A Christmas Story: the Spread of the World-Known Holiday

Christmas time is here. Sleigh bells are ringing, carolers are singing, the weather’s dropped ten degrees, and the oversized nutcrackers are up downtown.

We celebrate this turn in the seasons by snuggling into wool sweaters, sipping hot cocoa, stressing over midterms, and adorning homes, schools, churches and businesses with lights, trees, and decorations galore. Previously silent classrooms are graced with the melodies of Spotify Christmas Radio, clubs are involved in organizing secret santa or other gift exchanges, and music students around campus are busting out those classic bops.

Christmas, clearly, is a major cultural phenomenon here in Grants Pass, as in most of America, and to a lesser extent across the world. So it comes as no surprise that Christmas has a rich and interesting history.

The holiday as we know it today is a melting pot of sorts, which draws on multiple mythologies, festivals, and traditions. The most obvious of these lies in the name itself, and is the most well known of Christmas’ many origins: a commemoration and celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, the Christian incarnation of God.

As the story has it, Jesus was born to a virgin mother, Mary, in a manger in Bethlehem two thousand and seventeen years ago on December 25. There are two prevalent theories to explain this date. The first of these, known as the calculation hypothesis, proposes that there was a holiday around March 25 (the usual date given for Jesus’ conception) prior to Christmas’ celebration, and that the December 25 date was calculated as nine months later. The second hypothesis is that the date was chosen to correspond with preexisting pagan winter festivals held around the solstice. This is evidenced by the fact that Christmas draws heavily on other winter festivals. In the Mediterranean, the most influential of these was the ancient Roman holiday Saturnalia, a feast in honor of the Roman god Saturn. During this week-long festival in mid-December, Roman societal rules were lifted somewhat: gambling was allowed, women were given more social mobility, and slaves were permitted to dine with their masters and participate in the festivities. But the most important thing Saturnalia gave Christmas was the tradition of gift-giving.

The first recorded Christmas celebration was in Rome in 336, although it is likely that it began to be celebrated earlier in the 4th Century. Christmas was not introduced to Northern Europe for until some years later.

As Christmas spread throughout Europe, it took on characteristics of other winter festivals through heavy syncretism. Christmas trees, elves, mistletoe, and yuletide traditions all stem from northern European traditions, and were incorporated into the Christmas holiday throughout the middle ages and into the early modern era.

The Protestant Reformation ushered in the holiday’s first real controversy, as its celebration, or lack thereof, could distinguish the new Christian sects. While groups like the Anglicans and Lutherans saw no problem with Christmas—in fact, both these groups have solidified a number of Christmas traditions—the stricter Puritan Calvinists were concerned about the pagan origins of many traditions and were disgusted by the gambling, drinking and sexual opulence associated with the holiday.

When the English Civil War transferred power to the Puritan revolutionary leader Oliver Cromwell in the mid-seventeenth century, a law was enacted essentially banning the observation of Christmas. Similar legislation was put into place in many Puritan colonies in America, including in Boston where a 1659 law deemed Christmas celebration “a sacrilege” and forbade “feasting and similar Satanical practices.”

The modern Christmas, at least in America, features a prominent figure as of yet unmentioned. Santa Claus as we know him today is a relatively new feature of Christmas, has a history as multicultural as the holiday itself.

Saint Nicholas was an actual saint who lived in fourth century Greece, famed for generosity. In much of continental Europe it became a tradition to give children gifts in commemoration of Saint Nicholas’ Day on December 6th.

Father Christmas, Santa’s English predecessor, was the personification of the holiday, and spread Christmas cheer and jollity. He didn’t have much of a gift-giving tendency, and he was more often found wearing green than red, but he was the first to be associated with Christmas rather than Saint Nicholas’ Day.

The Dutch figure Sinterklaas is nearly recognizable as our Santa Claus; they even share a name. A primary predecessor to Santa, Sinterklaas is portrayed as a bearded man, often wearing red, and he traditionally gives gifts to children who are good.

Out of all these traditions the modern Santa Claus arises. The image of Santa we imagine has been shaped most significantly by Clement Moore’s (or Henry Livingston’s, depending upon who you ask) 1823 poem “A Visit From Saint Nicholas,” and an accompanying engraving by Thomas Nast; L. Frank Baum’s 1902 novel The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, which cemented the toy-making, reindeer and chimney myths; and a series of 1930s Coca-Cola ads that were arguably not nearly as influential as they’re popularly thought to have been.

What those Coca-Cola ads did do, however, was set off the commercialization of Christmas, a theme so key to the holiday that it would be remiss not to mention it. Christmas in America today is more of a secular, capitalistic holiday than a Christian one; businesses rely on the holiday rush, well-off kids expect material gains regardless of whether they’ve been naughty or nice, and many non-Christian families, like my own, celebrate the holiday, sans Jesus. By now, Christmas is simply another American holiday, and the few shards of religiosity it’s managed to retain over the years are quickly slipping away.