The History of~Christmas

Christmas, today it is the most well known and the most celebrated holiday in the world (at least in the civilized world). It's a holiday where we think about snow, getting gifts, \*giving\* gifts, decorating trees and thinking of a silly old man with a white beard and wears a red suit.

But, how did this holiday come to be? This is what this page will try to cover.

## Birth of Jesus?

Now, most people may recognize Christmas being associated with the birth of who would be the creator of Christianity, *Jesus of Nazareth* as his parents *Joseph*and *Mary* as they were in a manger when he was supposedly born. According to the Old Testiment of the Christian Bible, he was born on Midnight on December 25 in a small town called *Bethlehem*.

Now, this is where a lot of Christians will just call it the day (or should I say "Christmas" Day) and say that is where we began celebrating Christmas.

In reality, this is an ongoing debate on whether or not this is absolutely true of Jesus of Nazareth was indeed born on December 25.

I even did some extra studying about the kind of devices that allowed us to track time accurately. Back during supposedly Jesus' birth, there were no clocks, no watches and no calendars (at least not the Julian or Georgian Calendars), and Sundials were also crudely made as the sundial we're familiar with wasn't invented until 1570, but even then sundials don't work at night.

So, in actual history, how did Christmas began? There was once an old Roman holiday known as "Saturnalia".

## Saturnalia

Saturnalia (derived from the older Greek holiday known as *Kronia*) was celebrated by the Romans which is some kind of a festival which lasts for 6 days (From December 17 to the 23 on the Julian Calendar) where the Romans would honor *Saturn.*

No, not the planet *Saturn,*the Roman God of Agriculture.

Saturnalia is celebrated something like a festival which begins with some kind of sacrifice at the *Temple of Saturn*which is fallowed by a banquet, and then people "give gifts" (usually with pottery or wax figures) then followed by partying as well as gambling. It was accustomed to crown a "King" of the holiday who would then tell people how to spread the cheer of Saturnalia.

## Crowning of Charlemagne

But Christianity \*did\* play a key role in the history of Christmas. In 800 CE, the Holy Roman knight called "Charlemagne" was crowned an Emperor by the Pope "Leo the 3rd" on December 25, and during his reign he united most of Europe and it became the tradition to celebrate December 25 as their "Holy Day".

## History of Other Christmas stuff

But what about some other thing about Christmas? Like that "Silly old man with the white beard and wears red?" I mentioned earlier, and I'm talking about *Santa Claus*.

### Santa Claus

It all began in supposedly in the 4th Century AD with a Christian Convert named *St. Nicholas* (yeah, the "original" Saint Nick). According to official records, he began using his fami;y's wealth to give to other people, the first people to receive St. Nick's gold are 2 women before they were forced into protitution and would do it every night for about 3 nights until the women's father could afford something called a *Dowry*. It's also said that he calmed a raging storm and saving 3 innocent soldiers from execution. Eventually, St. Nick was named a Bishop. Around 2 centuries after his death, a church was establihsed in his name.

But even with this history of a Christian Saint, it isn't enough to cover the history of Christmas' most famous icon. During the Medieval times in Europe and in the Dutch capital of Amsterdam, St. Nick was idolized as he was known as *Sinterklaas.* As the Dutch colonized in North America, they also brought their tradition in Amsterdam.

### Decorating Trees

It's pretty difficult to know exactly when we started to decorate trees for certain holidays, but old holidays in ancient Egypt and Europe have decorated trees for holidays for at least several millenia as to celebrate the season of winter (as it's the day where aytime is the shortest, no duh). However, the idea of using trees on Christmas didn't come until sometime in the 16th century when German Christians such as Christian-refromist "Martin Luther" (the originator of Lutheran) as they put candles on the tree's boughs which represents the sparkling stars. With every religion also caught on to this idea, but as some Europeans came to America (such as the Puritans) didn't like the idea of decorating trees due to it's roots on Paganism, and because of this. Christmas trees weren't used in America until the late 19th century.

### It's War History

On Christmas Day in 1776, George Washington and the Continental Army crossed the Delaware River (the natural border between New Jersey and Pennsylvania) which allowed the continental army take the British Army by surprised in the battle that took place on the following day.

On Christmas Day in 1814, the "Treaty of Ghent" was signed and thus ended the *War of 1812*.

On December 7 in 1914 (several months after World War 1 began) Pope Benedict the 15th wanted to declare a temporary ceasfire so soldiers can rest for Christmastime, this was ignored by the high commands of the warring factions, but the soliders in the field complied to this. On the night of Christmas Eve, British and German Soldiers all sang Christmas Carols, on Christmas Morning the soldiers greeted each other, instead of swapping lead, they swapped gifts (basically whatever they had on hand) shook-hands and wished each other a Merry Christmas. This was called famously the "Christmas Truce", it lasted up until January and was never repeated. But it definitely shows that soldiers even when fighting a war can show a sense of humanity.

Want to know about the American Revolution? Click on this link.

Don't forget to check out my Games and Movies wikis too. Until next time, this is JohnnyOTGS signing out.