Christmas Origins and 2011
This is an excerpt from a larger work on Christmas origins. Anyone interested in the complete work stay tuned…
So for those you complaining about the constant Christmas rush, commercialism, the parties, the revelry without thought toward those less fortunate, and the absolute lack of somber introspection regarding what this holiday is supposed to be all about, I have bad news for you.
Christmastime has always been this way.
Blame it on the Romans or the Germans or the Anglo- Saxons, it’s entirely their fault. (These sorts of customs actually go back to the Mesopotamians and the Persians, but I don’t want to sound pedantic.) Starting on December 17th, the Romans spent several days drinking, carousing and exchanging gifts, letting everyone including slaves off from work (except for cooks and bakers in order to keep the party going). They only took a break to rest up for the Kalends’ New Year’s celebration. Our present day calendar is based on the Julian calendar so the dates are very similar.
Around the winter solstice the Germans brought in evergreens for thousands of years and the Anglo Saxons followed suit to celebrate what life was left in the dead of winter and the eventual coming of spring. They drank and ate profusely and exchanged gifts too. The unabashed revelry continued through the Middle Ages, making the dark ages a little less dark for 12 days in mid bleak December. Middle Ages Nobility went entirely over-the-top with their feasting, serving hundreds of guests by laying out tables full of roast oxen, venison, sheep, pigs, fowl of every kind. The feasts were even known to include a Peacock pie. (Yes, using a real peacock). It also became tradition to send out the left-overs to the poor. The Church looked the other way on all this conspicuous consumption, debauchery and embracing of pagan ritual. How better to ingratiate a new religion than by allowing ancient customs to continue under the wrappings of the birth of the Christ child? Carolers were not the harmless, fun loving neighbors with a happy out of tune song on their lips: — In the old days they would demand food and drink to the point of extortion.
It was the Puritans that ruined the fun. And somehow their dour attitude spread across the western world, especially in New England. The Pilgrims came to American and Christmas was barely celebrated until a 100 years after their arrival. They actually outlawed it for a long time. Even the American colonial Christmas celebration, while filled with food and drink for those who could afford it, was somber and religious in overtones. Christmas was a time for adults back then, not children. Most of fun and feasting was not done in New England but rather in the Southern colonies in the form of decorating the house with laurel, holly and ivy, having balls, parties, hunts and visiting friends. Back then the New Years’ celebration was the one to really look forward to throughout the colonies. And gift-giving largely meant giving to your dependants – servants, apprentices or children.
This attitude of banning revelry and having fun on the holiday slowly gave way. It was German immigrants who brought their customs to the New World that let a more festive Christmas time regain a foothold.
Our modern Christmas didn’t take shape until the mid to late 1840s and when it did things skyrocketed. This was the responsibility of 3 or 4 people. The culprits are Charles Dickens, Clement Moore and Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert. Dickens published ‘A Christmas Carol” to instant world-wide fame. C. Clement Moore wrote that little poem about happenings on the night before Christmas giving Santa Claus his modern appearance and exposing his annual Christmas Eve antics. The growing Middle Class eagerly embraced Queen Victoria’s idea to make her German husband feel at home by putting up a Christmas tree inside the royal palace, like his family had always done back home. The Christmas card appeared in London in 1846 and carols have been written and recorded to popular acclaim ever since.
Winter festivities and Christmas traditions whether secular or religious tie us into our past. They bring us together with our ancestors merely because of how we celebrate the Holidays today. These traditions carry forth from generation to generation. And we are not just remembering our grandparents when we reflect on memories we had as kids, or as we hang an old ornament on the tree, — as we pass this along to our children—we remember ancestors we never met, as our grandparents remembered theirs.
But it is has never really been about the decorating and the feasting and drinking or the gifts. This holiday rises above the festivities and even the religious dogma. It is about the joy in a child’s eye and the glimmer of hope that mankind can actually be a kinder and better race.
So with this frenetic pace, the shopping, the glam, the glitz, the hucksters and bright lights, the over indulging and even the holiday nay-sayers, the increased year-end work-loads and the complete lack of time, we cling to the possibility of a little quiet time just to enjoy it all. What makes Christmas so precious ( and so frustrating) is the little bit of time we can carve out to actually enjoy it and spend how we wish with those we wish to spend it with.
Doesn’t a little a bit of silent night, holy night ring true and isn’t it what we all need? As old Tim said, “God bless us, everyone.”
