Although Christmas was just celebrated throughout most of the Christian world on December 25, it hasn’t always been that way. While the Christmas Holiday has become a tradition, for many years following the birth of Jesus Christ there seems to be no record of celebrations until the year 336. A book of Roman bishops produced in 354 AD contains the following words concerning the year A.D. 336: 25 Dec. natus Christus in Betleem Judaea. This appears to be the first recorded celebration of Christmas, December 25, 336 AD, more than 300 years after the birth of Jesus.
Because birth dates were often vague, dates of the death of saints were considered more significant. The birth of Christ could have occurred on many dates and it is thought that December 25 was convenient because Celtic legends connected the (winter) solstice with Balder, the Scandinavian sun god. Jews had a festival of lights; Germans held a Yule festival. Romans feasted and gave gifts to the poor at their pagan festival of Saturnalia. A logical observation by Historian William J. Teague suggests that since church historians agreed on March 25 as the date of Christ’s (Immaculate) Conception, His birth date should be nine months later. Trees became a part of the Christmas celebration in Germany during the 8th century; Christmas carols became a part of the Christmas tradition during the 13th century.
Christians that considered themselves ‘Puritans’ came to the United states in the early 1600’s to escape the persecution of the Anglican Church of England. Their beliefs were comparatively extreme to the extent that many Puritans believed only the Sabbath should be celebrated, certainly not Christmas. Celebrating Christmas was banned by law in the state of Massachusetts until the ban was repealed by statute in 1681. However, the Massachusetts state government did not proclaim Christmas as an official holiday until the 1850’s.
Christmas has become more of a commercial ‘Door-Buster Super Sale’ jubilee than a religious holiday in the United States. The parades, retail sales, catalogs and 24/7 merchandising, advertising and marketing efforts have easily eclipsed the blessed Christmas holiday celebration in most people’s minds. Open and enclosed malls developed in the US and other countries since WWII deeply impacted the commercial aspects of Christmas (as a huge profit-making sale event).
Whether you are religious or not (about 1 in 6 people in the US claim to be non-religious), anecdotal evidence suggests that people in the developed world have become more focused on the value of tangible worldly goods than on the value of religious faith. An example of the religious faith of our early government leaders is expressed by John Adams in his message of November 4, 1816 to Thomas Jefferson, 198 years ago:
“We have now, it seems a National Bible Society, to propagate King James’s Bible through the Nations. Would it not be better to apply these pious Subscriptions, to purify Christendom from Corruptions of Christianity: than to propagate those Corruptions in Europe, Asia, Africa and America! …Conclude not from all this, that I have renounced the Christian religion, or that I agree with Dupuis in all his Sentiments. Far from it. I see in every Page, Something to recommend Christianity in its Purity and Something to discredit its Corruptions…. The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount contain my religion.”
The Ten Commandments appear on the wall of the Inner Courtroom of the United States Supreme Court with the following words to the left, “The Majesty of the Law” and the words, “The Power of Government” to the right. All our currency, coins and paper, contain the words, “In God We Trust.” On the other hand, the ACLU, the Freedom From Religion Foundation and the American Humanist Association (whose motto is ‘Good Without a God’) keep digging up ways to eliminate all references to religion.
The United States is the most tolerant and diverse nation in the world; shouldn’t we spend our available resources for coming together rather than perpetually trying to find grains of discontent and dissent?
– Dick Baynton
