Stepping outside the realm of Real Estate, as my time was due to post this Blog 2 days before Christmas, I thought it would be interesting to search where Christmas came from, as I always understood it to be basically surrounding the birth of Jesus. I searched quite a few sites and found the following two articles to be the most likely beginnings of Christmas.
Personally, Christmas has not always been a great time of year for me, as I left my family, and Nova Scotia at the age of 17, there were many Christmases that I spent alone and without loved ones.
The true meaning of Christmas would not come back into my life until I met my current partner in life, Linda Trenholm. Come December 1st, for the past 4 years, the tree would go up, the lights would abound from inside and outside the house, and the time to spend in reflection and with family and friends would consume the entire month of December. This time of year has become something of a magical time. Although, I am not technically a Christian, I derive great pleasure in the peace and the love that abounds this time of year, thanks in part to Christian's and the general spirit Christmas time provides. I do believe that it is important to carry the goodwill and spirit of Christmas into the New Year and carry it forward.
The following are not necessarily my beliefs or opinions, only that they were the best articles at summarizing what appeared often during the search.
Article 1
What is Christmas?
Courtesy of wiseGEEK
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-christmas.htm
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Christmas is the Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, who is considered the Son of God, and the savior of all people. With the birth of Christ, Christianity essentially begins; thus, Christmas also celebrates the beginning of Christianity.
Though Christmas is normally celebrated on the 25th of December, strong evidence suggests that Jesus may have in fact been born in the spring. Though many Christians date Christ's birth as the end of the "Before Christ" or BC era, most believe Christ's birth can actually be dated to 4 BC. This is a bit ironic, since the Christian era is thought to begin with the birth of Christ, but actually begins later.
Some of the images inexorably tied with Christmas are things like shepherds in the snow, and the fierce cold of a winter night when Jesus was born. This is an unlikely scenario, though it is quite possible that the Jews participating in the census and taxation were extremely crowded in Bethlehem.
Sextus Julius Africanus, a third century Christian missionary, is believed to have first espoused the theory of Christ's birth as December 25th. This worked well when the Romans later largely converted to Christianity because Christmas could be tied to pagan winter rituals, making it more palatable. Historical records suggest some forms of Christmas celebrations dating back to the early 4th century CE.
Some, however, argued that Christmas should not be celebrated as a feast date, because of the divine nature of Christ. This position is still held by some minority Christian groups like the Jehovah's Witnesses.
Though most see Jolly Old England as the source for many modern Christmas traditions, England actually banned celebration of Christmas from 1647-1660 in an effort to free the holiday of what was viewed as its pagan trappings and the excess and corruption of the Roman Catholic Church. This, however, was not a popular decision. England reinstated Christmas as a celebratory holiday, though tensions still ran high between the Anglican and the Roman Catholic Church.
Charles Dickens must be mentioned as inspiring many of the traditions we now regularly practice as part of Christmas celebrations. His phenomenal classic The Christmas Carol published in 1843 changed Christmas to a moderate, family oriented holiday. This differed from past celebrations which often verged on the anti-Christian, and which involved pursuing hedonism with graceless abandon.
Clement Clarke Moore's 1822 poem "A Visit from Saint Nicholas," firmly established the Christmas / Santa Clause connection. Actually many Christmas traditions are based in Germanic pagan rituals predating Christianity. Many consider Thor to be a frontrunner as an early Santa Claus figure, and the Christmas tree was once a sacrificial tree to the gods, hung brightly with dead animals.
Today, some argue, Christmas has been inexorably corrupted by the commercialism with which it has come to be associated. For the poor, it may well be a time when, to quote Dickens, "want is keenly felt." Dickens uses this as an argument for practicing charity and "keeping Christmas in our hearts" on every day of the year.
However, it can be stated that for the many joyous family celebrations where poverty is not a factor, there are still many where poverty is felt at Christmas, and where families despair that there is not even money to give their children basic necessities as Christmas gifts. Such a thought is sobering when one ponders the Christian message as one of personal sacrifice, kindness to others, and loving our neighbors as ourselves.
Still, many Christians feel that even a Christmas with the overt trappings of commercialization has a special feeling that can only be attributed to faith. It can be a time to renew one's faith, or merely come closer to the birth of a religion which sustains many. In touching on Christ's message, even small children may begin to understand the sacred nature of Christmas to Christians.
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Article 2
Christmas Beginnings
Courtesy of WikiAnswers
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Where_and_how_did_Christmas_start
Religious historians attribute Dec. 25th being designated as Christmas to Pope Julius I, sometime in the 4th century A.D. It was set to coincide with the Roman Winter Festivals.
Read on for more information from WikiAnswers contributors:
That is the most basic, but actually the most complex, question for a Christmas FAQ, I suppose!
The truth is complicated, and it depends upon what tradition you're referring to as "Christmas." "Christmas" as "Christ's Mass," the celebration of Christ's birthday, originated when the Roman Catholic Church decided to concecrate pagan traditions. The Church wanted to convert the pagans of Europe to Christianity, and as a way of doing so, they established a Christian religious meaning to the important and popular celebration of the winter solstice. They chose the birth of Christ because it echoed pagan attributes of the holiday, which celebrated, amongst other things, the rebirth of the Sun. ["rebirth of Sun"/"birth of Son," get it?]. The truth is that, before then, Christians didn't really celebrate Christ's birth; it was his death and resurrection that were supremely important, and his borth was a minor point without a fixed celebration.
It's certain that Jesus ''wasn't'' born on December 25. In fact, the details in the Bible clearly point to his being born in the spring. Placing the holiday of December 25 was a direct attempt to co-opt solstice traditions.
Christmas as a ''modern'' celebration, including most of the things we associate with it (Santa Claus, gift-giving, carols, egg nog, etc.), were a Victorian invention. A number of writers and politicians, including Clement C. Moore ("The Night Before Christmas"), popularized Christmas as a family tradition, in part to supplant undesirable older traditions that had become part of Christmas (including "misrule" traditions we now associate with Halloween!). For a detailed and fascinating account of the Victorian Christmas invention, read Stephen Nissenbaum's excellent "The Battle For Christmas."
As for individual Christmas traditions ... well, those are probably best answered as seperate FAQ answers.
- The following is what I have discovered in many old books in the State Library in Melbourne Australia.
Dec 25th was initially celebrated as 'Conquering the Sun Day', in which the Romans at the time, who worshipped the sun, thought the Sun God was pleased with them as the days started to get longer. They would have celebrations and exchange gifts. Those that believed in Jesus feared for their lives, and wanted to mark a day for his birth, and so did on the same day, under the guise of the Roman beliefs. So the birth of Jesus was celebrated around 460AD for the first time, and as the Church grew, it eventually took the day over for themselves.
Interesting.
•· There is a wide spread theory that Christmas started in Rome as a response to the Pagan holiday that was celebrated around the Winter Solstice by Emperor Aurelian in AD 274, was called The Birth of the Invincible Sun.
By: Kevin Stacey, REALTOR®
www.century21.ca/kevin.stacey