Goofy Christmas Traditions
Have you ever wondered why we have certain traditions around the holidays? To someone who didn’t know the culture, we would all seem to be acting fairly crazy during the early winter months. After all, if you really think about it, it is kind of goofy to pull a tree into your house and cover it with ornaments. And what about going to random strangers’ houses and singing songs on their front porch in the snow? Downright strange, if you ask me.
Well, after doing some research I discovered that a lot of our traditions have a very interesting and sometimes ancient history. Here’s my top five picks for goofy holiday traditions explained.
Legend actually credits Martin Luther, the German monk who started the Reformation, with the first Christmas tree. It is said that he was walking along one night and for some reason gazed up at the stars through the branches of a tree. He was struck by the beauty of it and rushed home to put candles on the branches of a tree. (Little did he know how many Christmas trees would burn down over the years as a result of that little experiment! Thank goodness for electric lights!)
Paradise trees have also been traced as an immediate ancestor to the Christmas tree. These were used in medieval times on December 24th which was Adam and Eve Day. Plays were enacted showing the fall of the two original humans to emphasize the importance of Jesus’ sacrifice the next day. The main set prop of these plays was the paradise tree which typically consisted of a fir tree decorated with apples.
One can also thank Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s consort, for setting up a Christmas tree in 1841 and starting a British fad which would become a Western holiday tradition that continues today.
Why do we cover an evergreen tree with different types of decorations? Today, ornaments range from children’s clay concoctions made in school to high tech Hallmark gadgets that light up and play music. However, the first Christmas tree ornaments were just fruit and flowers, but eventually cookies, nuts, and then lighted candles were added. All of these items were pretty darn heavy and one had to have a tough tree to withstand the added weight. In response to this problem, German glassblowers started making lightweight glass ornaments that wouldn’t weigh a tree down.
Christmas carols were likely introduced by St. Francis of Assisi, but the word carol likely comes from the Greek word choro which means a dance. Around 1223 AD, St. Francis set up the first manger scene in Italy complete with singing of the Gospel message. The manger scene and the carols were a great success with the common people. The idea then spread as medieval people already caroled, but the usual lyrics, while suitable for dancing, were often downright unreligious (one can only imagine- think Canterbury Tales.). After St. Francis’ manger scene carols took on a more religious tone and many were passed down orally from one generation to the next.
Now just why does a jolly old elf slide down chimneys to deliver presents to children every Christmas? Let me give you the condensed version of the story.
The original Santa Claus was St. Nicholas, a man with very little historical information to back up all the legends created about him. St. Nicholas was the patron saint of students, children, sailors, bankers, pawnbrokers, thieves, and vagabonds. Not your typical Santa, eh? One of the most famous stories about St. Nicholas explains his connection to children. In St. Nicholas’ town was a poor man with three daughters who could not afford a dowry for any of his girls which meant that they would never marry. Unfortunately, if they stayed at home, the whole family would starve. The father began to contemplate either selling his daughters into slavery or worse, prostituting them.
St. Nicholas heard of the man’s plight and decided to anonymously use his own money to help the family. In the dead of night he threw a bag of gold down the man’s chimney. This saved the eldest girl and provided her money to get married. St. Nicholas did this for both of the other girls as well, giving us the basis for why Santa Claus sneaks down chimneys of every good child on Christmas Eve.
We celebrate Christmas as the birthday of Jesus, but was Jesus really born on December 25th? Probably not. The celebration of Christmas or Christ Mass on December 25th actually stems from Roman holidays. The Romans were well known for celebrating a ridiculous amount of holidays to a plethora of gods. To the Romans, December 25th was known as the birthday of Mithra, a Zoroastrian god. The Roman emperor Aurelian also established a festival called the Day of the Invincible Sun on the same day, likely because Mithra was seen as an embodiment of the sun.
It is thought that the emperor Constantine followed Zoroastrianism until his conversion to Christianity in 312 AD. He is responsible for ensuring that the feast day originally dedicated to Mithra carried over, but it was now to be called Christ Mass. This would have made sense as well as Christ was often identified as the “Sun of Righteousness” to early Christians.
