Christmas Ain't What You Think.....

I know you're all worried what to buy Uncle Skeeter and Aunt Nancy this year, you know they got more crap and their house already looks like hoarders live there.......

But you know, while we are supposed to celebrate the birth of the Christ Child, it is well, secondary. And in truth, it always has been.

Hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, Romans exchanged gifts, sang songs and decorated their homes with evergreens. Instead of Jesus Christ, though, Saturnalia celebrated the Roman god Saturn. In fact, December 25 was the winter solstice on the Roman calendar, the shortest day of the year.( There was a different calendar back then.)

Early Christians really didn't care about Christ's birth, only two of the four Gospels even discuss his birth, Matthew and Luke. And they were written 80 years after Jesus.

It wasn't until 330 years after Jesus that the early Roman Christians celebrated his birth. ( That's longer than America has been around.) And they did it to coincide with the other Roman holiday.

As historians would tell you, they doubt Christ was born on Christmas. The government wouldn't have their people out traveling in mid-winter. Plus, according to old rabbinical law, there would be doubt that sheep would be grazing in Bethlehem in mid-winter,  and besides, shepherds wouldn't have the grass on the ground to feed the sheep. So, we're talking about a post-February- pre-November birth.

And besides, neither Luke nor Matthew mentioned a day. Or time period.

Christmas hasn't always been a popular holiday, before 800 A.D., it was overshadowed by the Epiphany. The time the 3 wise men visited the Christ-Child.

It gained prominence after 800 A.D., when Charlemagne was crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Empire on Christmas Day.

During the 17th Century, Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, banned Christmas. Shops were told to remain open, food made for Christmas was confiscated. This lasted for 18 years.

People found with a goose on Christmas, holly in their house, or attending a Catholic Mass on Christmas could be jailed, whipped, or put in the stocks. It was too associated with the Papacy, drinking, having a good time and the Puritans well, they didn't believe in a "good time."

The same thing occurred in America. The Pilgrims did not celebrate Christmas. For 20 years in America Christmas was just another day. And many Americans frown upon the holiday for years.

And honestly, the Christmas Holiday was not "officially" a holiday in America until 1870 when it became a Federal Holiday.

It was Victorian England that shaped Christmas that we know today.

 Clement Clarke Moore's 1823 poem, "A Visit from St. Nicholas," helped transform Santa Claus from a minor 4th century saint into the right jolly old elf we all know today.( St. Nick before this time was known as a Turkish Saint who had paid the dowry of 3 daughters of a poor man, so they could be married. Rather than be forced to work in a whorehouse. Tough times back then.)

Although some Christmas customs have pagan roots, others have more mercenary beginnings... Charles Dickens' 1843 novel "A Christmas Carol " was conceived as a way for the skint ( British slang for being broke) author to make a quick buck. Dickens took what he saw in 1840s London and added a bit of sentiment and the story became a best seller. 

It was the Coca-Cola Corporation that made Santa look like what we think Santa should look like today. Before then, there was no "universal" view of the Fat Man.

Some complain about the war on Christmas.....An attempt to remove the holiday from its Christian roots. But in reality, Christmas it is a celebration that has snowballed from our earliest cultures, gathering new meanings and rituals as it's traveled across the world and through time.

Sorry, but Christmas, has never been what you always "thought it was."

Author's Note- This blog is somewhat a "blast from the past" and my old friend Jo Griffith will appreciate it. I wrote this to a band I often listened to while writing history papers( Especially my The Reformation and 20th Century Europe classes under the late Dr. Bill MacDonald) as a lowly undergrad in the 1970s. The English band "Trapeze" and their album " Medusa."