El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1898-12-24
CHRISTMAS DAY
In History, Associations, and OBJ
SerVdnCe.

Ah uSSVAyS HSSVN1oSsVhSs onu W.
servance.
For the Herald.
In China Christmas is q general
holiday, the shops are shut and courts
closed. No journey would, under any
circumstances, be commenced on that
day.
| The Hindoos on Christmas decorate
their homes withgar land ,of.fowers and
papers of gold and tinsel, and the GUS
tom of making presents to relatives
and friends Ia generally observed.
1t will be admitted that Christmas is
| reverence being felt for the day rs
| we'll as for the beautiful associations
| with which it is forever connected.
The Christmas tree, the decking of
churches, and occasionally of houses,
| with evergreens-especia with the
mi stletOe, to which a sacredness has
been attached since the days of the
Druids-are now almost all of the ira
dictionary customs that are left to us.
Fabricus gives a catalogue of no less
than one hundred and thirty-six diff
ferent opinions concerning the year of
Christ's birth; and as regards the day,
and by CONNIE tators in every month
if the year. It does not appear that
there was any uniformity of it's obser-
vance among the early Christians.
There is no holiday so generally
kept as Christmas. In Germany and
Great Britain the merry season Is OBJ
served with more spirit perhaps than
in any other portions of Europe; and in
parts of the United States, where tho
country was originally settled by Ger
mans or by English, the observance Of
nr riSfi q, n
cided.
In New England, in the early finest
the Puritans set their faces sgainsr
Christmas jollities, because of theie
vanity and worJdiness," but more
particularly because their observance
would involve q sort of recognition of
prelscy and its institutions. But the
New Englsnders could not dispense
with holiday of some kind, toward
the close of the year; SO they invented
Thanksgiving Day, and they were long
wont to console themselves with pump
kin custards in lieu of the plum pu d.
dinRs and mince pies of the legitimate
Christmas observers.
Under another name, that of Pelschi-
mol nicholas with the fur, in allusion
to his fur garments and cap), wherever
Germans or their descendants may
have settled in this country, Santa
Claus appears in character which
wofully believes his usually benignant
one, til at of the punisher of children,
for as sucn he places the rod in the
stocking of the naughty child, while
1t is the Kriss-Kingle Chat sadly
mutilated form of the beautiful word
Christ Kindlein,s Christ Child) that is
supposed to descend the chimney to
fill with gifts the stockings of the
good.
ST. Chrysostom informs US that, orig
inally, Christmas and Epiphany were
celebrated at one and the same feast,
probably from the mistaken belief that
the rising of the "Star in the East"
and the birth of Christ, were simulta-
neous. The separation was effected at
the council of Nice A. D. 1927, when In
the opinion of many, there was no au-
thentic proof for the Identification of
the day, yet the decision was accepted,
and I, ON that time celebrated through
out the country on December the TWEEN
ty fifth, the only exception being the
Armenians, who continued to make one
feast of the two as late as the thir-
teenth century.