December, 2023
By Zann Bailey, Staff Reporter
The first celebrations around what is now Christmastime were marked by the Romans and pagans around 354 AD. Romans celebrated two days in December: Saturnalia ( for their god of agriculture) and Mirtha (for the goddess of the sun). Saturnalia is the 17th of December and Mirtha is the 25th of December.
Both pagans and Romans would celebrate on the darkest day of December. They would start bonfires to symbolize the heat and life-giving properties of the returning sun. These celebrations evolved in different cultures to bring good cheer in the season of long nights and to mark the sense of renewal and rejuvenation. Board games, charades and kipping on the sofa at 4pm – the Romans also marked the winter festivities with raucous parties, rampant gambling and turning all social norms upside down. One of the different ways they celebrated was where they decorated, pagans would decorate their house green for the anticipation of spring and used evergreen fir trees and hung them upside down on the ceiling, while Romans used fir trees to decorate their temples. However, tree traditions for Christmas actually came from Germanic pagans to worship their god Woden. The tradition of mistletoe came from a sacred symbol of vivacity (the quality of being attractively lively and animated) and fertility to the Druids after they bloomed in the harsh winters.
The concept of Santa Claus goes back hundreds of years to a monk named St. Nicholas. It is believed that Nicholas was born around A.D. 280 in Patara around Mayra, which is now known as Turkey. Several stories about Nicholas have come down through the centuries. In one, he saved three young women from being enslaved. In another, Nicholas gave away all his inherited money to the poor and sick. He soon was known as the protector and savior of sailors and children. They would have a feast each year on December 6th to remember Nicholas. The name Santa Claus evolved from Nick’s Dutch nickname, Sinter Klaas, a shortened form of Sint Nikolaas (Dutch for Saint Nicholas). Around 1804 John Pintard distributed woodcut outs of St. Nicholas at the society’s yearly meeting. Santa-related objects and clothing came to include stockings filled to the brim with toys, candy and fruit.
A branch of Puritan (someone who follows strict religious principles) beliefs banned Christmas because of its pagan origins and the raucous nature of the celebrations. Why? Because they saw Christmas as something that threatened Christian beliefs and encouraged immoral activities, to (in Stubbs’ words) the ‘great dishonor of God’. But by the middle ages, Christian leaders were holding winter festivals on December 25th, to increase the chance that Christmas would be liked. Christmas had replaced Saturnalia and Mirtha.
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