Christmas - Extraordinary Form
Christmas - December 25 (December 24 in some countries)
Christmas is an annual holiday that celebrates the birth of Jesus. Christmas festivities often combine the commemoration of Jesus’ birth with various secular customs, many of which have been influenced by earlier winter festivals. The date as a birthdate for Jesus is traditional, and is not considered to be his actual date of birth.
In most places around the world, Christmas Day is celebrated on December 25. Christmas Eve is the preceding day, December 24. In the United Kingdom and many countries of the Commonwealth, Boxing Day is the following day, December 26. In Catholic countries, Saint Stephen’s Day or the Feast of St. Stephen is December 26. The Armenian Apostolic Church observes Christmas on January 6, while certain old rite or old style Eastern Orthodox Churches celebrate Christmas on January 7, the date on the Gregorian calendar which corresponds to 25 December on the Julian Calendar.
The word “Christmas” is a contraction of two words “Christ’s mass” and is derived from the Middle English Christemasse and Old English Cristes mæsse, a phrase first recorded in 1038. In early Greek versions of the New Testament, the letter Χ (chi), is the first letter of Christ (Χριστός). Since the mid-16th century Χ, or the similar Roman letter X, was used as an abbreviation for Christ. Thus, Xmas is an abbreviation for Christmas.
After the conversion of Anglo-Saxons in England from their indigenous Anglo-Saxon polytheism (a form of Germanic paganism) in the very early 7th century, Christmas was called geol, which was the name of the native Germanic pre-Christian solstice festival that fell on that date. From geol, the current English word Yule is derived. Many customs associated with modern Christmas were derived from Germanic paganism.
The prominence of Christmas Day increased gradually after Charlemagne was crowned on Christmas Day in 800. Around the 12th century, the remnants of the former Saturnalian traditions of the Romans were transferred to the Twelve Days of Christmas (26 December - 6 January). Christmas during the Middle Ages was a public festival, incorporating ivy, holly, and other evergreens, as well as gift-giving.
Modern traditions have come to include the display of Nativity scenes, Holly and Christmas trees, the exchange of gifts and cards, and the arrival of Father Christmas or Santa Claus on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning. Popular Christmas themes include the promotion of goodwill and peace.
It is unknown exactly when or why December 25 became associated with Jesus’ birth. The New Testament does not give a specific date.[4] Sextus Julius Africanus popularized the idea that Jesus was born on December 25 in his Chronographiai, a reference book for Christians written in AD 221.[4] This date is nine months after the traditional date of the Incarnation (March 25), now celebrated as the Feast of the Annunciation. March 25 was considered to be the date of the vernal equinox and therefore the creation of Adam; early Christians believed this was also the date Jesus was crucified. The Christian idea that Jesus was conceived on the same date that he died on the cross is consistent with a Jewish belief that a prophet lived an integral number of years.[5]
The earliest reference to the celebration of Christmas is in the Calendar of Filocalus, an illuminated manuscript compiled in Rome in 354.[7][8] In the east, meanwhile, Christians celebrated the birth of Jesus as part of Epiphany (January 6), although this festival focused on the baptism of Jesus.[9]
Christmas was promoted in the east as part of the revival of Catholicism following the death of the pro-Arian Emperor Valens at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. The feast was introduced to Constantinople in 379, to Antioch in about 380, and to Alexandria in about 430. Christmas was especially controversial in 4th century Constantinople, being the “fortress of Arianism,” as Edward Gibbon described it. The feast disappeared after Gregory of Nazianzus resigned as bishop in 381, although it was reintroduced by John Chrysostom in about 400.[7]
Middle Ages
In the Early Middle Ages, Christmas Day was overshadowed by Epiphany, which in the west focused on the visit of the magi. But the Medieval calendar was dominated by Christmas-related holidays. The forty days before Christmas became the “forty days of St. Martin” (which began on November 11, the feast of St. Martin of Tours), now known as Advent.[10] In Italy, former Saturnalian traditions were attached to Advent.[10] Around the 12th century, these traditions transferred again to the Twelve Days of Christmas (December 26 - January 6);a time that appears in the liturgical calendars as Christmastide or Twelve Holy Days.[10]
The prominence of Christmas Day increased gradually after Charlemagne was crowned on Christmas Day in 800. King William I of England was crowned on Christmas Day 1066. Christmas during the Middle Ages remained a public festival, incorporating ivy, holly, and other evergreens, as well as gift-giving.[11] Christmas gift-giving during the Middle Ages was practiced more often between people with legal relationships (i.e. tenant and landlord) than between close friends and relatives.[11]
By the High Middle Ages, the holiday had become so prominent that chroniclers routinely noted where various magnates celebrated Christmas. King Richard II of England hosted a Christmas feast in 1377 at which twenty-eight oxen and three hundred sheep were eaten.[10] The Yule boar was a common feature of medieval Christmas feasts. Caroling also became popular, and was originally a group of dancers who sang. The group was composed of a lead singer and a ring of dancers that provided the chorus. Various writers of the time condemned caroling as lewd, indicating that the unruly traditions of Saturnalia and Yule may have continued in this form.[10] “Misrule” — drunkenness, promiscuity, gambling — was also an important aspect of the festival. In England, gifts were exchanged on New Year’s Day, and there was special Christmas ale.[10]
From the Reformation to the 1800s
During the Reformation, some Protestants condemned Christmas celebration as “trappings of popery” and the “rags of the Beast”. The Roman Catholic Church responded by promoting the festival in an even more religiously oriented form. Following the Parliamentary victory over King Charles I during the English Civil War, England’s Puritan rulers banned Christmas, in 1647. Pro-Christmas rioting broke out in several cities, and for several weeks Canterbury was controlled by the rioters, who decorated doorways with holly and shouted royalist slogans.[12] The Restoration of 1660 ended the ban, but many of the Nonconformist clergy still disapproved of Christmas celebrations, using Puritan arguments.
In Colonial America, the Puritans of New England disapproved of Christmas; its celebration was outlawed in Boston from 1659 to 1681. At the same time, Christian residents of Virginia and New York observed the holiday freely. Christmas fell out of favor in the United States after the American Revolution, when it was considered an English custom.[13]
By the 1820s, sectarian tension in England had eased and British writers began to worry that Christmas was dying out. They imagined Tudor Christmas as a time of heartfelt celebration, and efforts were made to revive the holiday. Charles Dickens’ book A Christmas Carol, published in 1843, played a major role in reinventing Christmas as a holiday emphasizing family, goodwill, and compassion over communal celebration and hedonistic excess.[14]
Interest in Christmas in America was revived in the 1820s by several short stories by Washington Irving appearing in his The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon and “Old Christmas”, and by Clement Clarke Moore’s 1822 poem A Visit From St. Nicholas (popularly known by its first line: Twas the Night Before Christmas). Irving’s stories depicted harmonious warm-hearted holiday traditions he claimed to have observed in England. Although some argue that Irving invented the traditions he describes, they were widely imitated by his American readers.[15] The poem A Visit from Saint Nicholas popularized the tradition of exchanging gifts and seasonal Christmas shopping began to assume economic importance.[16] In her 1850 book “The First Christmas in New England”, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote a character who complained that the true meaning of Christmas was being lost in a shopping spree.[17]
Christmas was declared a United States Federal holiday in 1870. Starting in the late 1800s, the economic importance of Christmas led to concerns over what has been seen by some as the increasing commercialization of Christmas.
Christmas as a celebration of the nativity
The Nativity of Jesus refers to the Christian belief that the messiah was born to the Virgin Mary. The story of Christmas is based on the biblical accounts given in the Gospel of Matthew, namely Matthew 1:18-Matthew 2:12 and the Gospel of Luke, specifically Luke 1:26-Luke 1:56. According to these accounts, Jesus was born to Mary, assisted by her husband Joseph, in the city of Bethlehem. The birth took place in a “stable”, surrounded by farm animals, and the infant Jesus was laid in a manger. Shepherds from the fields surrounding Bethlehem were told of the birth by an angel, and were the first to see the child.[18] Christians believe that the birth of Jesus fulfilled many prophecies made hundreds of years before his birth.
The word “Christmas” is a contraction meaning “Christ’s mass.” It is derived from the Middle English Christemasse and Old English Cristes mæsse, a phrase first recorded in 1038.[7] After the conversion of Anglo-Saxon Britain in the very early 7th century, Christmas was referred to as geol,[7] the name of the pre-Christian solstice festival from which the current English word ‘Yule’ is derived.[19] In early Greek versions of the New Testament, the letter Χ (chi), is the first letter of Christ (Χριστός). Since the mid-sixteenth century Χ, or the similar Roman letter X, was used as an abbreviation for Christ.[20] Hence, “Xmas” is often used as an abbreviation for Christmas.
Remembering or re-creating the Nativity is a central way that Christians celebrate Christmas. The Eastern Orthodox Church practices the Nativity Fast in anticipation of the birth of Jesus, while much of the Western Church celebrates Advent. In some Christian churches, children perform plays re-telling the events of the Nativity, or sing carols that reference the event. Some Christians also display a small re-creation of the Nativity, known as a Nativity scene, in their homes, using figurines to portray the key characters of the event. Live Nativity scenes are also performed, using actors and live animals to portray the event with more realism.[21]
Nativity scenes traditionally include the Three Wise Men, Balthazar, Melchior, and Caspar, although their names and number are not referred to in the Biblical narrative, who are said to have followed a star, known as the Star of Bethlehem, found Jesus, and presented gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.[22]
References:
[1] “Christmas - An Ancient Holiday”, The History Channel, 2007.
[2] “Saturnalia”, The History Channel, 2007.
[3] “Christmas - An Ancient Holiday”, The History Channel, 2007.
[4] “Christmas, Encyclopædia Britannica Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 2006.
[5] “The Feast of the Annunciation”, Catholic Encyclopedia, 1998.
[6] Origen, “Levit., Hom. VIII”; Migne P.G., XII, 495; quoted by Natal Day The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1911
[7] a b c d “Christmas”, The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913.
[8] This document was prepared privately for a Roman aristocrat and is named after an artist who illuminated part of it. The reference to Christmas states, “VIII kal. ian. natus Christus in Betleem Iudeæ”. It is in a section based on an earlier manuscript produced in 336.
[9] Pokhilko, Hieromonk Nicholas, “The Formation of Epiphany according to Different Traditions
[10] a b c d e f Murray, Alexander, “Medieval Christmas”, History Today, December 1986, 36 (12), pp. 31 - 39.
[11] a b McGreevy, Patrick. “Place in the American Christmas,” (JSTOR), Geographical Review, Vol. 80, No. 1. January 1990, pp. 32-42. Retrieved 10 September 2007.
[12] Durston, Chris, “Lords of Misrule: The Puritan War on Christmas 1642-60”, History Today, December 1985, 35 (12) pp. 7 - 14.
[13] Andrews, Peter (1975). Christmas in Colonial and Early America. USA: World Book Encyclopedia, Inc.. ISBN 7-166-2001-4.
[14] Rowell, Geoffrey, “Dickens and the Construction of Christmas”, History Today, December 1993, 43 (12), pp. 17 - 24.
[15] Moore’s poem transferred the genuine old Dutch traditions celebrated at New Year in New York, including the exchange of gifts, family feasting, and tales of “sinterklass” (a derivation in Dutch from “Saint Nicholas,” from whence comes the modern “Santa Claus”) to Christmas.The history of Christmas: Christmas history in America, 2006
[16] usinfo.state.gov “Americans Celebrate Christmas in Diverse Ways”November 26, 2006
[17] First Presbyterian Church of Watertown “Oh . . . and one more thing”December 11, 2005
[18] Luke 2:1-6
[19] “The Christmas Season” The Voice, CRI/Voice, Institute, 2006.
[20] Oxford English Dictionary
[21] Krug, Nora. “Little Towns of Bethlehem”, The New York Times, November 25, 2005.
[22] Matthew 2:1-11