Why Do We Celebrate Christmas?
Christmas is the most heavily anticipated holiday of the year for many people, but why do we celebrate Christmas? Some celebrate Christmas as a matter of form—everyone else is doing it, and regardless of religious conviction, ‘tis the season for intimate gatherings and presents in most of the western world. Others celebrate Christmas because of family traditions, some of which are decades old. Many people celebrate Christmas to commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ.
Because of the spread of Christian beliefs across the globe, the birth of the “Christ child” is celebrated each year. In the western world, his birth is usually celebrated around the turn of the New Year. America celebrates Christmas on the 25th of December.
When Jesus was actually born is not known—it was not recorded in any ancient calendar, so it is impossible to determine what the “birthday” of Christ was. Yet Christmas is celebrated, in America and in other countries, on December 25th.
Christmas in December
The celebration of Christmas in late December can be traced back to pagan holidays. The pagan religions celebrated an event called the winter solstice, which is the shortest day of the year.
After the death of Christ, Christianity spread rapidly throughout the world, eventually supplanting the pagan way of life. While the winter solstice occurs around December 21, the holiday of Christmas (originally called Christ’s Mass by the early Catholics) actually replaces the pagan holiday of Saturnalia, a Roman festival that happened in mid- to late-December. Many of the traditions from this celebration, and those of the Druids—including the use of mistletoe—have been adopted into western Christmas celebrations.
Christmas Today
Today’s Christmas celebrations bear little resemblance to the celebrations of years past. Christmas celebrations in the middle ages often included holly, mistletoe, evergreens, snow, and decorations; all of the trappings that are associated with Christmas today.
Following the Reformation, many churches abandoned these symbols, deriding them as irreligious and secularly motivated. From the 1600s through the early 1800s, Christmas went largely unobserved by Christians throughout the world. In the 1820s, however, things began to change. The opinion that Christmas, which was once a lovely and festive time of the year, was dying out led to many people attempting to revive the holiday. Popular songs, poems, and characters, including that of Father Christmas, were revived during this period of time.
In 1823, with the publication of the poem “’Twas the Night Before Christmas,” many people began viewing the Christmas holiday as important. Christmas classics such as Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (published in the 1840s) cemented the holiday into western consciousness, and from this point forward, Christmas was widely celebrated by cultures across the globe.