*audio cue*

Host

This part of the story of our modern Christmas, it mix of the so many additional elements of our holiday that have already been covered in other episodes. For better context, check out the rest of the season, starting with our three part, “The History of our Christmas Holiday”.

What comes to mind when you think Christmas?

Matthew Kelley

As much as I enjoyed the presents and things like that, even as a kid for me, it was being in the Christmas Eve service and singing Silent Night together, and all of us having the candles in our hands and the lights being turned off and just the beautiful glow that came from the whole congregation.

Because most times at church, you know, you’re looking for the lights – are focused on the chancellor and the preacher and whatnot. And it’s it’s the light from all the people as we’re singing all together.

And I was I’ve always found that to be the most, most beautiful part of Christmas to me.

Host

What’s the perspective like being up in front of the congregation, watching the lights go out and the candles take over?

Matthew Kelley

It’s fantastic. It’s – I just – I again, that was one of the highlights.

I don’t – as a pastor – I don’t like most parts of the Christmas season because it’s so hectic, so commercialized. Everybody’s got their idea of exactly what we got to do. It’s a little much. But sitting up in front and and seeing the lights coming from all the people that it’s not just about what those of us up front wearing robes do and say. It is really the whole body of people being the light for one another. That light that God puts into us that I find so beautiful.

*Audio Cue*

Oh Night, Devine

Host

OK, so first off, I want to say that this was a hard episode to conceptualize. Almost as soon as I began working on this season, I knew that the religious elements of Christmas – Christian Christmas – was something I wanted to cover. But how?

There are so many sides to the average Christian’s belief in Christmas history. Jesus’s birth, the logistics of the star, the checkered history of celebrations, even the idea that this aspect of Christmas is timeless.

I just had to keep asking myself, Is this how I tell the story? This is this where I start?

I ended up right where I began – at Christ birth.

After all, I was raised Christian, and I was also raised to believe that Christmas was Jesus’ birthday.

Matthew Kelley

Hi, my name is Matt Kelly. I’m a United Methodist pastor. I also have a doctorate in biblical studies from Emory University.

There’s really no way of knowing exactly what date or time of year Jesus was born.

Host

As I spoke to more clergymen and pastors, what I discovered is that this isn’t a hidden fact. It’s widely known and accepted, but it’s not popularly known, at least not to pretty much anyone else I’ve talked to.

And that’s surprising.

It’s hard to wrap my head around. Does this poke a hole in Christmas altogether?

Well, that depends. What’s the story of Christmas and Christianity? What do we know? What do we just believe? And what role has Christianity had in creating Christmas?

The story we’re going to tell is chronological. It begins with Jesus’s birth. So what happened there? Literally what do we actually know about the birth narrative of Jesus? Then, what did his birth mean to Christians? Did they acknowledge it? And when they did, what were those first celebrations like? And finally, how did we get from there to how we celebrate a religious Christmas nowadays?

OK. Today I’m creating Christmas : the Christian Christmas.

*Audio Cue*

Let it be just one holy night.

Host

The religious observance of Christmas. If it all begins with the birth of Christ. Let’s start there.

Adam English

My name is Adam English, and I’m a professor at Campbell University in North Carolina, where I also teach a course on Santa Claus.

So the Christian Bible has four gospels. It’s Matthew and Luke that give details of the birth.

Matthew has the story of the Magi, the wise men coming from the East :

Biblical Reading

Behold there came wise men from theEeast to Jerusalem saying ‘Where is he that is born king of the Jew?’

Adam English

And we have the story then of Herod kind of reacting explosively to this news of this newborn king somewhere in his realm.

Biblical Reading

He was mocked of the wisemen was exceeding wrath and sent forth and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem.

Host

The Gospel of Matthew doesn’t bring up several cornerstones of our Nativity Story. The story we hear every year is actually a mash up of both Gospels.

As for Matthew, he begins with a listing of Jesus’s lineage, which is believed to have been intended to show that Jesus comes from a long line of powerful people, the lineage of a king. It then goes on to tell the story of Joseph excepting Mary’s Immaculate Conception, but jumps all the way past the birth entirely and goes into the story of the Wisemen, the Magi and the Holy Family’s escape to Egypt.

So there’s no baby in a manger in Matthew. When the Madurai arrived, they actually arrived to a house.

Quick aside, the story of the Magi has come to be known as the three wise men, but within the Bible there is a number of the offerings given, but not an actual number of the magic in attendance that came later…much later.

Ace Collins

Hi, Ms. Collins. And I’m the writer behind “the stories, behind the best love songs of Christmas”, “the stories behind the great traditions of Christmas” and a number of other Christmas books.

The man who wrote ‘We Three Kings of Orient Are’ was a preacher who later regretted writing those because he realized before that we hadn’t thought about kings in threes. And he had written something ultimately that gave people the mistaken impression that there were only three wise men. During his life even found out people were naming them, and so you created a mythology that went with the wise men that wasn’t historically accurate.

So ‘We Three Kings of Orient Are’ changed our viewpoints of the wise men. There may have been 10 or 12. We don’t know.

Host

The Gospel of Luke is very different in tone and content from the Gospel of Matthew and where Matthew focuses on Jesus’s lineage. Luke’s gospel is thought to have been written to demonstrate that Jesus was divine from birth.

Adam English

But over in Luke, you have the story then of the announcement by the angels, to the shepherds out in the fields…

Biblical Reading

…that the angels said unto them, ‘Be not afraid for behold, I bring you tidings of great joy that shall come to all the people.’

Adam English

We have the story of Jesus’ circumcision in Luke and his appearance before the two prophets there in the temple.

Host

Now Luke gives us the most detailed account of Jesus’s actual birth story, which is here in its entirety. Luke two verses six and seven:

Biblical Reading

…And it fortunated, while they were there, her time has come that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her first begotten son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them within the inn.

Host

That’s it. That’s the account. Except for the brief mention that the shepherds to whom the angels appeared also found Mary, Joseph and Jesus in a manger. That’s all of it.

Of course, we have all accepted that there were more people, and especially animals present at the birth of Christ.

Some of this was just peer to peer understanding at the time. Like saying you go into the kitchen today, it’s pretty reasonable that I assume there’s a fridge forks and paper towels. But it’s a leap to assume you have a drummer boy standing by while making a PB&J.

Christians created and found these more irregular details outside of biblical accounts. Sometimes in books that were actually excluded from the Bible

Adam English

Within, gosh, within 50 years of the end of the New Testament, there are already imaginative stories about the birth and about these narratives. So one would be the Protoevangelium of James, which tells the story of Mary. And we have some other gospels, other Gnostic Gospels that – so there’s a there’s an infancy narrative infancy Gnostic Gospel of Thomas that, you know, kind of lends additional imaginative stories to the birth of Christ and to the infancy of Christ.

You know, it’s almost unstoppable within human nature. You get to this fascinating story that is at the heart of Christianity, and you just almost can’t stop your imagination. I’ll say it that way.

Host

OK, but just looking at the Bible, the word of God, the official account of Jesus. 43 words.

And yet the manger scene, the Nativity, the story of Christ’s birth, that’s the modern centerpiece of Christian Christmas.

Most of the biblical birth narrative is about the surrounding events that took place in the days, months and even years that followed Christ’s birth.

Adam English

You know, the wise men and you know this mad man, King Herod, and you’ve got shepherds out in the field and you’ve got appearances of angels who have speaking part.

Host

So to me, the story of Jesus, his birth as written in Matthew and Luke reads more like a recap of Jesus as an infant or even a toddler. If that’s the case, does that mean that the actual day of his birth is maybe less important than celebrating the idea of God made flesh? Or at least recognizing that there’s a season of wonder surrounding his birth?

This is something that I’ve really had to think about because finding out that Baby Jesus wasn’t born on December 25th. It wasn’t the easiest thing for me to accept without having my idea of Christmas changed in some ways.

But Christmas, the idea of a celebration of Christ birth, that came much later, and it wasn’t the focus of the early church. There wasn’t an official celebration. To grasp this, it’s really important to place the idea of a birthday party for Jesus within the context of the time.

Especially in the decades following Jesus’ death as the Bible was being written, Christians had different views on birthdays.

First off, leading up to Jesus, other important figures in the church – saints, their birthdays were actually the day of their death and their birth into heaven.

Bruce David Forbes

I’m Bruce. I’m a professor emeritus of Religious Studies at Morningside College, although now it’s known as Morningside University.

Christians, if they celebrate someone, first they were celebrating martyrs. It was when they died. And later on, when you had Saints’ Days, Saints’ Days are always when a person dies, not the birthday.

Host

At the same time, Christians actually didn’t only not celebrate birthdays. They were actively anti- birthday, according to Origin of Alexandria.

Historical Reading : Origin of Alexandria

Not one from All the Saints is found to have celebrated a festive day or a great feast on the day of his birth. No one is found to have had joy on the day of the birth of his son or daughter. Only sinners rejoice over this kind of birthday, for indeed we find the Pharaoh celebrating the day of his birth. And Herod, however, both stained the festival of his birth by shedding human blood.

Saints not only do not celebrate a festival on their birthdays, but, filled with the Holy Spirit, they curse that day.

Host

Origin was the greatest biblical scholar of his time. So this view on birthdays would have been pretty widely accepted. He taught in the early to mid 200. So we also have to accept that the idea of not celebrating birthdays was somewhat present, aside from him writing about it.

So the idea of a birthday celebration, it just wasn’t something that the first Christians would have done.

Soon we’re going to see that start to shift. But before we get there, so far we’ve been talking about what’s not a part of Christianity. So let’s look at what was.

While Christians weren’t concerned with the birth of Jesus, they were very focused on celebrating his death and resurrection. Actually, the amount of time spent focusing on Easter really highlights how little the focus was on Jesus’s birth in the first few decades or century, as Christianity began to spread.

Matthew Kelly

I can’t give you a percentage. I can tell you about a third of all the material in all four Gospels is dedicated to the last week of Jesus life and the resurrection. So if you just want to count ink, again – Easter, Holy Week and Easter, are way more important than the birth.

Adam English

We know that Christians were – again – basically immediately celebrating or remembering the death of Christ at Easter Time and what we call Easter time now.

And very quickly, they’re also remembering the birth of Christ. And I think in collaboration with or as a counterweight or the other part of the seesaw to remembering the death of Christ is remembering his birth. And so already early within the second century, you know, we already have references to celebrating Christmas within the church. So if it if it didn’t happen immediately within the first century, it was definitely there by the second century.

Host

We’re getting the first few whispers of religious celebration for Christ birth in the second and third centuries. But at that time, Christianity wasn’t just one thing. It varied by region and culture, and it was super dangerous to be Christian back then.

As far as the roots of a universally recognized Christian Christmas or an accepted observance of Christ’s birth, we find that these really take hold in the later third and the fourth century as the Roman Empire became more lenient towards Christians – becoming a Christian empire early in the fourth century under Constantine.

Can you tell me what the first celebrations of the Natal Day of Christ were like?

Adam English

You know, they’re pretty small. They’re pretty they’re pretty plain by our standards. Yeah, it certainly readings in liturgies from early Christian, you know, Christmas type services, but in which may just again show it was not the kind of big production that it would come to be. It would have been much more somber and sober and more of a focus on the religious aspect of it rather than the holiday aspect of it.

Host

I want to repeat that last thing, Adam stated :

Adam English

“…more of a focus on the religious aspect of it rather than the holiday aspect of it…”

Host

He separates religion and holiday. The intent of celebrating Christ’s birth in the beginning was a special day for religious practice, not a party. A time set aside for prayer. In modern times, it might relate to observing the Sabbath as opposed to observing Memorial Day.

Now, as Christians came out of the shadows, there was a wide variety of dates competing to become the official birthday for Jesus. Some were in March, January, and December. So back to the question of December. 25th.

Adam English

So, you know, it turns out December 25th has some biblical support as an actual date for the birth.

*Audio Cue*

Oh, Come all ye Faithful..

Adam English

The Gospel of Luke describes Zachariah, the husband of Elizabeth, receiving a message in the temple on a holy day, which we scholars and tradition seem to place at Yom Kippur, which was September the 24th of that year. That Elizabeth, his wife, would conceive with John. Elizabeth’s cousin Mary – Six months later – receives an announcement from Gabriel, the angel, that she will conceive.

And so if you count forward from September the 24th six months you arrive at March the 25th, which is the traditional day in the church calendar for the annunciation to Mary that is Gabriel’s annunciation to Mary that she would conceive. And then if you count nine months from March the 25th you arrive at December the 25th.

Host

This is just one of many theories that both support or undermine the December 25th birthday.

December is a strong possibility though, which many people often overlook because – shepherds in their flock in December?

Adam English

You might hear some objections say ‘well you know no way that shepherds would be keeping their flocks by night out in the field in late December’. But as it turns out, in Palestine, the months from November through February are the rainy season, a time when sheep might graze on fresh green grass out in the field.

So it is actually very reasonable that the shepherds would be out in the field late in the evening with their sheep letting them graze to their heart’s content.

December 25th ultimately emerged as the most popular date then to remember the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem lo those many years ago.

Host

Most popular. Popular is an interesting term.

At least I don’t think of decisions being made very often within the Christian religion based on popularity. Here, though, that seems to have at least played a part in the selection of the date.

The official selection of December 25th seems to have been set in 336 A.D. It’s listed in a document known as Chronograph 354. And it doesn’t explain the reason for the date.  It just labels December 25th as the Natal Day of Christ.

Adam English

It comes out of Rome. You know, it’s just all this Chronograph thing and it’s 336. But when you look at it, you can clearly tell that the authors just sort of assume everybody knows this. It’s not like they’re inventing it or giving us some kind of big revelation. It’s just sort of tucked in there like, ‘well obviously it’s December 25th’. Which seems to suggest that there is years prior to 336, the date December 25th is already a very widespread and acknowledged date for the birth of Christ.

Host

Now why we don’t have an exact answer anywhere, there are a few likely reasons for December 25th which at the very least were part of the decision process.

First, Sol Invictus the celebration of the Unconquered Sun. This was a pretty new celebration. It only dated back as a Roman state supported holiday at most 100 years, but really more like 50. It’s possible that Christians are trying to overtake the holidays, use of sun imagery and the holiday all together.

Then there is the bigger ongoing celebration of Saturnalia…

Voice Over Effect

Saturnalia

Host

…which we talked about in part one of our series The History of our Christmas.

This was already a popular holiday and had been for hundreds of years. So there’s the idea that Christians are trying to tap into the holidays popularity and also use a new Christian focus within the holiday to urge followers to practice a restrained Saturnalia; more prayer, meditation, less drinking and cross-dressing.

Whether these are the reasons for the choice of the date or not, or if there’s something completely different that we haven’t considered; the result was the same.

From the very beginning. Christians pitted the birthday of their savior against one of the longest running secular holidays in human history.

Bruce David Forbes

From the very first moment that Christians start celebrating this, it’s already fuzed with the Midwinter Festival. It never starts as a pure Christian celebration, and then other things get mixed in. When it gets started, it’s already fuzed with the Midwinter Festival.

Adam English

What’s interesting is that within that early church, there are already Christian critics of it who are already making that association. This is not something that comes about, you know, hundreds of years later, as people reflect back on the origins of Christmas.

Already at the time, people are starting to wonder, ‘Wait a minute, why are we celebrating this on the 25th?. Is this because it’s somehow a a new version of soul Invictus or some new version of Paganism?’ or something like that?

So even from the beginning, then that is to say, Christians were already wary about celebrating Christmas.

Bruce David Forbes

There’s one author who says it’s always been difficult for Christians to Christianize Christmas.

And so, I think if people today, like if they come from a Christian background and they feel it’s kind of a struggle of how to balance it, this should make them feel good because it’s always been that way.

Host

Whatever the original intention may have been for placing Christ birth over an existing holiday, we may never know. But a directive from the Pope in 1579 made it very clear how the church and missionaries were going to work going forward.

Historical Reading

The idle temples of race should by no means be destroyed, but only the idols in them. Take holy water and sprinklers in these shrines. Build altars and place relics in them. Thus, while some outward rejoices are preserved, they will be able more easily to share in inward rejoicings.

Host

And this is where our own history of Christmas starts to get confusing because missionaries are very good at their job.

That’s after the break.

*Audio Cue*

Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and far away.

Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born…

Host

With Christ natively on the church’s calendar, missionaries began to spread the Word of God, which included the celebration of Jesus’s birth on December 25th.

While there is some evidence that the Church tried to separate its celebrations out from existing secular celebrations, at first, by the end of the sixth century, missionaries are ready to mingle. Mixing and adapting existing customs of the cultures that are finding to fit within the Christian framework.

If you remember from our “History the Christmas Tree” episode, this is one of the reasons that the origin of the Christmas tree is so confusing : God and Jesus became the reason for everything.

Ace Collins

These early missionaries were very, very brilliant in how they adapted to the culture that they went into, and, rather than trying to change an entire culture, they adapted the symbols of that culture and gave them a meaning that these people could embrace and enjoy.

*Audio Cue*

Christmas tree. Oh, Christmas tree.

Host

When we talked about Christmas Tree, we went through three different narratives that were created to take the existing importance of evergreen trees and give them specific Christian roots.

Another really good example of how Christian missionaries mapped their religion onto already established regional customs is mistletoe.

Who knows how many hundreds or even thousands of people were converted because of the Christian translation of mistletoe.

Ace Collins

I love the story of mistletoe because, you know, they got to Scandinavia and England and they discovered these people there, the Celts, the Vikings, Druids and others, looked at Mistletoe as this mysterious plant that grew out of dead wood. Because, in the wintertime, the trees looked dead, and you get this mistletoe that was very much alive. And, tribes, would not –  there were basically laws written that you couldn’t fight a battle if the trees had mistletoe in them.

And so mistletoe essentially became a plant that represented peace to these people. It became so important to these early people that they would put it over babies cribs for protection.

Once again, plan of peace. When the missionaries got there, they basically explained, they looked at this custom and looked at the superstition and pulled the mistletoe plant down and said, “guess what? Your mistletoe here, this represents – Christ. Christ was crucified on a dead piece of wood, and yet he came to life. Hence the green leaves”

And berries in England were on mistletoe plants were both red and white. The red represented the blood of Christ on the cross. The white represented the purity of Christ. And so this became a way that they could explain the gospel. And it became such an important part of these early Christians in these countries lives that they would put mistletoe under their – over their door, signifying that they were Christians, and because they wanted their young people to remember and place as a part of their lives, the young people were married underneath a Mistletoe Plant. And what happens even back then during marriage ceremonies at the end of the marriage ceremony, you kiss.

Host

Christianity wasn’t only changing customs in missionary work. The church itself was growing throughout the Middle Ages.

We start to see the transition from the mouthful of celebration title that is ‘the Natal Day of Christ’ to versions of the much more cute and simple ‘Christmas’ or ‘Christ Mass’ starting in the early 11th century. And church leaders continued to innovate new ways to relate the biblical stories to a mostly illiterate congregation.

As with Saint Francis of Assisi and the first live Nativity.

Bruce David Forbes

I mean, first of all, if you Google it and say, ‘who started Nativity scenes’, they say it was Francis of Assisi. And that would be in a 1200s.

But people exaggerate what that was because really, I mean, Saint Francis was all about simplicity and everything, what he had is a manger set up with real hay and he wanted an ox and an ass. And then they celebrated a mass over it and he preached. That was it.

There wasn’t even a Mary and Joseph. There were no shepherds, there were no wisemen, there was no baby in the manger. There was….so the living nativity, as we think about –  it is where it starts, but it didn’t start the way people thought.

And then there’s a more complicated – it doesn’t really spread until the 1500s. It doesn’t take off right away. Big surprise for me is that in a few places in Europe, especially, let’s say the Netherlands – yeah, Dutch in kind of French areas – early on in the 1200s of 1300s, the decoration – it was more than a decoration – in front of some of the churches was just a crib. And it was a crib that sometimes they would rock, the priest would rock ,and there might be bells at the top. So that would represent the ringing of the angels.

But then I guess you’re really focused on the baby Jesus, even though Jesus is not in the cradle, but a crib.

And then this is the things that surprised me – and I get excited about things that I discover – is :

We say nativity scenes. But when I was growing up, I always called it a creche. I did not know what creche meant or anything, but that’s what my brother and I call it. So now I’ve looked it up. It’s a French word – You know what it means? Crib.

And then you look up all the words that the other languages use in almost all of Europe. And you know what those words mean? Crib.

All these all these words, they’re using the word to say – in the English we say nativity scene.

There’s so there’s a crib focus I’d never heard of before. That’s just fascinating.

Host

Now, the Christian Church did all this religious and God based outreach and rebranding, but it was never able to completely rid the world of the winter celebration customs that it predated Christmas, Christianity and Christ. So, in all this mixing and mingling of customs, Christian leaders and churches began carrying on the earlier customs of holidays like Saturnalia.

FX Voice Over

Saturnalia

Host

This meant that drinking and gambling could be part of a Christian celebration of Christmas sometimes taking place within the church itself.

Christians even had their own equivalent of the Lord of Misrule with boy bishops, where the actual bishop would step aside and give a kid the title of Bishop along with many of the benefits. Depending on the church, these boys would lead services, give sermons, give out treats, or even declare holidays.

Then the church split.

Martin Luther was a priest who had a few problems. 95 problems with the way the Christian church work. That’s a blatant oversimplification. But essentially he started Protestant Christianity in 1517.

Protestants would have a major impact on Christmas in about 130 years. But first, let’s look at Martin Luther.

Like a lot of people related to the story of Christmas, Martin Luther wasn’t alone in his thoughts on the church, but he did become the head, or at least the symbol of the new movement. And so he had a big impact on Christmas celebrations.

Ace Collins

You know, it’s amazing what Luther gets credit for. There are pageants that show Luther singing ‘Away in a Manger’ to his children when ‘Away in a Manger’ was actually written in the United States by a Pennsylvania farmer hundreds of years after Luther died. You know, and so but it was called Luther’s Cradle Hymn in the initial publication of the hymnal it was in. So Martin Luther basically over the years has gotten credit for it.

Host

Luther was a man of many myths, especially around Christmas. We’ve already touched the one about Martin Luther being the first to put candles on Christmas trees. There’s also another one that claims he’s responsible for us all giving presents at Christmas.

It’s not all make believe, though. I want to mention something that seems like it probably happened and it’s one of my favorite Christmas discoveries:

Martin Luther replaced Saint Nicholas.

Actually, not only Saint Nick, he wanted to get rid of all gift bringers of the 16th century and replace them with Christkind – the Christ child. The story goes that Martin Luther wanted people to understand that the gifts they’re being given came from Jesus Christ, the Christ in Christmas, and to also push people to believe less and less and saints. So he thought Baby Jesus should deliver presents around the holiday.

If you’re from Europe, this custom probably doesn’t sound as unique as it does to people in America because the custom continues in many parts of the world today.

Now we all know a baby can’t deliver gifts. Martin Luther’s idea was that Baby Jesus worked like our Santa no one ever saw the Christ child deliver the gifts. It was pretty normal, though, in the 16th century to have the gift bringer physically appear at kids homes. So before long, the custom was converted to first babies being carried. And then – to what’s most common – a young girl was dressed in white and then brought the presents.

As I mentioned, Protestants would play a major part in the history of Christmas in the mid 17th century when they canceled Christmas.

Period Law Reading

It whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing…

Host

Britain, the American colonies and a few other countries that fell under some form of Protestant rule all officially ended the celebration of Christmas around the mid 1600s.

Bruce David Forbes

When the Church of England breaks from the Catholic Church. It, first of all, is just an institutional break. They’re pretty much still a Catholic church, it’s just the Pope isn’t in charge anymore – the King is in charge.

But there are some folks who are influenced by Luther and Calvin, mostly Calvin, say, ‘well now that we’ve done this, let’s do it right and let’s get rid of a lot of that other Catholic stuff that we don’t agree with. And I don’t think that’s really Christian.’ And those are people that we call Puritans.

There is for a short while a Puritan revolution in England. You know, this is Oliver Cromwell and it lasts for a few years, although it’s not really very lasting. And then, of course, that influences America because we had New England Puritans who come over here, ‘if England won’t do it, will have to go to the colonies and show people how to do it right.’

Well, these English Puritans and also New England Puritans – it was in the United States, too, they would oppose a celebration of Christmas.

Host

What this meant in day to day life varied. And you can find out more about this particular pat 1 of our series “The History of our Christmas”. Here. I want to go into the reasons behind this cultural shift and the position that this placed the church in after Christmas, came back.

See the Protestants of the Puritans what they wanted to do was realign their faith with that of the early Christians. And part of that was the belief early Christians didn’t celebrate Christmas, which we know is sort of right and sort of wrong. There were religious observances of Christ’s birthday within the first few hundred years of this death, and it was officially recognized within 300 years, but the important distinction is that these were observances, not parties. And in the 1600s, churches were celebrating Christmas more in the secular custom.

Ultimately the Puritans didn’t win. So the restoration of Christmas wasn’t a mindset change on the part of religious leaders, but the loss of power. The monarchy was restored in Britain and along with that came Christmas. And in the American colonies Puritans were only able to hold out until the British crown basically told them to knock it off.

Clearly, this was an important event in the history of Christmas, but it’s also a significant point for the Christian churches relationship with Christmas. Because while society allowed Christmas to resume, churches didn’t return to the celebrations.

At first, this wasn’t a big deal. The restarted Christmas of the 1700s was more muted than it had been before Christmas cancelation but that changed in the 1800s with the Industrial Revolution.

Industrial Revolution Voice Over

…the beginning of a great movement of rural population to the cities that would eventually change the basic pattern of life.

Host

Society changed, but the church didn’t. Not at first.

The Christian churches only changed their opinion on celebrating the holiday because of one thing : Santa Claus saved Christian Christmas.

Santa Clause

Ho ho ho. Merry Christmas, everybody.

Ace Collins

We can actually think Santa Claus for opening up a religious Christmas here in the United States where people gathered in churches. And when you think about it, the fact that Santa saved Christmas for Christians is one of the most ironic of all of the elements of the holiday season.

Host

Santa’s popularity can really be traced back to one plan “A visit from Saint Nicholas” in 1823, which took the world by storm and established Santa Claus as a main figure in Christmas.

Ace Collins

Admittedly, stores took advantage of that because that meant they could sell presents. Churches though took advantage of it as well, because, except for Catholic churches, Lutheran churches, Protestant churches were closed on Christmas Day or Christmas Eve. But when the focus became on children because of that poem and because of the presents that were being sold, the churches opened their doors.

Host

Look, I’ve researched this topic through a number of books and talked to many scholars about this because it’s the complete opposite of what I imagined. But the story more or less checks out.

Santa Claus saved Christian Christmas, mostly.

Let’s take a look at this most part. Society was changing in the 19th century, and large community, rural life was succumbing to urban life.

Children were also being viewed as more important, and the home was moving into focus. All of this was pushing the world at large to an emphasis on the family and so the earlier Christmas and winter celebration, party traditions, they were being translated into family centered experiences. This was happening independently of Santa Claus, but Santa and his real and magical powers cemented the idea of a family centric celebration into the holiday.

This meant that the drinking and licentious behavior that had been a part of the holiday season for thousands of years disappeared into a more respectable and sedate family holiday over just a few decades.

Now, at the core of the Puritan attack on Christmas, about 150 years before was the wish for this to happen; to rid Christmas of these behaviors. The Christian Church wasn’t able to force the change on the world but here in the mid 1800s society, we all organically made this change.

This new family center Christmas somewhat rallied behind Santa Claus, this is something the Christian church could and did embrace.

Bruce David Forbes

So Christmas comes roaring back in the 1800s. But the churches did not do it. The churches didn’t say ‘oh we don’t have enough emphasis on Christmas’. Christmas became culturally central and more and more people got involved whether they were Christian or not and that’s something that these cultural forces caused to happen.

Now I’m sure no minister objected. You know, they were – they were happy to see this happen. But what’s so interesting is Christmas comes roaring back not as part of a church campaign.

Host

Christianity coming back around the Christmas is sort of like a popular guy in school, asking out the newly made over nerd to prom. This isn’t a perfect parallel, but it’s pretty close.

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Wind Down

Host

But wait, wait. There’s a problem with the simplicity of this “Santa saved Jesus’s birthday” narrative.

It ignores the fact that 19th century society was intertwined with Christianity. So while Christmas arose from what appears to be non-religious characters and traditions, it was the society and the church working together and agreeing together on the morals and aesthetics at the time that decided the direction the world would go.

So secular and Christian, even when they weren’t directly connected in the early 19th century, they were still pretty related. And think about it. Christianity has been pretty baked into the Western world for hundreds of years. So the traditions we practice may predate the false histories that point them towards Christianity, but these false histories in many places helped establish the popular history.

So the holiday is at once, religious and secular.

At least it was – here, right here in the beginning of our modern Christmas Saint and Jesus – they weren’t were the opposites. Many churches embraced the new traditions and even held Christmas parties featuring Santa Claus. This would go on for decades.

Bruce David Forbes

You just have to say what we have now is a cultural Christmas and a Christian Christmas.

And some people, a lot of people especially come from a Christian background. They’re involved in both, but they don’t know that they’re two different things, right? It’s just all Christmas.

But there are some people who like the cultural part and really are interested in the religious part. I guess there’s some people interested in the religious part and they’re worried they’re not doing enough of it.

But they are two different things, and they’re just realities in the world today.

Host

There’s a term that’s pretty common when it comes to talking about Christmas, It’s “the battle for Christmas”. I don’t like it because it gives the conversation sides: secular versus religious. But if we look back, the two parts of built the holiday together. The Christian church can’t claim ownership for originating a winter celebration on December 25th but Christianity has become too large a part of the mythos of the holiday to say that secular Christmas can stand alone.

Adam’s book brought up a point that I hadn’t found anywhere else it related to the idea that early Christians basically overrode existing customs to imprint Christian Christmas. I brought it up to him during our talk, and his answer strides this line that I think sheds new light on the balance between celebrating a secular and a religious holiday.

Adam English

I would want to just point out that, you know, we humans are material people – we’re earthy people, and that’s OK.

You know, there’s a feeling that in order to be – in order to practice our faith, we need to be more spiritual, we need to be more elevated. We need to raise our eyes up and try to get closer to God by becoming less earthy and more spiritual. And, you know, the fact is that God made us earthly people and material people, and God is OK with that.

So the celebration and the enjoyment of food and song and dance and smells and all of that, it’s part of being human. And so again, I think maybe the idea that we try to try to sort of sever off all these holidays and make them more spiritual than they really are, we end up doing ourselves a disservice. We just make them more empty, but we don’t make them more spiritual.

Host

Creating Christmas was produced this week by OversaturatedInc and me, Bobby Christian,

Special thanks to :

Matthew Kelley – you could hear more from him about Christmas, his faith and his trip to the church built upon Christ Nativity in part one of the history of our Christmas.

Adam English at his book, “Christmas Theological Anticipations”.

Ace Collins and his book, “Stories Behind the Great Traditions of Christmas”.

Bruce Forbes for his book, “Christmas A Candid History”.

You can find all our episodes and even more Christmas stories and history at CreatingChristmasPodcast .com.

Until next time. I’m Bob Christian.

Stay jolly

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join the Triumph of the Stars

with angelic host proclaim, Christ is born in Bethlehem.