Christmas is today the iconic Christian festival. Which goes a long way to explaining the determination of the globalist elite to erase it and replace it with the anodyne ‘holidays’. But even half a century’s diligent propagandising to supplant Christmas with ‘Exmass’, as C S Lewis dubbed it, hasn’t been completely successful. For all the ubiquity of Santas’n’snowmen, the real, Christian iconography of the Nativity continue to exercise an enduring appeal.
But Christmas was, for much of Christian history, not the most important Christian festival.
In the early years of Christianity, Easter was the main holiday; the birth of Jesus was not celebrated. In the fourth century, church officials decided to institute the birth of Jesus as a holiday.
Even so, Easter remained the pre-eminent Christian day. In fact, it remained the sole obligatory day for Christians. Missing Easter mass was long grounds for excommunication.
The problem facing the church in the fourth century was that no one knew when Jesus was actually born. Internal evidence, such as the shepherds watching their flocks by night, suggests spring. But for more political reasons, Pope Julius I chose 25 December. Political needn’t, by the way, mean cynical. Syncretism has a long history in religion. As new faiths arose and disparate faiths met, believers naturally sought out common ground. New converts found it easier to adopt a new religion if it conveniently harmonised with aspects of their own.
Indeed, by yoking Christianity to ancient practices, church leaders traded wider appeal to new converts for less control over how it was celebrated.
With the new Feast of the Nativity coinciding with the ancient festival of Saturnalia, itself just one of many midwinter festivals in Europe, the new Christian celebration inherited many decidedly raucous pagan features. The midwinter festival was, after all, supposed to be a bright spot in the bleak northern winter.
On Christmas, believers attended church, then celebrated raucously in a drunken, carnival-like atmosphere similar to today’s Mardi Gras. Each year, a beggar or student would be crowned the “lord of misrule” and eager celebrants played the part of his subjects. The poor would go to the houses of the rich and demand their best food and drink. If owners failed to comply, their visitors would most likely terrorize them with mischief. Christmas became the time of year when the upper classes could repay their real or imagined “debt” to society by entertaining less fortunate citizens.
These practices would be very familiar to a pagan Roman. At the peak of Saturnalia, the Saturnalicius princeps ruled as master of ceremonies for the proceedings. He was appointed by lot and would issue capricious commands, such as ‘Sing naked!’, that had to be obeyed. Masters would also swap places with servants, who got to order them around. Guests would wear a Phrygian cap (reminiscent of the paper crowns in Christmas crackers today) and houses would be decorated with greenery.
From Scandinavia came a similar greenery tradition. When the Norse celebrated Yule, beginning with the winter solstice, the eagerly awaited return of the sun was invoked by fathers and sons bringing home a large log. Given that feasting continued the whole time the log burned, the bigger the better (sometimes as long as weeks). The Norse also believed that each spark from the fire represented a new pig or calf that would be born during the coming year.
Feasting on meat was enabled by the practice of slaughtering excess cattle so they wouldn’t have to be fed during the winter. Wine and beer made in spring was finally fermented and ready to drink.
Over the years, more strait-laced Christians came to frown on such pagan indulgences. During Oliver Cromwell’s rule in the 17th century, the Puritans cancelled Christmas as part of their efforts to rid England of decadence. With the restoration of the monarchy came the restoration of Christmas.
The Puritans’ namesakes in the New World were even bigger party poopers than the Roundheads.
From 1659 to 1681, the celebration of Christmas was actually outlawed in Boston. Anyone exhibiting the Christmas spirit was fined five shillings. By contrast, in the Jamestown settlement, Captain John Smith reported that Christmas was enjoyed by all and passed without incident.
After the American Revolution, English customs fell out of favor, including Christmas. In fact, Christmas wasn’t declared a federal holiday until June 26, 1870.
The 19th century in fact invented much of what we today think of as ‘traditional’ Christmas.
Also around this time, English author Charles Dickens created the classic holiday tale, A Christmas Carol. The story’s message – the importance of charity and good will towards all humankind – struck a powerful chord in the United States and England and showed members of Victorian society the benefits of celebrating the holiday.
The family was also becoming less disciplined and more sensitive to the emotional needs of children during the early 1800s. Christmas provided families with a day when they could lavish attention – and gifts – on their children without appearing to “spoil” them.
Nineteenth-century America was a time of bitter class conflict. So Washington Irving published a collection of stories, The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., purporting to depict a class-harmonious Christmas in an English manor house.
The sketches feature a squire who invited the peasants into his home for the holiday. In contrast to the problems faced in American society, the two groups mingled effortlessly. In Irving’s mind, Christmas should be a peaceful, warm-hearted holiday bringing groups together across lines of wealth or social status. Irving’s fictitious celebrants enjoyed “ancient customs,” including the crowning of a Lord of Misrule. Irving’s book, however, was not based on any holiday celebration he had attended – in fact, many historians say that Irving’s account actually “invented” tradition by implying that it described the true customs of the season.
Nineteenth-century America also gave birth to the modern Christmas icon, Santa Claus.
The legend of Santa Claus can be traced back to a monk named St Nicholas who was born in Turkey around AD 280. St Nicholas gave away all of his inherited wealth and traveled the countryside helping the poor and sick, becoming known as the protector of children and sailors […]
In 1822, Episcopal minister Clement Clarke Moore wrote a Christmas poem called “An Account of a Visit from St Nicholas,” more popularly known today by it’s first line: “’Twas The Night Before Christmas.” The poem depicted Santa Claus as a jolly man who flies from home to home on a sled driven by reindeer to deliver toys.
The iconic version of Santa Claus as a jolly man in red with a white beard and a sack of toys was immortalized in 1881, when political cartoonist Thomas Nast drew on Moore’s poem to create the image of Old Saint Nick we know today.
And thus the patron saint of ‘Exmass’ was born.
