As the eventful 2020 draws to a close, the Christmas season has finally arrived to bring some much-needed cheer to everyone. It is nice to have a day when problems can be forgotten in favour of enjoying the season.
Most people know the story of Christmas, but it is also common knowledge that the holiday itself has a lot of non-Christian elements to it. The celebration draws influence from pagan rituals that have been incorporated into the traditions of the season.
So how did Christmas get this way? Why is it celebrated on Dec 25? And why the Christmas tree?
First, let’s address why Christmas is celebrated on Dec 25. While Christmas centres on the birth of Jesus Christ to Mary in the town of Bethlehem over 2,000 years ago, some people believe this day is celebrated because the Roman feast celebrating the sun god, Sol Invictus, fell on this date.
Celebrating Christmas on Dec 25 was possibly a way to appropriate pre-existing festivities.
But this Roman festival is probably one of many European winter festivals that influenced Christmas celebrations. Saturnalia, another Roman holiday, might also have rubbed off on Christmas celebrations as it involved feasts, gift-giving and the use of evergreen wreaths.
There was also a Germanic holiday honouring the god Odin, called Yule, which probably had an even bigger influence on how Christmas is celebrated today. Again, this holiday was marked by a big feast and the sacrifice of a Yule boar which may be the origin of the Christmas ham in the West.
Yule was also often associated with the Wild Hunt, a ghostly procession riding through the sky led by Odin himself.
Perhaps this is the origin behind the idea of a bearded old man flying in the sky with his reindeer?
Another festival that could have left its mark on the Christmas holiday was Koliada, a Slavic festival during which celebrants went out carolling and placing a decorative piece of evergreen in their homes.
Funnily enough, the stereotypical Christmas feasts were not a thing before 300AD. Prior to that, feasts were seen as inappropriate on such a sacred day.
Even for some conservative Christians, celebrating Christmas was unacceptable and in 1647, Puritan-ruled England banned Christmas outright.
This did not go down well and the people rioted, seizing the city of Canterbury and decorating it with Christmas wreaths.
In Scotland, the parliament abolished Christmas as a holiday in 1640, and it was only made a public holiday again in 1958.
Many Puritans settled in the Americas, which meant their aversion to Christmas continued in early colonial America.
In fact, after the American Revolutionary War from 1775 to 1783, Christmas was regarded as a foreign and British celebration. During the war itself, on Dec 26, George Washington led an attack on German mercenaries who had got drunk at their Christmas party.
However, Christmas eventually gained prominence in the US thanks to Charles Dickens’ classic novel, ‘A Christmas Carol’.
It was also during this time that the tradition of Christmas trees began to grow, having started as an early modern German tradition. Britain’s Queen Victoria married a German and Prince Albert is believed to have brought the custom with him to the UK, and it eventually crossed the Atlantic.
Where this German tradition originated is a different question, though. Some believe Christmas trees started off as medieval theatre decorations.
But no depiction of Christmas would be complete without the jolly bearded old man in red with a sack of gifts.
Like the holiday, Santa Claus is a combination of several different holiday figures, though the main influence would definitely be Saint Nicolas.
The man was a fourth-century Christian bishop in what is Turkey today, known for his generosity and is the patron saint of children. He has been combined with Father Christmas, the English personification of Christmas itself.
The idea of Santa Claus having a wife and elves as assistants probably comes from the Finnish version of him, called Joulupukki. And the Nordic god Odin night again have rubbed off on the popular image of Santa Claus as Odin had a habit of entering houses through chimneys.
But, as you might have known, it was a 1930s Coca-Cola advertisement that cemented Santa Claus’ image as people know it today.
Now, with all this information, it is clear that Christmas is an interesting blend of different traditions from different times and different cultures that all revolve around enjoying the season with the family.
There is no wrong way to celebrate the season, nor is there a right way, so celebrate it in whatever way you want – as long as you are enjoying yourself together with your family.