Christmas Holiday

The Observance of the Christmas Holiday Tradition

In the Northern Hemisphere, the Winter season contains many holidays involving festivals and feasts. The Christmas and holiday season that surrounds the winter solstice is recognized by many religions and cultures around the world. The “Holiday season” is a commercial term in America that applies to the period beginning with Thanksgiving and ending on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day. Many Christian nations consider the end of the festive season to occur right after the feast of Epiphany.

For two thousand years, people around the world have been observing Christmas with religious and secular practices and traditions. Christians mark Christmas Day as the date of the birth of Jesus, their spiritual leader whose traditions form the foundation of the religion. Popular Christmas traditions include gift giving, the decoration of Christmas trees, going to church, sharing a feast with friends & family and, don’t forget waiting for the arrival of Santa Claus. Christmas Day, December 25th, has been a federal holiday in America since the late 1800′s.

Cultures around the world have often held festivals in the middle of winter. Many cultures had celebrations to mark the winter solstice, when they were already through the worst of the winter and they started looking forward to longer days and extended periods of sunlight.

In Northern Europe, the Norse observed the Yule period from the time of the winter solstice (December 21st), through the month of January.  In observance of the Sun’s return, men would bring large logs to their homes and set them on fire. People would have huge feasts until the logs fully burned out, which could take almost 2 weeks! The Norse believed that each spark from the fire stood for a new calf or pig to be born during the new year, or increased prosperity.

In olden Germany, citizens paid respects to Oden, the pagan god, during their winter holiday. Germans feared Oden greatly, as they believed that he flew through the sky at night to look over his people.  Oden would then decide on who was to perish or prosper. Because of Oden’s presence, many people chose to stay inside throughout winter nights. A holiday in Oden’s honor was one of the few times that some Germans went outside during the winter.

Christmas was not really observed in the early years of Christianity. However, in the 400′s, officials of the church instituted Jesus’ birth as an official holiday, eventually named Christmas.  You may be surprised to learn that the Bible does provide a date for Jesus’ birth.  Most scholars believe that the church chose December 25th so that they could adopt the traditions of the pagan Saturnalia festival.  Christmas was called the Feast of the Nativity at first.  The holiday moved to Egypt by 432 and over to England by the end of the 700′s. By the year 900, the holiday of Christmas got all the way to the northern reaches of Europe.

By observing the Christmas holiday contemporaneously with  traditional winter solstice holidays, leaders of the church improved their chances that Christmas would be embraced by the population. By the time the Middle Ages rolled around, Christianity had almost completely replaced the pagan religions. Each year, a student or poor person would be named the “lord of misrule” and the holiday celebrants acted as his subjects. Christmas became known as the time of year when the rich people could “repay” their “debt” to society by giving back to less those that were less fortunate than they.

It wasn’t until the 1800′s when Christmas was embraced in the United States. Americans put their own unique stamp on the Christmas holiday, and Christmas changed from a wild carnival holiday into one that was family-centered day and focused on peace and nostalgia.

During the early 1800′s, the family was becoming less disciplined and more sensitive to the emotional needs of children. The Christmas holiday gave families with a day for them to lavish attention, and gifts, on their children without looking like they were spoiling them.

As Americans transformed Christmas into the quintessential family holiday, old traditions were discovered. People looked toward recent Catholic and Episcopalian immigrants to learn how Christmas should be celebrated. While many families quickly believed that they were celebrating the Christmas holiday the way it had been done for many years by giving gifts, decorating trees, and mailing holiday cards, Americans really had re-created a holiday to meet the cultural needs of a young and growing country.

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Deanna Durbin – Christmas Holiday – 1

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