THE WONDERFUL COLOURS OF CHRISTMAS
It’s that wonderful time of the year again where the joy of Christmas fills the air and many people around the world celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.
During this time in Fiji and around the world special colours are used to mark the joyous occassion, many love their red and green Christmas decors while a few might like a simple touch of gold and silver to add a modern Christmas feel to the usual Christmas traditional colours.
Website www.whychristmas.com highlights colours which are traditionally associated with Christmas.
Green
Evergreen plants, like holly, ivy and mistletoe have been used for thousands of years to decorate and brighten up buildings during the long dark winter.
They also remind people that spring would come and that winter wouldn’t last forver.
The Romans would exchange evergreen branches during January as a sign of good luck.
The ancient Egyptians used to bring palm branches into their houses during the mid-winter festivals.
In many parts of Europe during the middle ages, paradise plays were performed often on Christmas Eve. They told Bible stories to people who couldn’t read.
The ‘Paradise Tree’ in the Garden of Eden in the play was normally a pine tree with red apples tied to it.
Now the most common use of green at Christmas are Christmas trees.
Red
As mentioned above, an early use of red at Christmas were the apples on the paradise tree.
They represented the fall of Adam in the plays.
Red is also the colour of Holly berries which is said to represent the blood of Jesus when he died on the cross. Red is also the colour of Bishops robes.
These would have been worn by St Nicholas and then also became Santa’s uniform.
Gold
Gold is the colour of the sun and lightboth very important in the dark winter. And both red and gold are the colours of fire that you need to keep you warm.
God was also one of the presents brought to the baby Jesus by one of the wise men and traditionally it’s the colour used to show the star that the wise men followed.
Silver is sometimes used instead of (or with) gold. But gold is a warmer colour.
White
White is often associated with purity and peace in western cultures.
The snow of winter is also white. White paper wafers were also sometimes used to decorate paradise trees. The wafers represented the bread eaten during Christian Communion or mass, when Christians remember that Jesus died for them.
White is used by most churches as the colour of Christmas, when the altar is covered with a white cloth. In the Russian Orthodox Church God is used for Christmas.