Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints

(Most of this information is direct quoting from the Wikipedia web site, an on-line encyclopedia available to the public. Check it out – you may learn something new.)

"Christmas is an annual holiday that marks the traditional birthday of Jesus of Nazareth. Christmas combines the celebration of Jesus’ birth with various secular traditions and customs, many of which were influenced by ancient winter festivals such as Yule. Christmas is traditionally on December 25^th, preceded by Christmas Eve, and in some countries followed by Boxing Day.

There are several definitions of Boxing Day. The most widely known follows: "In Britain many years ago, it was common practice for the servants to carry boxes to their employers when they arrived for their day's work on the day after Christmas. Their employers would then put coins in the boxes as special end-of-year gifts. This can be compared with the modern day concept of Christmas bonuses. The servants carried boxes for the coins, hence the name Boxing Day

"In Anglo-Saxon times, Christmas was referred to as geol, from which the current English word ‘Yule’ is derived. The word ‘Christmas’ is a contraction meaning ‘Christ’s mass’, which was taken from an Old English phrase, Cristes maesse, first recorded in 1038.

"In early Greek versions of the New Testament, the letter ‘X’ (chi) is the first letter of Christ in the Greek alphabet. Since the mid-sixteenth century ‘X’, or the similar Roman letter, was used as an abbreviation for Christ.

"Yule was a winter festival in early Scandinavia held in the late December to early January period. Yule logs were lit to honor Thor, the god of thunder. Feasting would continue until the log burned out, which could take as many as twelve days, thus the ‘12 Days of Christmas’. Scandinavians still call Christmas Jul. In English, the Germanic word Yule is synonymous with Christmas, a usage first recorded in the year 900.

"The earliest reference to the celebration of Christmas is in the Calendar of Filocalus, an illuminated manuscript compiled in Rome in the year 354.

"During the Reformation, Protestants condemned Christmas celebration as ‘trappings of popery’ and the ‘rags of the Beast’. Following the Parliamentary victory over King Charles I during the English Civil War, England’s Puritan rulers banned Christmas in 1647. Pro-Christmas rioting broke out in several cities, and rioters decorated doorways with holly and shouted royalist slogans. The restoration of 1660 ended the ban, but most of the Anglican clergy still disapproved of Christmas celebrations.

"In Colonial America, the Puritans of New England disapproved of Christmas; its celebration was outlawed in Boston from 1659 to 1681. At the same time, residents of Virginia and New York celebrated the holiday freely. Christmas fell out of favor in the United States after the American Revolution, when it was considered an English custom.

"By the 1920's, British writers began to worry that Christmas was dying out and efforts were made to revive the holiday. Charles Dickens’ book A Christmas Carol, published in 1943, played a major role in reinventing Christmas as a holiday, emphasizing family, goodwill, and compassion.

"In 1914, the first year of World War I, there was an unofficial truce between German and British troops in France. Soldiers on both sides spontaneously began to sing carols and stopped fighting. The truce began on Christmas Day and continued for some time afterward. Some accounts even include a soccer game between the trench lines, but there is no evidence this event actually occurred.

As recently as December 19, 2000, controversy over the nature of Christmas and its status as a religious or secular (worldly or material) holiday was debated in the U. S. Supreme Court. On December 6, 1999, a verdict was handed down declaring that "the establishment of Christmas Day as a legal public holiday does not violate the Establishment Clause (separation of church and state) because it has a valid secular purpose." The Supreme Court upheld this decision in 2000. In 2005 some Christians along with certain American conservatives protested against the perceived secularization of Christmas. Some believed that "the holiday was threatened by a general secular trend, or by persons and organizations with an anti-Christian agenda. The perceived trend was also blamed on political correctness."

"In Western culture, where the holiday is characterized by the exchange of gifts among friends and family members, some of the gifts are attributed to a character called Santa Clause, also known as Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, Sinterklaas, Joulupukki, Weihnachtamann, Saint Basil and Father Frost, depending on your location.

"Santa Claus is a variation of a Dutch folk tale based on the historical figure Saint Nicholas, or Sinterklaas, who gave gifts on the eve of his feast day of December 6^th. He became associated with Christmas in 19^th Century America, and was gradually renamed Santa Claus or Saint Nick. In 1812, Washington Irving wrote of Saint Nicholas ‘riding over the tops of the trees, in that selfsame waggon wherein he brings his yearly presents to the children.’ The connection of Santa Claus and Christmas was popularized by the 1822 poem ‘A visit from Saint Nicholas’, attributed to Clement Clarke Moore, which depicted Santa driving a sleigh pulled by reindeer and distributing gifts to children. The popular image of Santa Clause was created by the German-American cartoonist Thomas Nast (1840-1902), who drew a new image annually, beginning in 1863. By the 1880's, Nast’s Santa had evolved into the form we now recognize. The image was standardized by advertisers in the 1920's.

"Father Christmas, who predates the Santa Claus character, was first recorded in the 15^th century, but was associated with holiday merrymaking and drunkenness.

"The English language phrase "Christmas tree" is first recorded in 1835 and represents an importation from the German language. The modern Christmas tree tradition is believed to have begun in Germany in the 18^th century. From Germany the custom was introduced to England. Around the same time, German immigrants introduced the custom to the United States. Since the 19^th century, the poinsettia has been associated with Christmas, as well as holly, mistletoe, red amaryllis, and Christmas Cactus.

"In many countries, businesses, schools, and communities have Christmas parties and dances in the weeks before Christmas. Christmas pageants may include a retelling of the story of the birth of Christ. Groups may visit neighborhood homes to sing carols. Others do volunteer work or hold fundraising drives for charities."