Thursday 27 December 2007

Christmas

And its origins

To those who lament that people have forgotten the true meaning of Christmas and should think more about its origins I say: I couldn’t agree more.

The first thing to remember is that Christmas is older than Christianity. As with other festive occasions during the year, the Church simply jumped on the bandwagon and took over the previous ones. Nobody really knows what year Christ was born in, let alone the day.

Basically, the ‘holy days’ are tied to the annual cycle of the seasons as the earth moves round the sun. And late December, with the shortest day past and less work to do in the fields, was a good time to celebrate.

Deities of some earlier religions had their birthday celebrated on December 25. For the Romans this was winter solstice (under the old Julian calendar) and had a festival to honour the birthday of the ‘unvanquished sun’ (Dies Natalis Solis Invicti), worshipping several sun gods.

The Scandinavian late December festival was Yule, and Christmas is still called jul (with the ‘j’ pronounced like an English ‘y’). Thor, the god of thunder, was honoured by lighting yule logs and feasting could continue for as long as they went on burning, which might be many days.

So by what method was December 25 made to be the birthday of the supposed Messiah (christos = ‘messiah’ in Greek translation)? The line of reasoning adopted in the third century was that the ‘Creation’ must have taken place at the spring equinox, which under the old reckoning was March 25. By extension, that must also have been the time when Christ was conceived. Go forward nine months from March 25 et voilĂ ! Simple.

What about the trappings of Christmas? The Romans feasted, made merry and gave gifts at their Saturnalia (in honour of Saturn) and New Year festivals. Christmas trees came from Germany at a much later date but with antecedents in medieval times, although evergreen decorations are much older still, having been used symbolically in ancient Egypt, China and elsewhere. Christmas cards are comparatively recent, of course, going back to the 1840s in Britain, three decades later in the US.

So let’s remember the origins of the festive season. There is cause to celebrate. The days are getting longer, the sun rising higher in the sky — in the northern hemisphere, that is. South of the equator they should be celebrating in June.