Sometimes, when I'm writing these little bloggy things, I have to check what day it is because I'm a bit disorganized, and enjoy asking Mr. Google questions. In December, however, this is not an issue at all, because I have an advent calender, which tells me the day and gives me chocolate. If this was the only thing that made Christmas a special holiday, I'd still love it... So, in honour of my feeling particularly festive as a result of having a little piece of chocolate to eat (God, I'm easy to please...), here is part one of a History of Christmas:
300 years Before Christ, or Before the Common Era if you'd prefer, if you happened to be in Persia towards the end of December you would find the people dancing around bonfires, paying homage to Mithras, God of light and guardian against evil. This festival was absorbed into the Roman Empire, becoming Dies Natali Invicti Solis, or the birthday of the unconquered Sun and later the festival of Saturnalia.
Saturnalia actually sounds like a hell of a lot of fun. As you may have guessed, it was both named after and a celebration of the Roman God Saturn, who was the God of Plenty. Festivities began around the solstice, and lasted seven days. To participate, you would have had to partake in the usual excess drinking and eating we have come to associate with Christmas, but the Romans had an interesting twist - the festival also involved inverting many social norms (such as men dressing up as women and vice versa, and masters waiting on servants) and allowing normally forbidden pastimes (including gambling and sex 'in groups' according to the Readers' Digest...so it was basically an orgy?!). Interestingly, they also decorated their homes with evergreens - the first (recorded) people to do so.
At the same time, the Celtic tribes of northern Europe celebrated Yule, a festival similarly marked by indulgent eating and drinking, and the exchanging of gifts (for those who could afford it). They also decorated their homes with evergreens, and added holly, ivy and mistletoe, which symbolized extreme danger from Nargles renewal and everlasting life. Fires were lit, from which comes the tradition of burning a large Yule Log.
During the Dark Ages, the Christian Church started to have a much stronger grip on western Europe, especially in Britain. Whilst allowing the pagan faith to continue in any form was generally frowned upon, an exception was made for Christmas (though the tale of small children wandering around in dressing gowns and tea towels the birth of the Son of Christ was obviously pushed to the forefront of the celebrations, instead of old rituals involving fires and sacred plants). In 567, the Church declared the 12 days between the Nativity and Epiphany a sacred season, and by the time of the Norman Conquest, this period had become Britain's main holiday.
The Christmas celebrations remained largely unchanged for the next 500 odd years, with the exception of the banning of Christmas in 1647 (yes, this isn't just a myth). It was not, as is commonly claimed, Oliver Cromwell alone who banned the festival, but the New Model Army (of which he was one of the chief officers, admittedly), which was made up of extremely zealous Puritans who believed that Jesus would absolutely not be coming again until the country was sorted out and the people stopped behaving like such wanton harlots. The Major Generals (the top officers of the Army) decreed that only the Sabbath should be a day of rest, and the only national holiday should be 5 November, to celebrate its freedom from papist despotism.
What they didn't factor in was the public's reaction to this. People decorated the streets with holly and mistletoe, shopkeepers openly defied the demands to open their stores on Christmas Day. In Kent, an armed rebellion took place, most of which was quickly put down, but over 3,000 rebels held out behind the old Roman walls in Colchester for several months afterward. Though the Puritan reforms continued throughout the country, the banning of Christmas was quietly dropped for the following years.
What we today would recognise as 'Christmas' descended from the Victorian, C19th era where it was seen as an opportunity to embellish commercial interests. Most of our "traditions" either stem from this point or were revived by the middle and upper classes, eager to show off their great wealth and benefit themselves only, which is capitalism at it's absolute worst...but does give us beautifully festive scenes such as the one above, and The Nutcracker, so I think I might find it in my heart to forgive them a little bit...
[Part Two to follow.]
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