHRISTMAS Pt. 1

The origin of Christmas and the many traditions associated with it are murky at best. No one knows when Christmas was first celebrated/acknowledged. Much of this has to do with the fact that early Christians (prior to 300 A.D.), never thought much about celebrating the birth of Christ. The only holiday (holy day) they recognized was Easter – Jesus’ death and resurrection. Overtime there was gathering interest among early Christian leaders to discover when exactly Jesus was born. Call it a curiosity factor. The problem was the Scriptures offered little to no guidance on what time of year Jesus was born. Efforts were made by Christian leaders to pin down a date. One early Church calendar gave March 28 as the date of Jesus’ birth. But nothing ever stuck until around the mid-300’s AD. In an early Church writing, a reference is made to the Feast of the Nativity (a precursor to Christmas) celebrated on December 25. By the Middle Ages (1050 AD), the Feast of the Nativity became known as Christ’s Mass, or Christmas.

Why December 25? This time of year was greatly venerated/held in high regard throughout pre-Christian Europe from highly civilized Rome, Italy, north to barbarian/uneducated Germany. It was the time of the winter solstice. In the days leading up to the solstice, the days grey shorter. In the minds of Europeans, darkness was conquering the light. After the winter solstice, the days grew longer. Light overcame the darkness. The light proved to be unconquerable. The peoples of Europe held festivals to celebrate the victor of light over darkness. In Rome, the festival was called Saturnalia after the god Saturn (agricultural god). This festival lasted for seven days and included the winter solstice, which usually occurred around December 25. During Saturnalia the Romans feasted, postponed all business and warfare, exchanged gifts, and temporarily freed their slaves. For a short period of time, there was a reversal of roles – the slave became the master and the master the slave. The festival was marked by gluttony, drinking, and carousing. It was more Mardi Gras than Christmas. In northern Europe, the Germanic peoples also celebrated the winter solstice. They held great feasts and drank a lot of alcohol in honor of their gods. It was a time of great joy and merrymaking in the midst of the harshness of winter.

As Christianity spread across Europe, people continued to celebrate the winter solstice even after they became Christians. The festivals with their feasting and drinking and all the negatives that came with them continued. The Church had a difficult time outlawing the pagan festivals surrounding the winter solstice. They were far too popular and too engrained among the people (rich and poor, royals and peasants.) To ban the winter solstice celebrations outright would have been very bad public relations for the Church. Therefore, rather than ban the celebration of light over darkness the Church Christianized it. How? By declaring, sometime in the mid-300’s A.D., December 25 to be the date when Light conquered Darkness through the birth of Jesus birth. Scriptural justification – Book of John chapter 1. Before Jesus’ birth Darkness ruled the world. With His birth, Light came into the world and conquered the Darkness. Thereafter, the people could continue to celebrate and make merry during the winter solstice but they did so to celebrate the birth of Jesus rather than to honor pagan gods (Saturn, Odin, etc.) and hopefully, from the Church’s perspective, in a more restrained manner.
In the process, the Church Christianized many of the traditions associated with the pagan celebrations of the winter solstice.

1) Evergreens (trees, holly, mistletoe) – venerated by Romans and the Germanic peoples of northern Europe. Some, such as the Druids, worshipped the evergreen. The evergreen did not die with the onset of winter. It continued to live and remain green despite the harshness of the conditions. It was thought to have magical properties. The Romans hung holly wreaths on their doors as symbols of victory and peace. They exchange holly as gifts. The Germanic people would bring evergreens into their home for good luck and to ward off evil spirits. How evergreens were Christianized – a) Holly – Christians associated holly wreaths with the Jesus’ crown of thorns. The red berries similar to drops of blood. b) The Christmas tree – Decorated evergreen trees were a common part of the winter solstice celebration in the Germanic lands. Following the Germans’ conversion to Christianity, they decorated the evergreen with apples to symbolize the Garden of Eden.

2) Exchanging of gifts - inspired by a) God giving humanity Jesus, His only Son (John 3:16) b) the three wise men who gave gifts to Jesus.

3) Feasts – to celebrate birth of Jesus

Essentially, Christmas was created by the Church in order to give Christian meaning to existing pagan rituals. They were not stolen as much as they were modified so that Christianity would be more accepted by pagans and to encourage Christians to celebrate the winter solstice with more self-control. Unfortunately, the former (converting pagans) proved to be more successful than the latter. Up until the 1800’s, Christmas was celebrated more like Mardi Gras than a sacred day with gluttony, drunkenness, pranks, and carousing. Christmas had a schizophrenic nature – part pious/part revelry; part religious/part raucous; part Christian/part pagan.

Consequently, many European Christians had a very negative opinion of Christmas. Example - After the Puritans (an extreme conservative Christian group) took power in England around 1650, the first thing they did was to ban Christmas. This was not popular among the people and was a major reason why the Puritans lost power. This same religious group were founders of our country and they brought their detest for Christmas with them. Many Protestant churches in the U.S. (Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian) did not offer Christmas services. They ignored Christmas. The Protestant Churches did not regard Christmas as a sacred day. Christmas did not become a popular holiday in the United States until the mid-nineteenth century. Christmas did not become a federal holiday until 1870.