Christmas is celebrated today in the Western world as the day of the birth of Jesus Christ. No one knows when Christ was born but scholars estimate in to be in the fall perhaps during the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles. All agree that it was unlikely that He was born on December 25th since the bible records shepherds tending their sheep in the fields on that night. This is quite unlikely to have happened during a cold Judean winter. Actually December 25 celebrations have their origin in pagan celebrations centered on their Gods at the time.
To many ancient civilizations the winter solstice had spiritual meaning. The ruins at Stonehenge are believed to be the site of winter solstice celebrations. The Mayans are also said to have placed great importance on the time when the tile of the earth produced the shortest day of the year. In ancient Babylon, the feast of the Son of Isis (Goddess of Nature) was celebrated on December 25. Raucous partying, gluttonous eating and drinking, and gift-giving were traditions of this feast.
In Rome, the Winter Solstice was celebrated many years before the birth of Christ. The Romans called their winter holiday Saturnalia, honoring Saturn, the God of Agriculture. In January, they observed the Kalends of January, which represented the triumph of life over death. This whole season was called Dies Natalis Invicti Solis, the Birthday of the Unconquered Sun. The festival season was marked by much merrymaking. It is said that many Roman laws were suspended at this time so the partying could go on night and day. Even slaves were allowed to participate. It is in ancient Rome that the tradition of the Mummers was born. The Mummers were groups of costumed singers and dancers who traveled from house to house entertaining their neighbors. From this, the Christmas tradition of caroling was born.
In northern Europe, many other traditions that we now consider part of Christian worship were begun long before the participants had ever heard of Christ. The pagans of northern Europe celebrated their own winter solstice, known as Yule. Yule was symbolic of the pagan Sun God, Mithras, being born, and was observed on the shortest day of the year. As the Sun God grew and matured, the days became longer and warmer. It was customary to light a candle to encourage Mithras, and the sun, to reappear next year.
Huge Yule logs were burned in honor of the sun. The word Yule itself means �wheel,� the wheel being a pagan symbol for the sun. Mistletoe was considered a sacred plant, and the custom of kissing under the mistletoe began as a fertility ritual. Hollyberries were thought to be a food of the gods.
The tree is the one symbol that unites almost all the northern European winter solstices. Live evergreen trees were often brought into homes during the harsh winters as a reminder to inhabitants that soon their crops would grow again. Evergreen boughs were sometimes carried as totems of good luck and were often present at weddings, representing fertility. The Druids used the tree as a religious symbol, holding their sacred ceremonies while surrounding and worshipping huge trees. To the Norse the tree was a symbol of life.
In the 4th century Emperor Constantine declared Christianity to be the official religion of Rome, denouncing the pagan gods formerly worshipped, In 350, Pope Julius I declared that Christ�s birth would be celebrated on December 25. There is little doubt that he was trying to make it as painless as possible for pagan Romans (who remained a majority at that time) to convert to Christianity. The new religion went down a bit easier, knowing that their feasts would not be taken away from them. This is true of many Catholic symbols and celebrations today. Holy water, images of Christ on a cross, the cross itself were all pagan symbols introduced into the Catholic church to make the religion palatable to the pagans.
Christmas (Christ-Mass) as we know it today, most historians agree, began in Germany, though Catholics and Lutherans still disagree about which church celebrated it first. The earliest record of an evergreen being decorated in a Christian celebration was in 1521 in the Alsace region of Germany. A prominent Lutheran minister of the day cried blasphemy: �Better that they should look to the true tree of life, Christ.�
Around AD 200, Clement of Alexandria wrote that a group in Egypt celebrated the nativity on 25 Pashons. This corresponds to May 20. Tertullian does not mention Christmas as a major feast day in the Church of Roman Africa. However, in Chronographai, a reference work published in 221, Sextus Julius Africanus suggested that Jesus was conceived on the spring equinox, popularizing the idea that Christ was born on December 25.The equinox was March 25 on the Roman calendar, so this implied a birth in December. De Pascha Computus, a calendar of feasts produced in 243, gives March 28 as the date of the nativity. In 245, the theologian Origen of Alexandria stated that, "only sinners (like Pharaoh and Herod)" celebrated their birthdays. In 303, Christian writer Arnobius ridiculed the idea of celebrating the birthdays of gods. However, since Christmas does not celebrate Christ's birth "as God" but "as man", this is not evidence against Christmas being a feast at this time. Moreover, the fact that the innovation rejecting Donatist Church of North Africa celebrated Christmas suggests that the feast had been established before the living memory of those who began that Church in 311.
The earliest known reference to the date of the nativity as December 25 is found in the Chorography of 354, an illuminated manuscript compiled in Rome. In the East, early Christians celebrated the birth of Christ as part of Epiphany (January 6), although this festival emphasized celebration of the baptism of Jesus. Christmas was promoted in the Christian East as part of the revival of Catholicism following the death of the pro-Arian Emperor Valensat the Battle of Adrianople in 378. The feast was introduced to Constantinople in 379, and to Antioch in about 380. The feast disappeared after Gregory of Nazianzus resigned as bishop in 381, although it was reintroduced by John Chrysostom in about 400.
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. In Italy, former Saturnalian traditions were attached to Advent. Around the 12th century, these traditions transferred again to the Twelve Days of Christmas (December 25 � January 5); a time that appears in the liturgical calendars as Christmastide or Twelve Holy Days. The prominence of Christmas Day increased gradually after Charlemagne was crowned Emperor on Christmas Day in 800. King Edmund the Martyr was anointed on Christmas in 855 and King William I of England was crowned on Christmas Day 1066.
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. 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. "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.
Christmas during the Middle Ages was a public festival that incorporated ivy, holly, and other evergreens. Christmas gift-giving during the Middle Ages was usually between people with legal relationships, such as tenant and landlord. The annual indulgence in eating, dancing, singing, sporting, card playing escalated in England, and by the 17th century the Christmas season featured lavish dinners, elaborate masques and pageants. In 1607, King James I insisted that a play be acted on Christmas night and that the court indulge in games. It was during the Reformation in 16th�17th century Europe, that many Protestants changed the gift bringer to the Christ Child or Christkindl, and the date of giving gifts changed from December 6 to Christmas Eve.
Following the Protestant Reformation, groups such as the Puritans strongly condemned the celebration of Christmas, considering it a Catholic invention and the "trappings of popery" or the "rags of the Beast." The Catholic Church responded by promoting the festival in a more religiously oriented form. King Charles I of England directed his noblemen and gentry to return to their landed estates in midwinter to keep up their old style Christmas generosity. Following the Parliamentarian victory over Charles I during the English Civil War,
England's Puritan rulers banned Christmas in 1647. Protests followed as pro-Christmas rioting broke out in several cities and for weeks Canterbury was controlled by the rioters, who decorated doorways with holly and shouted royalist slogans. The book, The Vindication of Christmas (London, 1652), argued against the Puritans, and makes note of Old English Christmas traditions, dinner, roast apples on the fire, card playing, dances with "plow-boys" and "maidservants", and carol singing. The Restoration of King Charles II in 1660 ended the ban, but many clergymen still disapproved of Christmas celebration. In Scotland, the Presbyterian Church of Scotland also discouraged observance of Christmas. James VI commanded its celebration in 1618, however attendance at church was scant.
In Colonial America, the Puritans of New England shared radical Protestant disapproval of Christmas. Celebration was outlawed in Boston from 1659 to 1681. The ban by the Pilgrims was revoked in 1681 by English governor Sir Edmund Andros, however it was not until the mid-19th century that celebrating Christmas became fashionable in the Boston region. At the same time, Christian residents of Virginia and New York observed the holiday freely. Pennsylvania German Settlers, pre-eminently the Moravian settlers of Bethlehem, Nazarethand Lititz in Pennsylvania and the Wachovia Settlements in North Carolina, were enthusiastic celebrators of Christmas. The Moravians in Bethlehem had the first Christmas.
Thus from these humble pagan beginnings is born the mega commercial holiday we have today, still celebrated as Christ�s birthday but with hearts far from the Lord in most cases.
You're not gonna find many friends on here ridiculing america's pet holiday.
Jer 10:1-4 Hear ye the word which the LORD speaketh unto you, O house of Israel: Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.
Sounds like a rotten ol' Christmas tree to me.
I don't have a problem remembering Christ's birth on Dec 25. It's the other junk I don't go along w/.
And so you and a few others don't believe in Christians celebrating a day that we according to our faith have set aside to celebrate our Lord's birthday?
And sooo?... that's your small weak faith. but my Bible tells me NOT TO ALLOW ANYONE to judge or rob me of my faith, based on thier LACK OF FAITH AND KEEPING OF WHAT THEY BELIEVE WHICH IS NOT BY FAITH.
"Therefore let NO ONE JUDGE you in food or in drink, or regarding a festval or a new moon or sabbath, which are a shadow of things to come, but the SUBSTANCE IS OF CHRIST. Colossians chapter 2.
And again, "Happy is the person who does not CONDEMN HIM/HERSELF in what he approves. BUT THE PERSON WHO WHO DOUBTS, IS CONDEMNED IF HE EATS OR DRINKS, OR(WHATEVER), BECAUSE HE DOES NOT EAT OR DRINK OR (WHATEVER) FROM (BY) FAITH. BECAUSE WHATEVER IS NOT DONE BY FAITH, IS SIN!
So if you don't believe in celebrating Christmas as a day set aside to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, then don't celebrate. But you sure can't STOP other Christians from celebrating.
And another thing, when Christmas rolls around in 2011, and you get time and a half or a day off as a holiday... why don't you have even holiness in you and tell your boss, not to pay you for that day,n or give you that day off, because you don;'t believe in celebrating Christmas. Thereforew, you and all ther est who don't believe, in clebrating Christmas, ket's see who big and saved you are...give back that time and a half pay check, and next Christmas, tell your boss you would rather work and get paid your regular salary! I wonder if you celebrate your pwn birthday? It is a known that those who oppse to celebrating December 25 as Christ's birthday, usually don't celebrate thie own birthday, because no one remembers them.
Try reading Romans chapter 14, and be illuminated into what God has to say about being self righteous in judguing what others eat or drink, or what day the set aside unto the Lord...Who are you to judge? YOU AND ALL THOSE LIKE YOU ARE NOTHING BUT WHITE WALL HYPOCRATES!...
The above post is to Enoch and all those who don't believe in celebrating Dec 25th as the day we CHRISTIANS HAVE SET ASIDE IN CELEBRATION AND REMEMBRANCE OF OUR LORD'S BIRTHDAY!
Let see if you give back the money from your jobs that was given to you for working on Dec. 25th.... time and a half was it? Or pay back the money because you DIDN"T have to work (day off) on December 25th...
