History of Christmas
Commercial activities during Christmas today are
often decried as making the season too
materialistic. This has caused comments that the
religious aspect of Christmas is so overlooked and
overshadowed that its celebration seems to be purely
pagan. But today's comparisons aren't the first
there has been some link between Christmas and pagan
celebrations. As a religious, church leaders
instituted Christmas during winter because that time
of year was a popular for the celebrations of many
pagan festivals. The hope was that Christmas would
also
become a holiday that would gain much popularity.
Long before the birth of Jesus Christ, people in
various parts of Europe would celebrate light and
birth in the darkest days of winter. The winter
solstice, when the harshest part of winter was over,
was a time of celebration for many peoples because
they would look forward to more hours of sunlight
during the longer days ahead.
The Norse in Scandinavia celebrated Yule from the
winter solstice on
December 21 through to January. Men brought home
logs that were lighted and a feast would take place
until the log was completely burned. Each spark from
the fire was believed to represent a new pig or calf
to be born in the coming new year.
The pagan god Oden was honored by Germans during the
mid-winter holiday. Oden inspired great fear in the
Germans who believed that Oden traveled at nights
through the sky to observe people and make a
decision about who would perish or prosper in life.
This belief caused most people to stay inside during
the period.
In Rome it was the god of agriculture, Saturn, who
was honored in a
holiday called Saturnalia. It was a holiday that
started during the week that led up to the winter
solstice and continued for a month with hedonistic
celebrations. There was plenty of food and drink and
the normal social class rules of who had privilege
and power in Roman society were totally disregarded
as everyone participated in the festivities. Some
Romans also had a feast called Juvenalia to honor
children and the birthday of the sun god Mithra was
sometimes
celebrated by the upper classes.
In the early years of the start of Christianity the
main holiday was
Easter. It was in the 4th Century that church
officials made a decision to have the birth of Jesus
celebrated as a holiday and Pope Julius I chose
December 25 as the day of Jesus' birth. The holiday,
which was first called the Feast of the Nativity,
spread to England by the end of the 6th Century and
to Scandinavia by the end of the 8th Century.
Church leaders achieved the goal of having Christmas
celebrations, including attendance at church, become
popular during the winter solstice, but they were
unable to control other pagan-like celebrations
during Christmas. Believers would attend church on
Christmas and then participate later in raucous and
drunken celebrations. But by the Middle Ages, from
around the 5th to the 16th Century, Christianity had
outgrown paganism as a religion.
The celebration of Christmas in Europe changed in
the early 17th Century when Oliver Cromwell and the
Puritans gained power in England in 1645. To remove
decadent behavior from the society, Cromwell
cancelled Christmas as the Puritans noted that the
Bible doesn't mention any date for Jesus' birth. The
lack of this information and specific Biblical
references to Christmas is also cited by
religious groups like Jehovah Witnesses as the
reason they don't observe or participate in
Christmas. Christmas celebrations returned in
England around 1649 when Charles II was restored to
the throne.
Christmas wasn't a holiday in early America because
the Pilgrims who came to America had even stricter
beliefs than Cromwell and the Puritans. Christmas
celebrations were even forbidden in Boston from 1659
to 1681. During the same time however, settlers in
Jamestown in Virginia were reported to have enjoyed
Christmas.
After the American Revolution Christmas again lost
popularity and it wasn't until June 26, 1870 that
Christmas was declared a federal holiday. Christmas
in the United States gained popularity as a holiday
period during the 19th Century.
Christmas celebrations also changed at that time to
be more family-centered rather than being
carnival-like.