Beech Tree News Network

This column might feel like when Clark Griswold was quizzing his kids about Christmas facts while going to get the Griswold Family Christmas Tree at the beginning of Christmas Vacation.  Hey, kids, does anyone know the date of the first recorded Christmas celebration? December 25, 336 A, D. in Rome.  December 25 was chosen because it’s nine months after the Annunciation, which celebrates the conception of Jesus on March 25.  The celebration took place during the reign of Constantine, the first Christian emperor.  

Fellow viewers of Big Bang Theory will likely remember this one: Before Christmas, Romans celebrated Saturnalia, a winter festival that involved feasting and gift-giving.  December 25 was also a day to celebrate the Unconquered Sun and return of longer days.  Christmas didn’t become a major Christian festival until the 9th century.  It wasn’t until the late 19th century that Christmas became the holiday it is today.  Modern Christmas is a combination of Christian religious observance, retail interests, and pagan traditions.  

How did Christmas come to be celebrated on December 25 if traditions have Jesus’ birth in March (and some say November)? Cultures around the Mediterranean and across Europe observed feasts on or around December 25th, marking the winter solstice.  The Jews had a festival of lights.  Germans had a yule festival.  Celtic legends connected the solstice with Balder, the Scandinavian sun god who was struck down by a mistletoe arrow.  

Many of the pagan customs became associated with Christmas.  Christian stories replaced the heathen tales, but the practices hung on. Candles continue to be lit.  Kissing under the mistletoe remained common in Scandinavian countries (and now here as well),  Over the years, gift giving became connected with the name of St. Nicholas, a real but legendary figure of 4th century Lycia(a province of Asia).  A charitable man, he threw gifts into homes.  

Around the 13th century, Christians added one of the most pleasant touches of all to Christmas celebrations when they began to sing Christmas carols.  I read at www.Christianity.com that Christmas trees originated in Germany.  The 8th century English missionary, St. Boniface, Apostle to Germany, is supposed to have held up the evergreen as a symbol of the everlasting Christ.  By the end of the 16th century, Christmas trees were common in Germany.  Some say Luther cut the first, took it home, decked it with candles to represent the stars.  When the German court came to England, the Christmas tree came with them.  

Puritans forbade Christmas, considering it too pagan.  Governor Bradford threatened New Englanders with work, jail or fines if they were caught observing Christmas.  

In 1843, in Victorian England, Charles Dickens published his novelette “A Christmas Carol”.  It became one of the most popular fiction short works of fiction ever penned.  Although the book is more a work of sentiment than of Christianity, it captures something of the Christmas spirit.  The tightfisted grump, Ebeneezer Scrooge, who exclaimed “humbug!” at the mention of Christmas, is contrasted with generous merry makers such as his nephew Fred and with the struggling poor, symbolized by Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim (not the “Tiptoe through the tulips” guy).  The book’s appeal to good works and charitable contributions virtually defines Christmas in English-speaking lands.  

Whatever the ins and outs of Christmas, we are still unwrapping the gifts of God’s Son-and what an incentive to generosity and joy that gift is! I’ve not recorded a vlog in a few weeks so there’s no link today.  Thanks for reading!