Holidays or Holy Days

god of war, and they sacrificed to it until St Boniface, in the eighth century, persuaded them to exchange it for the Christmas tree, a young fir-tree adorned in honour of the Christ child . . . It was the German immigrants who took the custom to America” (L.W. Cowie and John Selwyn Gummer, The Christian Calendar, 1974, p.22). Instead of worshiping the sun god, converts were told to worship the Son of God.The focus of the holi day subtly changed, but the traditional pagan customs and practices remained fundamentally unchanged. Old religious customs involving holly, ivy, mistletoe and evergreen trees were merely dressed up in Christian attire.We should keep in mind that Jesus Christ warns us to beware of things that masquerade as something they are not (Matthew 7:15). The roots of modern customs Many of the other trappings of Christmas are merely carryovers from ancient celebrations. Santa Claus comes from Saint Nicholas, the “saint whose festival was celebrated in December and the one who in other respects was most nearly in accord with the dim traditions of Saturn as the hero of the Saturnalia” (Walsh, p. 70). “On the Roman NewYear (January 1), houses were decorated with greenery and lights, and gifts were given

to children and the poor.To these observances were added the German and Celtic Yule rites . . . Food and good fellowship, the Yule log and Yule cakes, greenery and fir trees, gifts and greetings all commemorated different aspects of this festive season. Fires and lights, symbols of warmth and lasting life, have always been associated with the winter festival, both pagan and Christian” ( Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition, Micropaedia,Vol. II, p. 903, “Christmas”). “In midwinter, the idea of rebirth and fertility was tremendously important. In the snows of winter, the evergreen was a symbol of the life that would return in the spring, so evergreens were used for decoration . . . Light was important in dispelling the growing darkness of the solstice, so a Yule log was lighted with the remains of the previous year’s log . . .As many customs lost their religious reasons for being, they passed into the realm of superstition, becoming good luck traditions and eventually merely customs without rationale.Thus the mistletoe was no longer worshiped but became eventu ally an excuse for rather nonreligious activities” (Gerard and Patricia Del Re, p. 18). “Christmas gifts themselves remind us of the presents that were exchanged in Rome during the Saturnalia. In Rome, it might be added, the presents usually took the form of wax tapers and dolls,—the latter being in their American Christmas larger than the gross national product of Ireland” (Joseph L. Sheler, U.S. News & World Report, “In Search of Christmas,” Dec. 23, 1996, p. 64). The lure of profit has proven so strong that, since the 1870s, merchants have vigorously promoted Christmas. Initially they even laid out their stores with more religious trappings, such as pipe organs, choirs and statues, than some churches could muster. Convinced of the economic impact of Christ mas, President Franklin Roosevelt moved Thanksgiv ing from Nov. 30 to Nov. 23 to add another week of shopping before Christmas (Sheler, p. 62). “What many historians find most fascinating about the reinvention of Christmas is that its com mercialization, now so frequently denounced, is what spawned the transformation in the first place. The ‘commercial forms’ associated with Christmas and other holidays, says Schmidt of Princeton [Lee Eric Schmidt, Consumer Rites, 1995], ‘have become integral to their survival.’ The consumer culture ‘shapes our holidays,’ Schmidt says, ‘by taking in diverse, local traditions and creating relatively com mon ones.’ To turn Christmas into a purely religious celebration now might cheer those who want to ‘take back Christmas,’ he says. But such an obser vance ‘would lack the cultural resonance and impact of a holiday deeply rooted in the marketplace.’ If Christmas came to that, adds Restad [Penne Restad, Christmas in America, 1995], ‘we probably wouldn’t keep it as a society’” (Sheler, p. 64).

How Christmas Grew

I n view of centuries of criticism of the commercial ization of Christmas, it is interesting to note that the holiday’s secular, not its religious, aspect, has been most responsible for its popularity. In the

United States “retailers have come to count on yule tide sales for up to 50 percent of their annual prof its. The shopping season now pumps an estimated $37 billion into the nation’s economy—making the

6 Holidays or Holy Days: Does It Matter Which Days We Keep?