It’s Christmas time! Whoohoo! I love Christmas time, because I get to bake a ham, find gifts for people, and I just love the overall joyous atmosphere. Well, it’s joyous when people aren’t tackling each other because of some dumb little Elmo toy. (Gotta love the irony that people are supposed to be all loving and giving when, in fact, people are conniving and trying to one up each other with inanimate objects.) Anyways, today I’m writing to you some facts about Christmas and Santa Claus. I hope you enjoy!
Christmas Facts:
- Scandinavia: Beginning December 21st thru January, the winter solstice, the Norse people celebrated Yule. This celebration recognized the return of the sun. As part of the celebration, fathers and sons would go out searching for large logs to bring home and set on fire. The people would feast until the log burned out, which would take as many as twelve days. Many of these people believed that each spark from the fire would tell them how many new pigs or calves would be born in the new year.
- Saturnalia: This was a holiday in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture, in Rome. During Saturnalia, food and drink were abundant, and the normal social order would be flip-flopped. For the entire celebration, slaves would become the masters and the peasants were in charge of the city.
- Juvenalia: This was a feast honoring the Roman children and was celebrated around the time of the winter solstice. In addition to this feast, the members of the upper class would also celebrate Mithra, the god of the unconquerable son, on December 25th. It is said that Mithra, and infant god, was born of a rock. For some people, the celebration of Mithra’s birth was the most sacred day of the year.
- Christmas part 1: Around the fourth century, some Catholic church officials decided that they wanted to institute the birth of Jesus the Christ as a holiday. However, the Holy Bible did not point out a year, date, or month for His birth (I believe it was never mentioned for good reason). But Pope Julius I eventually chose December 25th as the date. It is commonly believed that he chose this date in effort to push out pagan holiday festivals (such as Saturnalia). Christmas was first called the Feast of the Nativity and even spread to Scandinavia by the end of the 8th century. In the Greek and Roman orthodox churches today, Christmas is celebrated 13 days after December 25th, which is called the Epiphany or Three Kings day, the day some believe the three wise men found Jesus. Even though the Catholic church began the celebration, it gave up on the ability to command exactly how Christmas would be celebrated. During the era of the Middle Ages, the pagan religions were, for the most part, replaced by Christianity. By this time, believers would go to church on Christmas Day and then celebrate quite raucously (much like Maris Gras today). A beggar or student would be crowned the Lord of Misrule every year. Members of the lower class would congregate at the houses of the wealthy and demand the best food and drink the wealthy had to offer. If the rich failed to comply, the poor would, in essence, make them pay. This was seen as a way for the rich to repay their “debt” to society.
- Christmas part 2: When Oliver Cromwell and Puritan followers were in control beginning in 1645, they cancelled Christmas, because they wanted to rid their country of decadence. In 1620, the pilgrims who came to America were even more strict than Cromwell, thus Christmas was not celebrated in the early days of America. Christmas fell almost completely out of favor after the American Revolution. It wasn’t a holiday in the U.S. until 26 June 1870.
- Christmas part 3: It is said that Washington Irving (author of the series The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, gent.) and Charles Dickens (author of A Christmas Carol) helped to transform the Christmas holiday from a raucous carnival holiday to a family centered and goodwill and peace towards men holiday in England and America.
Santa Claus Facts:
- Traced back to a monk, Saint Nicholas, who became known for his devotion and kindness. Saint Nicholas had many legends spring up about him. He eventually became known as a protector of children and sailors. His feast day is on December 6th, the anniversary of his death.
- The name Santa Claus was derived from Saint Nicholas’ Dutch name, Sinter Klaus, a nickname of sorts of Sint Nikolaas.
- Clement Clark Moore wrote a lengthy Christmas poem titled, An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas, in 1822. Even though the imagery for Santa Claus was likely borrowed from other sources, Moore’s version of Santa Claus (a “right jolly old elf”) is what we, in America, use today.
- Thomas Nast, a political cartoonist, was the first person who depicted Santa Claus in a red suit trimmed in white fur, elves, Santa’s workshop, and Mrs. Claus.
- In other parts of the world, other similar gift-givers were popular. Christkind (means Christ Child) or Kris Kringle delivered presents to well-behaved Swiss and German kids. Christkind is an angel-like figure wh frequently accompanied Santa. Jultomten, an elf in Scandinavia, delivered gifts in a goat-driven sleigh. Father Christmas, an English legend, filled goodies in stockings on Christmas Eve. Pere Noel filled French children’s shoes. Babouschka, an elderly Russian woman, purposefully gave the wise men wrong directions to Christ. Feeling guilty, she now leaves gifts by Russian children’s bedside on January 5th in hopes that one of them is the baby Jesus, in hopes that she’ll be forgiven. In Italy, La Befana, a witch who rides a broomstick down chimneys, delivers toys in stockings to children.
Knecht Ruprecht:
- Knecht Ruprecht (Farmhand Rupert or Servant Rupert) appears with Saint Nicholas in Germany on St. Nicholas’ Day (December 6). He has many different names: Krampus, Bartel, Hans Muff, Schimmelreiter, etc.
- He startles with his demeanor and appearance. Wear clothes made of rags, straw, or furs and has a mask, beard, or soot-blackened face.
- He carries a whip, stick, bell, or sack. The bell warns that he is coming. The stick or whip is to punish bad children, and the sack carries goodies for good children (or he hits kids with the sack, depends on the story).
- Other stories suggest that he even takes bad children with him so that he can eat them at his feast.
I hope you enjoyed these facts! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
