By Corina Tan
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This time of year, a familiar feeling of excitement and good cheer seem to be abundantly in the air. It isn’t just Christians that celebrate this time of year, but everyone no matter what their beliefs, seem to cosy up to the idea of a wonderful gift-giving season of love, joy and peace. Of all the joyous celebrations we celebrate every year, Christmas is the one that’s on the list of most people’s favourite festive season for many reasons. Children and adults alike love the idea of presents and many come out to experience the beautiful transformation of ordinary cities and streets into a huge wonderland of décor and festivity that enchant and delight even the most unamused soul. How did Christmas start and where does its traditions come from? Our common idea of the celebration, marked by gifts, trees topped with stars and candy canes are a far cry from how Christmas really began.
Christmas is always celebrated on the 25th of December but the date is not the actual birthdate of Jesus Christ, the spiritual leader and founder of Christianity. Even though this day is the reason why many people celebrate Christmas, the Bible doesn’t say exactly when he was born. It wasn’t until three and a half centuries after Christ’s actual birth that the date was chosen to celebrate his birthday. Pope Julius I, picked the date in 350 AD and it was formalised in 529 AD, when the Roman Emperor Justinian declared Christmas to be a civil holiday. Many historians believe that both the Pope and the Emperor were in favour of the idea that it coincided with the winter solstice which dated back for centuries. Rolling in these ancient celebrations into one was a way to keep the old winter holiday traditions and to refocus them on the ‘new’ religion of Christianity by ditching many of their past pagan rituals.
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Another theory suggests that choosing the shortest day of the year was symbolic, as each day afterwards, the sun would grow progressively brighter, much like how the Christ child developed from infant to immortal. The word Christmas was an effort to rebrand the old holidays and give it a new religiously linked name that comes from old English “Cristes maesse” which means Christ’s Mass. This references the Catholic tradition of conducting a special mass ceremony to celebrate Jesus. When the church had become much larger and more influential, church and political leaders wanted a way to make the Christian holidays more popular while still allowing for other traditional celebrations people already enjoyed. Combining Christmas and winter solstice, even if it meant giving an arbitrary birthdate for the Christ child, was the solution.
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As Christianity spread across the globe, so did the Christian holidays, including Christmas. Christmas became both a religious as well as a cultural holiday centred around the birth of Jesus and celebrated all over the world in a wide variety of ways adapted to each culture and its needs. There was a period in time when excessive celebrations, especially ones which tended to take on an atmosphere of debauchery were frowned upon and strongly discouraged. It was not until the 1800s that Christmas started to regain its popularity. Two very popular books at the time – A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. by Washington Irving, portrayed Christmas in a warm, family-friendly way. Their recounting was mostly fictitious but they inspired and kindled the imagination of the Victorian era. In the 150 years since then, Christmas celebrations have taken on a very positive atmosphere in the secular world, whilst still maintaining their religious component to those who revere Christ’s birth and the significance of what his existence and subsequent salvation brought to the world.
No matter how you choose to celebrate or ring in this season of giving, we hope that at the heart of it is love for family and friends, peace that ends the year in a positive light, and joy that follows well into the new year.
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