Winter Holidays

Christmas Tradition

By Anastasia SERBINENKO

History

The 25th of December is celebrated as the birth date of Jesus Christ. The Bible does not mention Christmas, and early Christians did not observe the birthday of Christ. Christmas as we know it became widely popular only in the 19th Century.

Christmas starts on December 25 and ends 12 days later on January 6 with the Feast of Epiphany also called “The Adoration of the Magi” or “The Manifestation of God.”

In Finland and Sweden an old tradition prevails, where the twelve days of Christmas are declared to be time of civil peace by law. It used to be that a person committing crimes during this time would be liable to stiffer sentence than normal.

The word “Christmas” means “Mass of Christ,” later shortened to “Christ-Mass.” The even shorter form “Xmas” – first used in Europe in the 1500s – is derived from the Greek alphabet, in which X is the first letter of Christ’s name: Xristos, therefore “X-Mass.”

Today we know that Christ was not born on the 25th of December. The date was chosen to coincide with the pagan Roman celebrations honoring Saturnus (the harvest god) and Mithras (the ancient god of light), a form of sun worship. These celebrations came on or just after the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, to announce that winter is not forever, that life continues, and an invitation to stay in good spirit.

There are many different traditions and theories as to why Christmas is celebrated on December 25th. A very early Christian tradition said that the day when Mary was told that she would have a very special baby, Jesus (called the Annunciation) was on March 25th - and it's still celebrated today on the 25th March. Nine months after the 25th March is the 25th December! March 25th was also the day some early Christians thought the world had been made, and also the day that Jesus died on when he was an adult.

 

Gifts were exchanged in the Roman ceremonies of Saturnalia, the festivities of solstice, the origin of our Christmas celebrations. We know the exchanging of gifts best from the three Magi mentioned in the Bible. But as mentioned in the History of Christmas, during the previous centuries Christmas was a solemn affair. Religious puritans reminded Christians that the Magi gave gifts only to Jesus, not to His family or to each other. But since the celebration of Christ’s birth was incorporated with the solstice festivities outside the official church, and since Christmas really became widely popular during the last century, it has become a commercial phenomenon.

Boxing Day - the Day after Christmas was started in the UK about 800 years ago, during the Middle Ages. It was the day when the alms box, collection boxes for the poor often kept in churches, were traditionally opened so that the contents could be distributed to poor people. Some churches still open these boxes on Boxing Day.

Some Symbols of Christmas

 

Trees were a symbol of life long before Christianity –

Ancient Egyptians brought green palm branches into their homes on the shortest day of the year in December as a symbol of life’s triumph over death.

Ancient Finns and Celts used sacred groves instead of temples.

Romans adorned their homes with evergreens during Saturnalia, a winter festival in honour of Saturnus, their god of agriculture.

Druid priests decorated oak trees with golden apples for their winter solstice festivities.

During December in the Middle Ages, trees were hung with red apples as a symbol of the feast of Adam and Eve, and called the Paradise Tree.

Trees were decorated with apples, cakes and candies for many centuries. Martin Luther was the first to use candles on trees in the late 16th Century. In 1842, Charles Minnegrode introduced the custom of decorating trees to the US in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Martin Luther (1483 – 1546) is said to be the first to have decorated a Christmas tree with candles to show children how the stars twinkled through the dark night.

In 1850s, German company Lauscha, based in Thuringia, began to produce shaped glass bead garlands for Christmas trees. They also introduced the Rauschgoldengel, the Tingled-angel’, dressed in pure gilded tin. The glass ornaments reached Britain in the 1870s, and North America around 1880.

In 1882, ornaments were complimented by electric Christmas lights. Edward Johnson, a colleague of Thomas Edison, lit a Christmas tree with a string of 80 small electric light bulbs which he had made himself. By 1890, the Christmas light strings were mass-produced. By 1900, stores put up large illuminated trees to lure the customers.

 

A Kiss Beneath the Mistletoe

In the forest, mistletoe is a bit of a scourge, a parasitic plant that latches on to trees and feeds off of them. But at Christmas, it becomes a symbol of romance. So where did the tradition of kissing beneath the mistletoe come from? The plant’s association with romance dates back to ancient Norse mythology. By the 18th century, stealing a kiss beneath the mistletoe became a common practice among British servants and the tradition spread from there. According to the tradition, it’s bad luck to refuse a kiss beneath the mistletoe. After the kiss, the couple is to pluck one of the berries from the plant. Once all the berries are gone, the bough no longer has the power to command kisses. So if you hang a bough of mistletoe this year, make sure it has plenty of berries on it.

Christmas Colors

GREEN – color of evergreen plants and luck.

RED – apples, Holly berries, Bishops’ robes.

GOLDEN - Sun and light.

WHITE – peace and quiet, snow.

All these colors associate with Christmas candles, candies, food and gifts.

Caroling

The Apostles sang songs of praise, many based on the Psalms. As founders of the churches, their enthusiasm inspired their new congregations into song. But unfortunately they did not leave us any copies of the musical scores.

Perhaps the best known Christmas carol is Silent Night, written in 1818 by an Austrian assistant priest Joseph Mohr. He was told the day before Christmas that the church

organ was broken and would not be repaired in time for Christmas Day. Saddened, he sat down to write three stanzas that could be sung by choir to guitar music. “Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht” was heard for the first time at that Midnight Mass in St. Nicholas Church in Oberndorf, Austria. The congregation listened as the voices of the Fr. Joseph Mohr and the choir director, Franz Xaver Gruber, rang through the church to the accompaniment of Fr. Mohr’s guitar. Today, Silent Night, Holy Night is sung in more than 180 languages by millions of people. 

Gingerbread

Ginger isn’t native to Europe, and it wasn’t until the era of the Crusades that

traders began to bring the spice back from the Middle East. As the spice trade picked up in Europe, gingerbread cookies became much more common. In the 16th century, we see the first appearance of gingerbread men — a practice credited to Queen Elizabeth I who wanted to impress some visiting dignitaries, so she created a cookie in the image of each person. The Brothers Grimm can probably take credit for the invention of the gingerbread house. The tale of Hansel and Gretel, first published in the early 1800s, is likely the first reference to these edible structures, and German bakers soon followed with their own versions. German immigrants to the U.S. brought the tradition with them, and many Americans have been practicing increasingly complex and record breaking feats of confectionary engineering ever since.
 

Santa, Elves and Reindeer

The figure of Father Christmas (Santa Claus or Sinterklaas) is based on Saint Nicholas (270 – 310), the bishop of Myra who, clad in red and white bishop’s robes and riding on a donkey, bestowed gifts on children. Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of children. During the Middle Ages, many churches were built in his honor throughout Europe. The anniversary of his death, 6 December, became the day to give gifts, especially to children.

The first Christmas card, which went on sale in 1843, did not feature an image of Santa.

In 1860, illustrator Thomas Nast introduced Santa Claus in the fashion we now know him today, a happy, burly, white-bearded fellow in a bright red suit.

At one stage it was thought that Father Christmas (Santa Claus) lives in the North Pole. In 1925 it was discovered that there are no reindeer in the North Pole. But there are lots in Lapland, Finland. So today we know that the reindeer live around the secret village of Father Christmas and the elves somewhere on the Korvatunturi Mountain in the Savukoski county of Lapland, Finland, which is on the Finnish-Russian border.

Long ago, Father Christmas and the elves discovered the special formula of Magical Reindeer Dust which makes them fly. This dust is sprinkled on each of the reindeer shortly before they leave on Christmas Eve. It gives them enough magic to fly right around the world. They can fly very fast: at about the speed of a Christmas light. 

Rudolph is the most famous reindeer. He, with his gleaming red bulb of a nose, is the leader of the other 8, whose names are Blitzen, Comet, Cupid, Dancer, Dasher, Donner (also Donder), Prancer, and Vixen.

 

The names of the 8 reindeer were published by Clement Clark Moore, an American poet and professor of theology, in his 1822 poem “A Visit From St. Nicholas.” Rudolph was first written about only in 1939 by Robert May, who included him in a story for the Montgomery Ward Christmas catalog. (Of course, the elves knew their names long, long before Moore and May did.)

In the pagan times of Scandinavia, people believed that house gnomes guarded their homes against evil. Although these gnomes mostly were benevolent, they quickly could turn nasty when not properly treated, so it is told. Throughout the centuries, they were either loved or loathed. Some people even believed them to be trolls and cannibals. The perception of gnomes largely depended on whether a person was naughty, or nice.

When Christmas became popular again as a festive season in the middle-1800s, Scandinavian writers such as Thile, Toplius, Rydberg sketched the gnomes’ true role in modern life: fairies that are somewhat mischievous, but the true friends and helpers of Father Christmas (Santa Claus). They are the Christmas elves. Artists such as Hansen and Nystrm completed the picture of elves for us.

 

At one stage it was thought that the elves live in Father Christmas‘ (Santa’s) village in North Pole. However, in 1925 it was discovered that there are no reindeer in the North Pole but there are lots in Lapland, Finland. Nobody has actually seen their village because the passage to it is a secret that is known only to Father Christmas and the elves. We know that it is somewhere on the Korvatunturi mountain in the Savukoski county of Lapland, Finland, which is on the Finnish-Russian border.

On January 6 the elves light up their torches and come down from their secret village in the mountain to play in a secret field to celebrate the last day of Christmas.

Very Merry Christmas!