Yanthungrhomo Mozhui
In Rome, people celebrated the raucous festival of Saturnalia from Dec. 17 to Dec. 24 in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture. The celebration consisted of a carnival-like period of feasting, carousing, gambling, gift-giving and upended social positions. Slaves could don their masters' clothes and refuse orders and children had command over adults. Two other Roman festivals, Juvenalia, a feast in honor of Rome's children, and Mithras, a celebration in honor of the infant god Mithra, also fell near the solstice.
By the fourth century, the church decided that Christians needed a December holiday to rival solstice celebrations. Church leaders selected Dec. 25 for the Feast of the Nativity. Christmas gained ground over the next several hundred years, becoming a full-fledged holiday by the ninth century, although it was still less important than Good Friday and Easter.
Early Christmas, however, was not the peaceful, albeit busy family holiday we know today. Christmas' proximity to Saturnalia resulted in it its absorbing some of the Roman festival's excesses. Christmas in the middle ages featured feasting, drinking, riotous behavior and caroling for money. Religious puritans disapproved of such excess in the name of Christ and considered the holiday blasphemous. Oliver Cromwell went so far as to cancel Christmas when he seized control of England in 1645. Decorations were forbidden and soldiers patrolled the street in search of celebrants cooking meat. Puritans in the American colonies took a similarly dour view of Christmas: Yuletide festivities were outlawed in Boston from 1659 though 1681.
But by the late 18th century and throughout the 19th century, Christmas began to take on the tame associations it has today. New Yorker Washington Irving wrote popular stories about Christmas that invented and appropriated old traditions, presenting them as the customs of the English gentry. Queen Victoria's German husband, Prince Albert, introduced a Christmas tree to Windsor Castle in 1846. An engraving of the couple with their children in front of the tree popularized the custom throughout England and the United States.
In the 20th century, the focus of Christmas became increasingly commercial. In the next section, we'll learn about traditions involving presents and the history of Christmas gifts.
For many people--whether they care to admit it or not--Christmas is about presents. Children nearly burst in anticipation of Christmas morning. Far-sighted adults start stockpiling on-sale gifts early in the summer. The procrastinating multitudes flock to the mall in the week preceding the holiday.
Christmas's gift-giving tradition has its roots in the Three Kings' offerings to the infant Jesus. The magi traveled to Bethlehem to present Christ gifts. Some Eastern Orthodox Churches and European countries still celebrate the traditional date of the Magi's arrival -- January 6 Three Kings' Day -- with a Christmas-like gift exchange.
Romans traded gifts during Saturnalia, and 13th century French nuns distributed presents to the poor on St. Nicholas' Eve. However, gift-giving did not become the central Christmas tradition it is today until the late 18th century.
Gifts were ostensibly meant to remind people of the magi's offerings to Jesus and of God's gift of Christ to humankind. But despite the rationalized Christian roots of gift-giving, the practice ultimately steered Christmas closer to the secularized holiday it is today.
The gift of Christmas
In the traditional and ritualistic world, Christmas became a Christianized tradition; loosing the real value of the real gift LORD JESUS CHRIST.Still, the real message of Christmas is not the gifts that we give to each other. Rather, it is a reminder of the gift that God has given to each of us. It is the only gift that truly keeps on giving, so I want to point out four things about it.
First, it is surprising. When Christmas rolls around, you often try to figure out if certain people have bought that gift you really wanted. Maybe you already know what they bought, because they didn't hide it very well. Or maybe you uncovered it by accident-or maybe not.
But when the day comes and you open the present, you have to pretend you're surprised. Yet all along, you knew what it was. God's gift to us, however, was a complete surprise. It was not expected, and as you examine it more carefully, you realize how great a gift it actually was.
Second, God's gift came to us in the humblest of wrappings. What would you think if you saw a gift under your Christmas tree that was wrapped in newspaper and tied up with string? At first, you would probably assume that a guy wrapped it.
But think about God's gift to us. Jesus was not born in a palace of gold; He was born in a stable. He was clothed with rags. He was laid in a feeding trough.
Yet these things do not, in any way, diminish the story of Christ's birth. If anything, they help us realize the great sacrifice God made for us. God's gift to humanity, the ultimate gift of eternal life through His Son, Jesus Christ, came in the simplest and humblest of wrappings.
Third, we don't deserve this gift. At Christmas, we give gifts to those whom we care about, who have been kind to us over the past year, or who have given us a gift first. We don't give gifts to the person who has been slandering our name or to the angry neighbor who never has a kind word to say.
Yet God gave us His gift when we were His enemies. He didn't give this gift to us because we deserved it. In fact, it was just the opposite. The Bible tells us, "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8 NKJV).
Fourth, the gift tells us something about the giver. When you want to give someone a gift, you start thinking about it ahead of time. Hopefully, you try to find what that person wants or needs.
When God decided to give us the gift of eternal life, it wasn't something that He just thought of on the fly. Long before there was a town called Bethlehem, a garden called Eden, and a planet called Earth, a decision was made in eternity that God would send forth His Son, born of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those that are under the law.
The Bible says that He was slain from the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8). Make no mistake about it: this gift that God has given to us was the most sacrificial thing He possibly could have offered.
So Christmas isn't about those gifts that you have your tree right now. All of those things will be gone one day. All that will be left after this life is the human soul, and that will live forever. We will put so much stock in what we have, but this is all going to pass away.
Life is about what happens beyond the grave. Life is about knowing the God who made you and who gave you the greatest gift you will ever receive.
