Download Christmas Fact Sheet

A CHRISTMAS FACT SHEET
Victor Parachin
Editor’s Note: Your students may have many questions about Christmas.
This fact sheet can help you explain the festival and some of its surrounding traditions.
F
or some people, Christmas is merely an extremely
popular holiday, but for Christians it honors the
birth of Jesus Christ. There have been times in history
when Christmas celebrations were discouraged and
even outlawed. Here is a brief history of Christmas
and some of the interesting traditions connected to it.
 When a group of scholars attempted to pinpoint the
exact date of Christ's birth in 245 A.D., a church
council denounced the endeavor declaring that it would
be wrong to celebrate the birthday of Christ "as though
he were a king or pharaoh."
 May 20 was once favored as the day to celebrate
Christmas because the Gospel of Luke (Luke 2:8 and
following) reports that the shepherds were watching
their sheep by night. Shepherds guarded their flocks by
day and night only at lambing time in the spring. In
winter, animals generally were kept in corrals and were
not watched.
 In 349 A.D., Pope Julius (337-352 A.D.) formally
selected Dec. 25 as the day for Christmas. Prior to the
celebration of Christmas, Dec. 25 was already a widely
celebrated day in the Roman world. On that date
citizens observed the Natalis Solis Invicti (the Birthday
of the Unconquerable Sun) in honor of the sun god
Mithras. Scholars believe that Pope Julius selected Dec.
25 as the date of the Nativity in order to win over
followers of the sun god Mithras as well as to give
Christians an opportunity to honor Christ on his birth
date.
 The English Parliament outlawed Christmas, Easter,
and other Christian holidays in 1643. However, Dec. 25
was so popular as a festival day that by 1700 the
citizens reclaimed it. Their neglect of the religious
aspects of Dec. 25 resulted in the growing
secularization of the holiday.
 A Massachusetts law was enacted in 1659 that fined
people for celebrating Dec. 25. The day was so popular,
however, that the anti-Christmas law was repealed in
1681, although strong religious opposition lasted into
the next century.
 Pennsylvania Germans claim to have initiated the
Christmas tree custom in America. The first references
to a Christmas tree are found in the Dec. 20, 1821, entry
in the diary of Matthew Zahm of Lancaster, Pa. The
first known exhibition of a Christmas tree was held in
York, Pa., in 1830. Early trees were decorated with
fruits, nuts, popcorn, toys, and candles. Today more
than 80% of American families buy and decorate a tree
at Christmas.
 The poinsettia plant is named after Dr. Joel Roberts
Poinsett, the first United States minister to Mexico. and
an accomplished amateur botanist who discovered the
plant there in 1828 and brought it to the United States.
The significance of the poinsettia for Christmas comes
from a Mexican legend. It was a custom for villagers to
place gifts before the creche in the church on Christmas
Eve. A small boy, too poor to give anything, knelt to
pray in the snow outside. On the spot where he knelt,
the legend says, a beautiful plant with scarlet leaves
grew immediately. The boy took it into the church and
presented it as his gift to the Christ child. Mexicans call
the plant Flor de la Noche Buena (Flower of the Holy
Night) and it is thought to resemble the Star of
Bethlehem.
 The use of "Xmas," an abbreviation for Christmas,
originated with Greek Christians. "X" is the first letter
of the Greek word for Christ (Xristos). By the 16th
century, "Xmas" was widely used throughout Europe
among Christians who understood that it meant
"Christ's mass." Later Christians, unfamiliar with the
Greek origin, mistook the "X" as a sign of disrespect
and an attempt by unbelievers to rid Christmas of its
central meaning. Some Christians still disapprove of the
abbreviation.
 Christmas is the only religious holiday in America that
is also a national legal holiday. In 1836, Alabama
became the first state to declare Christmas an official
holiday. By 1890 all other states followed suit.