Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1879-12-26
Christmas.

East and the West was an agreement up
on the 25th of December. The chief
grounds for the decision were the tables
of the censors in the archives of Rome;
and although, in the opinion of some. of
the fathers, there was not authentic proof
of the Identification of the day, yet the
decision was uniformly accepted, and
from that time the nativity has been GEL
ebrated throughout the church on the
same day, 1t has also been common
tradition that Christ was born about the
middle of the night. The custom in
Roman Catholic countries of ushering
in Christmas day by the celebration of
three masses, one at midnight, the sec.
ond at early dawn, and the third in the
morning, dates from the 9Th century,
The day was considered in the double
light of holy commemoration and q
cheerful festival, and was accordingly
distinguished by devotion, by vacation
from business, and by merriment. Dur
ing the middle ages it was celebrated by
the gay fantastic spectacle of dramatic
mysteries and moralities, performed by
personages in grotesque masks and 81; .
gular costumes. The scenery usually
represented an infant in a cradle, SIT
rounded by the Virgin Mary and St..
Joseph. by bulls heads, cherubs, caste: n
magi, and maniford ornaments. The
custom ofslnging canticles at Christmas,
called carols, which recalled the songs
of the shepherds at the birth of Christ,
d ties from the time when the common
people ceased to understand Latin. The
bishops and lower clergy often joined
with the populace in carolling, and the
songs were en]ivened by dances and by
the music of tambours, guitars, vi61ins
and organs. Fathers, mothers, sons, and
daughters mingled together in the dance:
if in the night, each bearing in his hand
a lighted taper.
During the last days preceding Christ
mas it is still the custom for Calabrian
minstrels to descend from the mountains
to Naples and Rome, saluting the shrines
of the Virgin Mother with their wild
music, under the poetical notion of cheer
ing her until the birth time of her infant
at the approaching Christmass In the
Protestant districts of Germany and the
north of Europe, Christmas is often
called the "children's festival" and
Christmas eve is devoted to giving pres
ents, especially between parents and
children, and brothers and sisters, by
means of the so-called Christmas tree.
1t is an old Swedish tradition, preserved
in the history of CLAUS, archbishop of
Upsal, that at the festival of Christmas
the men living in the cold northern
parts are suddenly and strangely meta
morphosed into wolves; and that huge
multitude of them meet together at an
appointed place during the night, and
rage so fiercely against mankind and
other creatures not fierce by nature, that
the inhabitants of that country suffer
more from their attacks than ever they
do from natural wolves.
It was an old English superstition that
on Christmas eve the oxen were always
found ON their knees, as in an attitude of
devotion, and after the change from old
to new style they continued to do this
only on the eve of old Christmas day.
This was derived from prevalent me-
di@val notion that an OK and an ass
which were present at the nativity fell
upon their knees in suppliant posture,
as appears from numerous prints and
from the Latin poem of Sannazaro in the
10Th century.
In the United States, since the Puri-
tans were at first stern opponents of
Christmas pastimes, the day was for a
long time less generally celebrated in
New England than in the middle and
southern states. It has been made
legal holiday in several of the states, and
is usually observed by religious ser
vice and by making presents, and not
unfreqnently by trimming houses and
churches with evergreens, and by initial
ing the German custom of Christmas
trees. Santa Claus (St. Nicholas). orig
inally introduced by the Dutch settlers
in New York, is the American renresen.
tative of the German Knecht Rupert.