Expert: Brenda Martin - 5/10/2006

Question
As I understand it Christmas has only been celebrated in the way we know it today (holiday, gift exchange, etc) for a little over 100 years.  Is this true?  When and how did it start?
Thanks
Linda

Answer
Hi Linda,you asked--"CHRISTMAS HAS ONLY BEEN CELEBRATED FOR A LITTLE OVER 100 YEARS. WHEN AND HOW DID IT START?"

The World Book Encyclopedia: “The early Christians did not celebrate His [Christ's] birth because they considered the celebration of anyone's birth to be a pagan custom.”—Volume 3, page 416

As many encyclopedias clearly state, Jesus' birthday was arbitrarily set as December 25 to coincide with a Roman pagan festival. Note the following declarations taken from different reference works:

“The date of Christ's birth is not known. The Gospels indicate neither the day nor the month.”—New Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume III, page 656.

“Most of the Christmas customs now prevailing in Europe, or recorded from former times, are not genuine Christian customs, but heathen customs which have been absorbed or tolerated by the Church. . . . The Saturnalia in Rome provided the model for most of the merry customs of the Christmas time.”—Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics (Edinburgh, 1910), edited by James Hastings, Volume III, pages 608-9.

**“Christmas has been celebrated on December 25 in all Christian churches since the fourth century. At that time, this was the date of the pagan winter-solstice festival called the ‘Birth (Latin, natale) of the Sun,' since the sun appeared to be reborn as the days once again became longer. In Rome, the Church adopted this extremely popular custom . . . by giving it a new meaning.”—Encyclopædia Universalis, 1968, (French) Volume 19, page 1375.

“The development of the Christmas festival was influenced by the contrast with the pagan celebrations of the Sol Invictus (Mithra). On the other hand, December 25, being the day of the winter solstice, was identified with the light that broke forth into the world through Christ, and the symbolism of the Sol Invictus was thus transferred to Christ.”—Brockhaus Enzyklopädie, (German) Volume 20, page 125

The Encyclopædia Britannica observes: “In 1644 the English puritans forbad any merriment or religious services by act of Parliament, on the ground that it [Christmas] was a heathen festival, and ordered it to be kept as a fast. Charles II revived the feast, but the Scots adhered to the Puritan view.”

GIFTS & CARDS--  appeared for the first time during the 1840's in England, although exactly who introduced them is a matter of dispute.

“Discovering Christmas Customs and Folklore” explains that the current custom of giving gifts finds its roots in the Saturnalia gifts that Romans offered their poor neighbors. “The early church . . . cleverly transferred its significance to a ritual commemoration of the gifts of the Magi.”

At the beginning of Queen Victoria's reign (1837-1901), according to Gavin Weightman and Steve Humphries, authors of Christmas Past, “no British children hung their stockings by a fireplace on Christmas Eve; nobody had heard of Santa Claus; Christmas crackers did not exist; very few people ate turkey on Christmas Day; it was not common to give presents; and the decorated and lighted Christmas tree was hardly known outside the royal court. In fact, Christmas Day was not a very important date in the calendar for any kind of social ritual.” What happened, then, to revive the popularity of Christmas festivities?

“This transformation of old feasts into one short, respectable family event began around the 1830s . . . and was more or less complete by the 1870s, which was when the figure of Santa Claus first appeared in Britain,” states Christmas Past.

At the same time, the publication of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, a story of miserly Scrooge's conversion to the spirit of Christmas, sparked a mood of benevolence toward the poor. The squalid conditions and economic hardships of living in towns spawned by the Industrial Revolution prompted the Victorians to take up a kind of moral crusade that, in the later Edwardian period, was modified to bring charity only to the “respectable” poor.

The early Christians did not celebrate Christmas, nor do Jehovah's Witnesses celebrate it today or take part in activities that are associated with Christmas.


All the best
Brenda