Christmas: A time of spiritualty... Santa’s gifts, joy and excitement
It’s Christmas Eve and, as you head off to bed hoping Santa will soon be sliding down your chimney, with sackfuls of gifts, do you ever wonder how Christmas traditions came about? James Cooper, Christmas Expert, tells Sally Mcdonald the Honest Truth about Yuletide. Why do we celebrate Christmas on December 25?
Nooneis absolutely sure! One early Christian tradition said that the day when Mary was told that she would have a special baby (the Annunciation) was on March 25. If you allow nine months for the birth it would fall on December 25.
There were already mid-winter festivals at that time of year, so it was also a good time to have a celebration.
Does everyone in the world celebrate on that day?
Most people celebrate Christmas on December 25. However, in some Orthodox and Coptic churches Christmas is on January 7 and Armenian Apostolic Church has Christmas on January 6. This year, Ukraine officially made Christmas December 25 rather than January 7 to break from their historic connection with Russia. In the UK it is only the Scottish island of Foula that celebrates on a different day. When the rest of Britain replaced the Julian calendar with the Gregorian calendar in 1752, its most remote areas kept the old calendar. To this day Foula islanders celebrate Christmas, or Yule, on January 6.
When did the story of Santa dropping down the chimney to bring gifts start?
The earliest record goes back to the early 800s when The Life Of Saint Nicholas The Wonderworker was written by Michael the Archimandrite. He told the story of Nicholas helping a poor family by dropping bags of gold through a window. Over the centuries that has changed to the chimney.
In some countries like The Netherlands, children leave their shoes by a window on December 5, St Nicholas’s Eve in the hope that “Sinterklaas” will leave gifts.
How did the tradition of Christmas trees start?
Evergreen plants have been used for hundreds of years to brighten homes up during winter. The first Christmas trees were probably Paradise Trees used in plays performed outside churches on Christmas Eve, often pine trees with apples tied to them.
Christmas trees as we known them today started sometime in the late 1400s or early 1500s in what’s now northern Germany, Estonia and Latvia.
Where did we get the idea of hanging decorations on trees?
Over time more decorations, like gingerbread and shapes cut out from coloured paper, were added to Paradise Trees and they got a new name, the Christbaum, or “Christ Tree”. Baubles as we have them today started in Germany in the late 1800s.
Remember the apples on Paradise trees? That’s why baubles are traditionally round and red.
Who was the first person to bring a tree into the house?
Legend suggests that it was the 16th Century German preacher Martin Luther. One night before Christmas, he was walking through a forest and looked up to see the stars shining through the trees. He went home and told his children it reminded him of Jesus, who left the stars of heaven to come to earth at Christmas.
So he brought a tree into his home and decorated it with candles to represent the stars.
When did this practice become popular here?
The first tree in the UK was in 1800 for a children’s Christmas party at Windsor Castle. But it wasn’t until a drawing of Queen Victoria’s tree was printed in newspapers that they really caught on. That was in 1848, the same year Prince Albert and Queen Victoria first leased Balmoral Castle in Aberdeenshire in 1848, later buying it in 1852.
Why are bells and candles associated with Christmas?
Bells and candles have been used to celebrate religious festivals for thousands of years. In some churches Christmas and
Easter are the only time a service is allowed to be held at Midnight. So it became tradition to “ring in” Christmas.
Candles have been used to help countdown to Christmas through Advent, since the 1700s. And the official Christmas season ends on February 2 with Candlemas.
When and why did the tradition of singing carols begin?
Carols as we have come to know them began in 1223 when St. Francis of Assisi put on the first Nativity Play. For several hundred years they were folk songs and became popular in the Victorian period when the formal Carol Service was invented.
Christmas crackers are a festive must, what can you tell us about them?
Crackers were the invention of a Victorian sweet maker in London called Tom Smith, asanewwayofsellinghis sweets. He sold the first “Bangs Of Expectation” – they were really called that – in 1861. His sweet manufacturing business neighboured a fireworks factory. His son Walter added the paper hats. The first crackers had sensible mottos or riddles, rather than terrible jokes!