The Celebration of Christmas
Adapted from Clement A. Miles: Christmas in Ritual and Tradition. (1912)
Nearly all peoples set aside days for special ceremonial observances
and outward rejoicing. To concentrate on special times answers the human
need to lift ourselves above the commonplace and the everyday, to escape
from the leaden weight of monotony. That festivals wake people up is
the justification for them, and people's religious sense and their joy in life
have generally tended to rise into peaks and towers and turrets. It is
difficult to be religious, impossible to be merry, at every moment of
life. Festivals are like sunlit peaks above dark valleys. This is one view of
the purpose and value of festivals, and cheering people and giving them
larger perspectives has no doubt been an important reason for them.
Probably the practice came into being not for the sake of its moral or
emotional effect, but from the desire to lay up, so to speak, a stock of
sanctity, magical not ethical, for ordinary days
.
The foremost annual festival in our culture is Christmas, one
manifestation of the tradition of celebrating the turn of
the seasons. It is a tradition much older than Christianity.
The English word Christmas and its Dutch equivalent
Kerstmisse point to the ecclesiastical side of the festival.
The German Weihnacht (sacred night) is more vague,
and may be either pagan or Christian; in point of fact it
seems to be Christian, since it does not appear until the
year 1000, when the Christian faith was well established
in Germany. The words Christmas and Weihnacht,
then, may stand for the distinctively Christian form of
the ancient festival.
When did the keeping of Christmas begin? It is not part
of original Christianity. The earliest celebration of the
birth of Jesus on December 25 took place at Rome only
in the fourth century. The observance of that day
spread from the western to the eastern Church, which
had previously kept January 6 as a joint
commemoration of the Nativity and the Baptism of the
Redeemer. Centuries before Christianity, the
worshippers of Cybele celebrated the birthday of their
resurrected redeemer Attis each December 25th. This
ancient faith was indigenous to Phrygia (now Turkey),
where Galatia is located. In his Epistle to the Galatians,
Paul cautions his Christian adherents against
celebrating the special days of the old religion
(Galatians 4:10). But the attraction of the old tradition
proved too strong to be resisted forever, and after
three hundred years the Feast of the Nativity on
December 25th was restored, this time as a festival of
Christianity. The first mention of a Christian Nativity
feast on December 25 is found in a Roman document,
the Philocalian Calendar, dating from the year 354.
The Christian form of Christmas cannot be traced
earlier than that. The Puritans of England and
America correctly recognized that Christmas is not
originally Christian; when they gained the upper hand
they tried to suppress it.
An opportunity to turn the feast into a fast--as the
early Church had done with the Roman Kalends
festival--came in 1644. Englands Puritan-dominated
Parliament, in its zeal against carnal pleasures,
published its "Ordinance for the better observation
of the Feast of the Nativity of Christ". But, as had
happened in the fourth century, the people's love of
Christmas overcame the foes of the festival.
Protests were made against the suppression of the
holiday. Every Christmas Day from 1644 to 1656,
the shops in London were all closed, and in 1646
the people who opened their shops were so
roughly abused that next year they petitioned
Parliament to protect them. In 1647 the shops
were indeed all closed, but evergreen decorations
were put up in the City, and the Lord Mayor and
City Marshal went around setting fire to them.
There were riots in country places, notably at
Canterbury. When the Puritans lost power,
Christmas naturally came back to full recognition,
but it is doubtful whether it has ever been quite
the same thing since the Puritan Revolution.
Protestantism, in proportion to the strength of its
Puritan elements, has always tried to destroy the
old pagan traditions and festivals. Calvinism has
been more destructive than Lutheranism, which
in the Scandinavian countries left standing many
of the externals of Catholicism as well as many
Christmas customs that are purely pagan.
German Lutheranism has tolerated and even
hallowed the pagan ritual of the Christmas tree.
All these seasonal festivals are really just
modern adaptations of the celebration of the
Winter Solstice, with roots older than history.
Since the ascendance of Christianity in the time
of Constantine (272-337) and Augustine
(354-430), Christmas has been considered the
Nativity of Christ and made one of the important
dates on the Christian calendar. But, however
you adapt it, and develop it as you will, the real
place of this holiday is that it is unmistakably an
ancient and very human celebration. It belongs
to all of us. Enjoy it!
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