The (True) History of Christmas
In the spirit of Christmas, I want to share with everyone the true history of Christmas. I don’t know if this is widely known around the world, I just want to share my intrigue and its answers with the world.
Christmas
Many would already have known that Christmas day was not the day when Jesus was born, analysts put it at September, but the exact date is unknown.
Christmas was originally a pagan (and Roman) holiday — Saturnalia. In Roman mythology, Saturn was an agricultural deity who blessed the fields and crops. Saturnalia was the festival of light (hence our lights) leading to the winter solstice on 17th to 23rd December. The renewal of light and the coming of the new year was celebrated in the later Roman Empire at the Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, the “Birthday of the Unconquerable Sun,” on December 25th.
It spread to the Germanic tribes around Europe where it was called Yule (or Yuletide, sounds familiar?). That is why so many countries, especially the Nordic countries, still have their Christmas called Jul.
Yuletide underwent baptism when Constantine I, the first Christian Roman emperor, was in power. He had a vision during his great battle with Maxentius, he saw the cross of Christ superimposed on the sun with the words: in hoc signo vinces — in this sign you shall conquer. And he did conquer. Since then, he switched from the Roman faith to Christianity. Either as a means to unify his empire, or to make converting to Christianity easier, he merged the birth of the Unconquered Sun with the birth of Jesus, combining many of the traditions from these pagan festivals with the Nativity story in the Bible and Christmas was born.
Santa Claus
This one is pretty widely known. First, we have to start with St. Nicholas, once an actual bishop in the 4th century AD. He reappears as a lean, tall, dignified bishop in the Netherlands, known as Sinterklaas in Dutch. He gives away gifts to children who are nice, while his assistant, Black Pete, will terrorize those who are naughty.
England was also doing it’s Christmas magical man thing and therefore Father Christmas was born. He’s a jolly pagan man who feasts during Christmas riding a goat. The Germans call him Christkind and that was where America got their Kris Kringle.
Later, as globalization shifts things around and like a shuffled deck of cards, these magical characters began to blur, until finally, Kris Kringle, St. Nick, and Father Christmas, unified into one, especially in the New World. So we ended up with a present-giving, red-and-white-robed jolly man with a great beard called Santa Claus wandering around in America.
But the most important factor for his transformation is the media. Poems and stories were written about him, artists’ illustrations seem to make him more and more rotund — accentuating his belly and rosy cheeks. Stories of his toy factories and his herd of reindeers spread like wildfire in children stories and carols.
The final nail in the coffin? — Coca-Cola. With both entities sharing their proud color palette, dear old Santa Claus became their spokesperson in the 1920s, and has been there ever since. When Coca-Cola took the world by storm, the Santa we know today also conquered every Christmas figure in the world. (Well except Netherlands, Sinterklaas is still owning the shit out of Santa.)
From here we can see how much globalization can shift entire cultures and create new ones, merging old ones, and even evolve existing ones.
Gift Giving
This tradition comes from many, actually. St. Nicholas in around 300AD had a reputation for secret gift-giving, such as putting coins in the shoes of those who left out for him.
The All-Father, Chief Norse god Odin (yes, Thor’s father), was also known to leave special gifts under the evergreen tree during Yuletide season. Odin was also a bearded, white-haired old man in a cloak (wait, what?).
In Saturnalia, the Sigillaria on December 19 was a day of gift-giving. Gifts might be as costly as a slave or exotic animal but token gifts of low intrinsic value inversely measure the high quality of a friendship.
Kissing under the mistletoe
This one is interesting. We kiss under a mistletoe to honour the Norse god, Baldr, who died under the mischief of Loki.
Baldr was the second son of Odin, step-brother of Thor. He was beautiful, loved by all other gods, creatures and plants. With all this beauty and love, he was made unkillable because Frigg, mother of Baldr, went around and made everything in existence swear to never harm him. She didn’t ask the mistletoe because it was young, harmless and innocuous, so the mistletoe didn’t swear.
The gods usually have some fun and shoot arrows and and throw swords at Baldr, which doesn’t matter as everything will just bounce off harmlessly. His blind brother, Hod, was also joining in the fun when Loki, found out about Baldr’s weakness, fashioned an arrow made of mistletoe and passed it to Hod. Lo and behold — the beloved god of love, peace, and purity died under the hands of his brother. So when we kiss under a mistletoe, we are tracing all the way back to the Norse Mythology to honour the the much loved Baldr.
And that’s Chritmas and its traditions in a nutshell.
There is a lot more to Christmas’ history. More on St. Nick, Black Pete, Odin, the Romans — I left out a lot. But this is as succinct as I can keep it, I hope you’ve learnt a lot about Christmas that you didn’t know about! As we have fun and bathe ourselves in the festivities, it is so much nicer to know where everything came from, doesn’t it? Thank you for reading and Merry Yule!
If you enjoyed this and learnt from it, hit ❤ so others can find it! Spread the joy (and knowledge)!
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