The reason for the season

For some reason, Christmas history is fascinating to me. The timing of the celebration is not believed to have anything to do with Jesus’ birthday, particularly. Rather, back in the Roman Empire, Christians were vying with, among others, the cults of Mithra and Ishtar for believers. Mithra and Ishtar had birthdays around the winter solstice (late December). That time of the year had significance for humans because it meant winter was on the run and the length of the days would grow longer. Sun gods tended to have celebrations in their honor. By placing a significant holiday at this time, it made it easier for Christians to gain converts in the Roman Empire in that they could switch their God without having to disrupt their festival celebrations too much. This apparently worked out pretty well for co-opting the Scandinavian Yule celebration, apparently a raucous winter celebration devoted to Thor.

By happy accident of the period of human gestation, having Christ born around the winter solstice allows him to have been conceived and crucified around the same time — the vernal equinox, also an important time of the year for competing religions of the era, fertility cults and the like.

During the Reformation, some Protestants condemned Christmas as popery — my understanding is that most Christmas traditions have little to no support in the text of the Bible. When Cromwell’s Puritans took over England, they banned Christmas in 1647. The Protestants’ anti-Christmas sentiment encouraged the Catholic Church to promote Christmas all the more. New England Puritans also banned Christmas for a period of time.

In post-colonial America, Christmas fell out of favor since it was considered to be too English. Christmas in America eventually rebounded through the 1800s due in large part to various works of literature, popularizing the holiday. In 1870, it became a national holiday.

Santa Claus came on the scene, largely through the efforts of popular cartoonist, Thomas Nast in the late 1800s. Father Christmas had been a holiday character from the 1400s, associated with merry-making and drunkenness. The Christmas tree seems to have caught on beginning in the 1700s and is often explained as a Christianization of a pagan, solstice tradition of tree worship.

I’ve mentioned on many occasions that I’m not a religious guy. Nevertheless, I’m grateful for Christmas. Regardless of one’s religious beliefs, I still think it is useful to have a period of time devoted to congregating with one’s family, resting from labor, showing affection through the exchange of cards and gifts, and generally reminding one another that peace and love are valuable things. As a parent of young children, I have to say that it’s also pretty fun to observe their sense of magic and wonder at things I’ve long since taken for granted — looking at the kids mesmerized by the Christmas tree is a beautiful thing. That, my friends, is the reason for the season.