Merry Christmas! Really!

The primary source of the following information is TV channel website, History.com.

As Christians start their predictable seasonal whine about the “true meaning of Christmas” let’s take a truthful look at what that meaning actually is. The Christmas of today has its roots in ancient traditions combined with comparatively recent successful public relations campaigns. In pre-Christian Europe there were long-standing winter solstice traditions: yule logs, feasts over multiple days, nocturnal flights of Odin granting fortune or misfortune. Sound familiar? The winter was cold enough that freshly slaughtered meat would keep for extended feasting. The beer had fermented since summer and was ready for drinking. In Rome, the solstice was celebrated with Saturnalia. There was almost a month of eating and drinking along with a reversal of the social order, slaves as masters, children as parents, similar to Boxing Day in British tradition. The winter was also the time for Juvenalia, a feast for children.

Until Pope Julius I, the primary western Christian holiday was Easter. (It still is in the various eastern orthodox churches: Greek, Russian, Serbian.) But the good Pope Julius instituted the Feast of the Nativity on December 25. The feast then subsumed the various seasonal pagan and Roman festivals. Typically a “Christ’s Mass” was followed by days of feasting and drinking in a carnival atmosphere similar to Mardi Gras complete with a beggar chosen as the “Lord of Misrule”. The tradition of carolers arose from the poor who would visit the rich demanding food and drink. It was a time for the rich to “compensate” society by lavish giving to the less fortunate.

In English and American history the popularity rose and fell with the popularity of aristocracy. Oliver Cromwell canceled Christmas but it came back when Charles II was restored to the throne. With the American Revolution, Christmas was put down because it was too English.

Much of our “modern” tradition of Christmas was established in the first half of the 19th century. Christmas had become a real problem with gang rioting often breaking out in the Christmas season. Washington Irving, in The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, invented a story of traditions of mutual celebration across lines of social status. About the same time Charles Dickens did his thing with the Christmas Carol. These visions of Christmas became embedded in the popular mind. As Christmas became more family-oriented, appropriate traditions were dredged up and inserted into popular practice.

Essentially we have been inventing and reinventing Christmas ever since. Religiously oriented people added more and more scripture to the holiday. Commercial folks added more and more cutesy Santa stories and polar bear images. Sappy folks just…got sappier.

So the TRUE meaning of Christmas is just what we want to make of it. Just like it’s always been. Have a Merry Christmas and stop whining already!