Christmas
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Christmas (literally, the Mass of Christ) is a traditional holiday in the Christian calendar which takes place on the twenty-fifth day of December and celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ. According to the Christian gospels, Jesus was born to the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem, where Mary and her husband Joseph had travelled to register in the Roman census. His birth was said by his followers to fulfill the' prophecies of Judaism that a messiah would come, from the house of David. Christmas is also a secular holiday throughout much of the world, including countries with small Christian populations, such as Japan. The precise date of the birth and historicity of Jesus are much debated (see Jesus).
"Christmas" is often abbreviated to Xmas, possibly because the letter X resembles the Greek letter Χ (Chi), which is the first letter of Christ's name as spelled in Greek.
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Dates of celebration
Efforts to fix a date for the birth of Christ began some two centuries after his death, as the Catholic Church established its traditions. Christmas is now celebrated on December 25 in all Catholic and Catholic-derived churches (Eastern Rite, Roman & Protestant). Since most Eastern Orthodox churches have not accepted either the reforms of the Gregorian calendar or the Revised Julian calendar, the Ecclesiastic December 25 will fall on the civil date of January 7 for the years from 1900 to 2099. The Armenian Church celebrates Epiphany, but not Christmas.
Dates for the more secular aspects of the Christmas celebration are similarly varied. In the United Kingdom the Christmas season traditionally runs for twelve days following Christmas Day. These twelve days of Christmas, a period of feasting and merrymaking, end on Twelfth Night, the Feast of the Epiphany. This period corresponds with the liturgical season of Christmas.
In practice, the Christmas period has grown longer in some countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, and now begins many weeks before Christmas, allowing more time for shopping and get-togethers. It extends beyond Christmas Day up to New Year's Day. This later holiday has its own parties, and in Scotland, Hogmanay —which occurs at the New Year— is celebrated more than Christmas.
Countries that celebrate Christmas on December 25th recognize the previous day as Christmas Eve, and some of them follow Christmas day with Boxing Day. In the Netherlands, Germany, Scandinavia and Poland, Christmas Day and Boxing Day are called First and Second Christmas Day.
Customs and celebrations
An enormous number of customs, with either secular, religious, or national aspects, surround Christmas, and vary from country to country. Most of the familiar traditional practices and symbols of Christmas, such as the Christmas tree, the Christmas ham, the Yule Log, holly, mistletoe, and the giving of presents, were appropriated by Christian missionaries from the earlier Asatru pagan midwinter holiday of Yule, the celebration of the Winter solstice. Yule was widespread and popular in northern Europe long before the arrival of Christianity.
Rather than attempting to suppress such popular pagan feast days, Pope Gregory I allowed Christian missionaries to give them a Christian reinterpretation, while permitting most of the associated customs to continue with little or no modification.1 A few Christian churches, notably the Jehovah's Witnesses, some Puritan groups, and some ultra-conservative fundamentalist denominations, thus view Christmas as a pagan holiday not sanctioned by the Bible, and do not celebrate it.
Secular customs
Since the customs of Christmas celebration largely evolved in Northern Europe, many are associated with the Northern Hemisphere winter, whose motifs are prominent in Christmas decorations and in the Santa Claus myth.
Santa Claus and associated bringers of gifts
The concept of a mythical figure who brings gifts to children derived from Saint Nicholas, a good hearted bishop of 4th century Asia Minor. The Dutch modeled a gift-giving Saint Nicholas around his feast day of December 6. In North America, English colonists adopted aspects of this celebration into their Christmas holiday, and Sinterklaas became Santa Claus, or Saint Nick. In the Anglo-American tradition, this jovial fellow arrives on Christmas Eve on a sleigh pulled by reindeer, climbs down the chimney, leaves gifts for the children, and eats the food they leave for him. He spends the rest of the year making toys, and keeping lists on the behavior of the children. In some cultures Santa Claus is accompanied by Knecht Ruprecht, or Black Peter. In some versions elves in a toy workship make the holiday toys, and in some he is married to Mrs. Claus. Many shopping malls in North America and the United Kingdom have a holiday mall Santa Claus whom children can visit to ask for presents.
In many countries, Saint Nicholas Day remains a day for gift giving. In much of Germany, children put shoes out on window-sills on the night of December 5 and find them filled with candy and small gifts the next morning. In such places, also including the Netherlands, Christmas remains more a religious holiday.
Gift-giving and cards
Gift-giving is a near-universal part of Christmas celebrations. In many countries, children leave empty containers on Christmas Eve for Santa to fill with small gifts such as toys, candy, or fruit. In the United States, children hang a Christmas stocking by the fireplace, because Santa is said to come down the chimney the night before Christmas to fill them. In other countries, children place their empty shoes out for Santa's visit. The gift giving is not restricted to Santa, as family members and friends also bestow gifts to eachother.
One of the many customs of gift timing is suggested by the song Twelve Days of Christmas, celebrating an old tradition of gifts each day from Christmas to Epiphany. In most of the world, Christmas gifts are given at night on Christmas Eve (24 December) or in the morning on Christmas Day. For those countries who recognize Saint Nicholas as the bearer of gifts, presents are given on 5 December or 6 December. In Spain, and in countries with a similar tradition, gifts are brought by the unnumbered Magi([Magi] fortune tellers and priests of a pagan religion) at Epiphany on 6 January. Until the recent past, gifts were given in the UK to non-family members on Boxing Day, 26 December.
Christmas cards are extremely popular in the United States, in part as a way to maintain relationships with distant relatives and friends, and with business acquaintances. Many families enclose an annual family photograph with the card, and/or a family newsletter which summarizes the adventures and accomplishments of family members during the preceding year.
Decorations
Decorating a Christmas tree with Christmas lights and Christmas ornaments, and the decoration of the interior of the home with garlands and evergreen foliage, particularly holly and mistletoe, are common traditions. In North America and to a lesser extent the United Kingdom, it is traditional to decorate the outside of houses with large numbers of lights, sometimes including illuminated sleighs, snowmen and other Christmas figures.
The traditional Christmas flower is the poinsettia. Other popular holiday plants are holly, red amaryllis and Christmas cactus.
Municipalities often sponsor decorations as well, hanging Christmas banners from street lights or placing Christmas trees in the town square. In the United States, decorations once commonly included religious themes. This practice has led to much adjudication, as opponents insist that it amounts to the government endorsing one particular religious faith.
Social aspects and entertainment
In many countries, businesses, schools, and communities have Christmas parties and dances. These often take place during the several weeks before Christmas Day. Some groups put on Christmas pageants, which may or may not include a retelling of the story of the birth of Jesus Christ. Groups may go out carolling, visiting neighborhood homes to sing Christmas songs. Others are reminded by the holiday of man's fellowship with man, and do extra volunteer work, or hold fundraising drives for charities. On Christmas Day, a special meal of Christmas dishes is usually served, for which there are traditional menus in each country. Candy and treats are also part of the Christmas celebration in many countries.
Religious customs and celebrations
The religious celebrations begin with Advent, the anticipation of Christ's birth, around the start of December, and are marked by special church services. Advent services often include Advent carols, and the period is also celebrated with Advent calendars, sometimes containing sweets and chocolate for children. Immediately before Christmas, there are many Christmas services at churches, at which Christmas hymns and Christmas carols are sung. One special service in the U.K. is the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at Cambridge. On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, special services may include a Midnight Mass or a Mass of the Nativity. The church Christmas season ends with the feast of the Epiphany, or Twelfth Night, the traditional date of the visit of the Three Kings to the baby Jesus.
The holiday's popularity is so pronounced that other faiths have emphasized their own winter holidays to serve as a Christmas surrogate. The most obvious example is Judaism's Chanukah, which in the 20th century has evolved a similar tradition of family gift-giving .
National customs and celebrations
United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, another aspect of the Christmas season popular with young families is the pantomime.
Southern Hemisphere
In commonwealth countries in the southern hemisphere, Christmas is still celebrated on December 25, despite this being the height of their summer season. This clashes with the traditional winter iconography, resulting in anachronisms such as a red fur-coated Santa Claus surfing in for a turkey barbecue on Bondi Beach.
United States
The Christmas tree and skating rink at Rockefeller Center in New York City, and the White House Christmas decorations are important parts of the national Christmas celebration in the U.S. Also, NORAD "tracks" Santa Claus' global transit each year, to wide attention by the mass media.
Asia
In China, December 25 is the date of the signing of the Constitution of the Republic of China in 1947. The official holiday on that date is largely treated as if it were Christmas. Japan has largely adopted the western Santa Claus for its (secular) Christmas celebration, but their New Year's Day is the more important holiday. In India, most educational institutions have a Christmas vacation, beginning shortly before Christmas and ending a few days after the New Year's Day. Christmas is also known as bada din (the big day) in Hindi. The Christmas revolves around Santa Claus and shopping.
Northern and Eastern Europe
In Germany and the Netherlands, celebration of Saint Nicholas Day in early December resembles the Christmas of the English-speaking world. The Dutch Sinterklaasavond (St. Nicholas evening) is more important than Christmas, although in recent years, some Dutch have started to celebrate Christmas Eve with Santa as well.
Sinterklaas, based on the real Saint Nicholas and from whom the English and American Santa evolved, brings presents on the evening of December 5 to every child who has been good. He wears a red bishop's dress with a red mitre, rides a white horse over the rooftops, and is assisted by many mischievous helpers called 'zwarte Pieten' (black Peters). In some parts of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, this frightening Knecht Ruprecht also appears, to the chagrin of many children.
In Germany, Christmas traditions vary by region. Following Saint Nicholas Day, which is mostly for children, the actual Christmas gift-giving usually takes place on the night of Christmas eve, with gifts put under the Christmas tree after a simple meal. The culinary feast typically takes place for lunch on Dec. 25 and usually involves poultry. The gifts may be brought by the Weihnachtsmann, who resembles St. Nicholas, or the Christkind, a sprite-like child who may or may not represent the baby Jesus. Commercially, the Striezelmarkt is arguably a worldwide Christmas gift production center, boasting the specialities of the Dresden region from ceramics and prints to various delicacies which are shipped worldwide.
The Norwegian Christmas celebration begins with feasting on Dec. 24, followed by a visit by "Julenissen", who brings gifts to children who have behaved. After a quiet Dec. 25, another large celebration follows on Boxing Day, when children may go door to door to receive treats and money from neighbors. Joulupukki (or Christmas Goat) is the Finnish Santa Claus. He travels with a sleigh and reindeer to deliver gifts to good children.
In Poland, Christmas Eve is a day first of fasting, then of feasting. The feast begins with the appearance of the first star, and is followed by the exchange of gifts. The following day is often spent visiting friends.
In Eastern Europe, Slavic countries have the tradition of Ded Moroz ("Grandfather Frost.") According to legend, he travels in a magical troika, a decorated sleigh drawn by three horses, and delivers gifts to children. He is thought to descend more from Santa Claus than from the Turkish Saint Nicholas.
Other areas
See List of winter festivals for other winter holidays, and Christmas around the world for information about Christmas in non-English speaking countries.
Christmas in the arts and media
The yearly holiday of Christmas has inspired many writers and producers to create fictional Christmas stories that try to capture the "spirit" of Christmas in the form of a modern-day fairy tale. Over the years, a large number of fictional Christmas stories have been written, usually involving heart-touching tales that involve a Christmas miracle. Several of these stories have become very popular over the years, and have passed into popular culture and been accepted as part of the tradition of Christmas.
Perhaps the most popular is Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, the tale of curmudgeonly miser Ebenezer Scrooge. Scrooge rejects compassion and philanthropy, and Christmas as a symbol of both, until he is visited by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future, who show him the consequences of his ways. Through this and other Christmas stories, Dickens is sometimes credited with shaping the modern celebration of Christmas (tree, plum pudding, carols, etc.) and the movement to close businesses on Christmas day.
If Dickens shaped the wider traditions of Christmas, Thomas Nast and Clement Moore provided us with the popular images of Santa Claus. Nast's 19th century cartoons gave Santa his familiar form, while Moore's poem A Visit from Saint Nicholas (popularly known as The Night Before Christmas) gave us the rotund Santa and his sleigh landing on rooftops on Christmas Eve.
Many of these Christmas stories have been adapted to movies and TV specials. These stories have been broadcast and repeated many times on TV over the years. Beginning with the popularization of home video during the 1980s, these Christmas specials have seen numerous video editions, and they are sold and re-sold every year during the holiday shopping season.
A notable example is the film It's a Wonderful Life, the theme of which mirrors A Christmas Carol. Its hero, George Bailey, is a businessman who sacrificed his dreams to help his community. On Christmas Eve, a guardian angel finds him in despair and prevents him from committing suicide, by magically showing him how much he meant to the world around him.
A few true stories have become enduring Christmas tales themselves. The story behind the Christmas carol "Silent Night" and the story of "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" are among the most well-known of these true tales of Christmas.
Radio and TV stations popularise Christmas by broadcasting Christmas carols and Christmas songs, including classical music such as the Hallelujah chorus from Handel's The Messiah. Among other classical pieces inspired by Christmas is Johann Sebastian Bach's Christmas Oratorio (BWV 248).
UK media Christmas
In the United Kingdom the media prefer to extend the holiday season, allowing for increased viewership of holiday programming and aiming for the establishment of new Christmas institutions (for example, Morecambe and Wise, The Two Ronnies, Only Fools and Horses, Top of the Pops). HM Queen Elizabeth II annually broadcasts a 10-minute speech on Christmas Day at 3 p.m., charting her views of the past year and giving her own reflections and advice. The animated tale The Snowman has been screened for many years during the Christmas period, and a new story, The Bear, by the same artist and company, is usually broadcast around the same time.
Many long-running UK soap operas have Christmas specials, usually involving a dramatic storyline developed over several weeks which culminates at Christmas. Often these stories are tragic, involving a death, divorce, a dramatic revelation or similar event.
The UK music industry features the battle of bands and artists to make it to the 'Christmas No. 1' spot, recognised on the first Sunday before, or on, Christmas Day. Many of these songs are festive, while others are novelty songs that remain but briefly at the top of the chart. Gospel singer Cliff Richard is a fixture of Christmas charts, appearing nearly every year, and subsequently being mocked for doing so.
U.S. media Christmas
In the United States, most family-oriented TV series produce a Christmas special. Stand-alone Christmas specials are also popular, from newly created animated shorts and movies to repeats of those that were popular in previous years, such as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and A Charlie Brown Christmas. Some local affiliates provide the Yule Log, a block of time on Christmas morning showing footage of a fireplace, coupled with popular Christmas music.
Many radio stations begin to add Christmas songs to their rotation in late November, and often switch to all-Christmas programming for the morning of December 25th. A few stations switch to all-Christmas music for the entire season (some beginning as early as mid-November); programmers believe that at least some listeners who are attracted by the Christmas music will remain loyal listeners when the station reverts to its standard format on Boxing Day.
Economics of Christmas
Christmas is typically the largest annual stimulus for the economies of celebrating nations. Sales increase dramatically in almost all retail areas, as people purchase gifts, decorations, and supplies for parties and for visiting guests. Shops introduce new products that are sold at premium prices, as customers take advantage of marketing opportunities. In the United States, the Christmas shopping season has lengthened such that it now begins the day after Thanksgiving, known as Black Friday in the retail industry. For some shops and businesses, Christmas Day is the only day in the year that they are closed. The economic impact of Christmas continues after the holiday, with Christmas sales and New Year's sales, when stores sell off excess inventories.
Many fundamentalist Christians, as well as anti-consumerists, decry the "commericalization" of Christmas. Such groups accuse the Christmas season of being dominated by money and greed, at the expense of the holiday's more important values of compassion, generosity, and kindness. Frustrations over these issues and others can lead to a rise in Christmastime social problems (see below).
In North America, the holiday movie season often includes release of studios' most prestigious pictures, in an effort both to capture holiday crowds and to position themselves for Oscar consideration. Next to summer, this is the second-most lucrative season for the industry. Christmas movies generally open no later than Thanksgiving, as their themes are not so popular once the season is over.
Social impact of Christmas
Because of the focus on celebration, friends, and family, people who are without these, or who have recently suffered losses, are more likely to suffer from depression during the holidays. This increases the demands for counseling services during the period.
It is widely believed that suicides and murders spike during the holiday season. However, the peak months for suicide are May and June. Because of holiday celebrations involving alcohol, drunk driving-related fatalities may also increase.
Non-Christians in predominantly Christian nations may be left bereft of entertainment around Christmas, as stores close and friends depart for vacations. The cliché recreation for them is "movies and Chinese food"; movie theaters remaining open to bring in holiday box office dollars and Chinese (and presumably Buddhist, et al.) establishments being less likely to close for the "big day".
Theories regarding the origin of the date of Christmas
Related article: Chronology of Jesus' birth and death
Many different dates have been suggested for the celebration of Christmas. No explanation of why it is celebrated on December 25 is universally accepted. Theories include the following:
- The Catholic Encyclopedia article on "Christmas" offers a starting-point for the history of this Christian feast. Christmas does not appear among the earliest lists of Christian feasts, those of Irenaeus and Tertullian. The earliest evidence of a celebration of the natal day is from Alexandria, about 200 A.D., when Clement of Alexandria says that certain Egyptian theologians "over curiously" assign, not just the year, but the actual day of Christ's birth.2 According to Clement, they were placing it on 25 Pachon (May 20) in the twenty-eighth year of Augustus. It was Epiphany that was being celebrated by the followers of Basil, on 15 or 11 Tybi (January 6 or 10). By the time of the Council of Nicea, 325 A.D. the Alexandrian church had fixed a dies Nativitatis et Epiphaniae. The December feast reached Egypt in the 5th century. In the east, the Christmas festival was ignored in Armenia in favor of Epiphany. In Jerusalem, Egeria the 4th century pilgrim from Bordeaux, witnessed the feast of the Presentation, forty days after January 6, which must have been the date of the Nativity there. At Antioch, probably in 386, St John Chrysostom urged the community to unite in celebrating Christ's birth on December 25, a part of the community having already kept it on that day for at least ten years.
- It is an appropriation by early Christians of a day on which the birth of several pagan gods, Osiris, Jupiter, and Plutus, or the ancient deified leader Nimrod, was celebrated.
- It is an appropriation of the pagan Midwinter festivals, such as the Germanic Yule and the Roman festival of the birth of Unconquered Sun, celebrated on the day after the winter solstice, or the Roman festival of Saturnalia.
- It derives from the tradition that Jesus was born during the Jewish Festival of Lights (Hanukkah, the 25th of Kislev and the beginning of Tevet). Kislev is generally accepted as corresponding with our December. Under the Old Julian calendar, the popular choice of 5 BC for the year of Jesus's birth would place the 25th of Kislev on the 25th of November.
- The date of Christmas is based on the date of Good Friday, the day Jesus died. Since the exact date of Jesus' death is not stated in the Gospels, early Christians sought to calculate it, and arrived at either March 25 or April 6. To then calculate the date of Jesus' birth, they followed the ancient idea that Old Testament prophets died at an "integral age"—either an anniversary of their birth or of their conception. They reasoned that Jesus died on an anniversary of the Incarnation (his conception), so the date of his birth would have been nine months after the date of Good Friday—either December 25 or January 6. Thus, rather than the date of Christmas being appropriated from pagans by Christians, the opposite is held to have occurred. [See Duchesne (1902) and Talley (1986).]
Muslims dont celebrate christmas, this can cause problems because other religions may have to take part in it.
See also
Christmas season, Christmas carol, Christmas song, Christmas dishes, Giftmas, Christmas around the world.
Footnotes
- 1 The 8th century English historian Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum ("Ecclesiastic History of the English People") contains a letter from Pope Gregory I to Saint Mellitus, who was then on his way to England to conduct missionary work among the heathen Anglo-Saxons. The Pope suggests that converting heathens is easier if they are allowed to retain the outward forms of their traditional pagan practices and traditions, while recasting those traditions spiritually towards the one true God instead of to their pagan gods (whom the Pope refers to as "devils"), "to the end that, whilst some gratifications are outwardly permitted them, they may the more easily consent to the inward consolations of the grace of God". [1] The Pope sanctions such conversion tactics as Biblically acceptable, pointing out that God did much the same thing with the ancient Israelites and their pagan sacrifices.
- 2 in Stromateis, I, xxi in P.G., VIII, 888
References
- 1908 Catholic Encyclopedia article on Christmas
- Duchesne, Louis (1902), Les origines du culte chrétien
- Talley, Thomas J. (1986). The Origins of the Liturgical Year
External links
- Christmas on the Net
- Christmas Origins
- Christmas - Bible Answer (an anti-Christmas web site that attacks the holiday from a strict fundamentalist interpretation.)
- Christmas in Japan
- The History of Christmas
- The custom of celebrating with Christmas Lights
- "Calculating Christmas" by William J. Tighe
- Christmas gifts' tale
- Christmas graphics
- Catholic Encyclopedia: Christmas
- Live Online Countdown To Christmas
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