Besides the Yule Log, and the custom of gift-giving, how many elements of Christmas can we list as coming from various pre-Christian cultures, whether Mediterranean or Northern European? There seems to be quite a lot of re-packaging.
I’m looking to make a complete list.
And for that matter, are there any completely fresh elements that developed during the Christian Era? I don’t mean anything extremely central and obvious, as in “Well, there’s the birth of Jesus…” I mean completely fresh customs attached to the season.
Mince pies, though perhaps inspired by Middle Eastern cuisine, are supposed to have been emblematic of Christ in the manger - enough people seem to have thought this that some stricter denominations viewed them as positively idolatrous in nature.
The Christmas tree, I’m pretty sure, is orginally non-Christian. And the whole idea of celebrating with a big feed (as opposed to celebrating in some other way) is, I would hazard a guess, also something inherited from pre-Christian solstice festivals.
As for obviously Christian-sourced elements you’ve got the crib, the nativity play, the dedicated church services, Santa Claus.
A quick look at Wikipedia shows that Saint Nicholas lived in the 3rd/4th century, so to whatever extent Santa Claus is modeled after him, that’s certainly Christian era stuff.
But was the whole gift-giving motif already established by then, with St. Nick just grafted onto an existing custom?
Probably not, at least not as we know the gift-giving custom today. Historically, as I have always understood it, Christmas was always a very minor Christian holiday (Easter being the biggie), having been brought to its current festive and gift-giving prominence only in modern times. It was the relatively modern invention of the 19th century, the Big Retail business (especially Department Stores) that fomented the modern frenzied potlatch orgy of spending as we now know it.
The same is true of Hanukkah, which likewise was always a very minor and insignificant Jewish holiday (being based on tales in the Apocrypha and not in the Old Testament).
St.Francis was the person who instituted Nativity tableaus (with live participants originally). So they are from the early medieval period.
The date of Christmas, at the solstice, is from Roman Saturnalia festivities (Saturn was an agricultural god to the Romans); also mixed in was the sun festival. Wikipedia: “The renewal of light and the coming of the new year was celebrated in the later Roman Empire at the Dies Natalis of Sol Invictus, the ‘Birthday of the Unconquerable Sun,’ on December 25.” There’s nothing in the Gospels about the season when Jesus was born.
Originally Christmas was a minor feast day in the Christian calendar, sort of like Hanukah (irony!). The Christian calendar is full of such feasts, like the Baptism of the Lord, the Feast of Christ the King, and things like that which only certain denominations even notice. St.Nicholas (whose memorial is December 6th, a real bishop of Myra in Asia Minor), was superimposed upon Odin and Yule customs in Europe as Christianity spread there. Then Protestants, who aren’t big on saints in general, transferred the gift giving etc. from December 6th to the birthday of Jesus. Although, in some cultures there are no gifts until Epiphany, aka the Revelation to the Gentiles, as represented by the Magi, on January 12th, Boxing Day; the gifts given are in memory of the gifts presented by the Magi.
The pre-Christian custom was of gifts for family and friends. The Christian twist on this is gifts for strangers; gifts for everyone. Nicholas of Myra is, in the hagiography, noted for quietly (and anonymously) giving gifts to people in need.
Not all Protestants did so; that’s too broad a brush.
For example, the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England has always had Christmas as one of the major feast. See this link for the Collects from the 1549 edition for the Christmas season, beginning on p. 9 with the first Sunday in Advent and ending on p. 12 with the last Sunday in Ephiphany.
Sure. But runningdude’s basic point is valid. It’s not correct to say, as Senegoid did, that “Christmas was always a very minor Christian holiday”. Christmas was a fairly major holiday which, in comparatively modern times, became a minor holiday in certain traditions of western Christianity.
Nor does it have anything to do with fighting boxing - as my bemused hosts when I stayed in the UK explained to me Their explanation made much more sense once I thought about it.
Yes, pretty well all religions have festivals marked by feasting.
But not all festivals are marked by feasting; some are marked in other ways. So the mere fact that there was a pre-Christian solstice festival that the Christiand absorbed doesn’t mean that it was marked by feasting, and that’s where we get Christmas dinner from. We can legitimately ask, is feasting at Christmas something introduced by Christians? Or something that characterised pre-Christian solstice festivals, and so inherited by Christians? And I’m guessing the latter.
There is a bit of evidence: Luke 2:8: “And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.”
Shepherds watch their flocks at night during lambing season which is in the spring. So that Gospel seems to imply a spring date for Jesus’ birth. So less than saving nothing, it seems to conflict with a December 25th date.
And of course if we could date the census which doesn’t seem to have happened then at all and wouldn’t involve people going back to their ancestral homes as far as we can tell if it did happen, we’d know the season as well.
Their explanation made much more sense once I thought about it.