48. History of Christmas
Commercial activities during Christmas today are generally decried as making the season too materialistic. This has caused comments that the religious aspect of Christmas is so overlooked and overshadowed that its celebration seems to be purely pagan. But today's comparisons aren't the first there has been some link between Christmas and pagan celebrations. As a religious, church leaders instituted Christmas during winter because that time of year was a common for the celebrations of a lot of pagan festivals. The hope was that Christmas would also turn out to be a holiday that would gain much popularity.
Long prior to the birth of Jesus Christ, people in diverse parts of Europe would celebrate light and birth inside the darkest days of winter. The winter solstice, when the harshest component of winter was over, was a time of celebration for a large number of peoples because they would look forward to more hours of sunlight during the longer days ahead.
The Norse in Scandinavia celebrated Yule from the winter solstice on December 21 through to January. Men brought house logs that were lighted along with a feast would take place until the log was entirely burned. Every spark from the fire was believed to represent a new pig or calf to be born within the coming new year. The pagan god Oden was honored by Germans throughout the mid-winter holiday. Oden inspired outstanding fear in the Germans who believed that Oden traveled at nights by way of the sky to observe people and make a decision about who would perish or prosper in life. This belief caused most people to stay inside during the period.
In Rome it was the god of agriculture, Saturn, who was honored in a holiday called Saturnalia. It was a holiday that started throughout the week that led up to the winter solstice and continued for a month with hedonistic celebrations. There was plenty of food and drink along with the regular social class rules of who had privilege and power in Roman society had completely disregarded as everyone participated inside festivities. Some Romans also had a feast known Juvenalia to honor children and also birthday of the sun god Mithra was occasionally celebrated by the upper classes.
In the early years of the begin of Christianity the main holiday was Easter. It was in the 4th Century that church officials made a choice to have the birth of Jesus celebrated as a holiday and Pope Julius I chose December 25 as the day of Jesus' birth. The holiday, which was very first known as the Feast of the Nativity, spread to England by the end of the 6th Century and to Scandinavia by the end of the 8th Century.
Church leaders achieved the goal of having Christmas celebrations, such as attendance at church, turn into well-known during the winter solstice, but they were unable to control other pagan-like celebrations throughout Christmas. Believers would attend church on Christmas and then participate later in raucous and drunken celebrations. But by the Middle Ages, from around the 5th to the 16th Century, Christianity had outgrown paganism as a religion.
The celebration of Christmas in Europe changed inside the early 17th Century when Oliver Cromwell as well as the Puritans gained power in England in 1645. To remove decadent behavior from the society, Cromwell cancelled Christmas as the Puritans noted that the Bible doesn't mention any date for Jesus' birth. The lack of this info and particular Biblical references to Christmas is also cited by religious groups like Jehovah Witnesses as the reason they don't observe or participate in Christmas. Christmas celebrations returned in England around 1649 when Charles II was restored to the throne.
Christmas wasn't a holiday in early America because the Pilgrims who came to America had even stricter beliefs than Cromwell plus the Puritans. Christmas celebrations had been even forbidden in Boston from 1659 to 1681. During the exact same time nonetheless, settlers in Jamestown in Virginia were reported to have enjoyed Christmas. After the American Revolution Christmas once more lost popularity and it wasn't until June 26, 1870 that Christmas was declared a federal holiday. Christmas in the United States gained popularity as a holiday period throughout the 19th Century. Christmas celebrations also changed at that time to be additional family-centered instead of being carnival-like.
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