JLF: The Evolution of "Our" Christmas

Who assigned December 25th as the date of Christ's birth?  Until then, J's birthday was thought to be in March or May.  Heck, we still don't know what year he was born in...  There was no consensus until Constantine, in 330 CE.  This Roman Emperor and Saint converted to Christianity after a vision led him to paint Christian symbols on his soldier's shields.  Clearly that made him win the battle the next day, which led him to convert to Christianity, and when an Emperor converts... well, so do his people.  It was interesting, because when Rome shoved a religion or a government down your throat, they liked to include you in the process... a chocolate coating to the pill, so to speak.  When Constantine was considering how to establish a standard celebration to the birth of his new idol, J.C., the Light of the world, he cleverly thought of Saturnalia, Rome's celebration of the winter solstice. 

Saturnalian was the celebration for the god of Saturn that synced up with December 25th, what they thought was the winter solstice (it's really the 21st.)  Constantine told his people, "So, when we do the whole Saturnalian thing, we're also going to celebrate that Jesus dude."  There was no talk of mangers or anything.  Instead, Saturnalian partying involved general hilarity and drunkenness where slaves traded places with owners.  It was a spring break of sorts.  Eventually those 7 days of Saturnalia shifted and became the 12 days of Christmas.  So, Constantine set the pin in the calendar and it has evolved around that.

Look at you!  You're learning!

That addresses the date, now lets talk about the other large force behind the celebration of Christmas: Yule.  The heart of Christmas, if you will.  This is northern European's way of celebrating that same winter solstice.  Whereas the Romans turned to hilarity and debauchery, those pagans up north had lots of snow to contend with and that probably set some restraints on the insanity.  They took a more conservative approach to the solstice by decorating trees, burning a yule log, hanging boughs, holly and mistletoe and slaughtering a pig, the origin if Christmas ham.  When Christian mercenaries charged up there to address that flock of pagan heathens, they liked what they saw and said, "Yeah, we'll use that, too.  Ours."

So, those two pagan holidays pulled together to set the tone of Christmas, but what about Santa and the presents?  Isn't that why you've read this far?  Holland and Germany.  Done.

St. Nicholas was contemporary of Constatine's in the 4th century, but they probably they didn't know each other.  Nicholas was a bishop in current-day Turkey.  Back then it was Greek-speaking area of Rome.  Nick had a reputation for giving gifts (like video games and bikes) to needy children.  For some reason, the Germans and Dutch didn't forget about this Nick guy and they started using him in Christmas celebration in the 17th century.  Sint Nikolaas (Holland) and Kriss Kringle (Germany) flew around on a horse and dropped by with presents.  The Germans had a variation of racist arrangements: he had a black elf that whipped the bad children or a slew of black elves pulling his sleigh.  So cute.

This idea of a white-bearded philanthropist (Santa Clause) came over to the US with the Europeans who emigrated there, but Kriss Kringle underwent an evolution to become what he have today.  First, there was Washington Irving, a writer who has bamboozled the world as much as the guys who wrote the Bible.  He was such a popular writer in his day that he could write fiction and people would take it as fact.  He made Sleepy Hollow a place of myth with a headless horseman, introduced Rip Van Winkle into children's imaginations and created the Knickerbocker family that people thought (along with the Knickerbocker history of NYC) was a real family.  So, in 1809, Irving wrote about St. Nick (without his black slave elf) coming to visit kids.  From Irving's pen right into society, like all of his other works. He set the standard.  About 15 years later, a poem was written by Clement Clarke Moore called 'twas the Night Before Christmas, introducing the concept of anxious children, chimney-travel, bag of toys, dimples and reindeer with names.  We all know that one.

Then, from 1820-1840, Thomas Nast illustrated Santa's workshop in the north pole with his list of good and bad children for Harper's Magazine.  Throwing Santa incredibly far off-site was a brilliant move; it made him that much more mysterious.  The final evolution for the chunky, rosy-cheeked man was.... (drum role).... Coca Cola.  In 1931, they ran a slew of ads that solidified Santa Clause as an American icon with a belly, red jump suit, wild, white beard, sleigh and submissive wife.  He was now as American as... Coca Cola.

So, there you have it.  I actually quite enjoy learning the evolution of things.  There are so many moving (pagan) parts at the heart of our society, and it just drives me nuts when people won't accept that evolution of something (like mankind) - they think the version they know is the way it's always been.  Let's all be rational and accept that we're just one window on the house of mankind, ok?  There have been many windows with very different views than ours... in fact our window was built by those looking out of their windows before us... wow, this is getting complicated.

I'm going to put down this computer now and fall into a jar of eggnog to celebrate the other gods with birthdays on 12/25 - Ishtar, Sol Invictus and Mithras.  Happy holidays, y'all.

As always, your pleasure.

  - JLF

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