"It's that time of year again December as come and with it all the joys of Christmas"
Christmas is a party. Specially, it is a birthday party for Jesus and birthdays are meant to be celebrated. It is why we say Merry Christmas Ironically, at most Christmas parties the person whose birthday we are supposed to celebrating is completely ignored. He is never even mentioned. Although Jesus is the reason for the season, he is often overlooked or merely mentioned along with Rudolph, frosty, The Snowman, Santa Claus, the Grinch, elves and a long list of celebrated fictional characters.
As I was writing this, I begin to wonder; we decorate our homes inside and out with lights and greenery we stop stocking and send Christmas card to family and friends but why do we do these things year after year? Of course we are celebrating the birthday of Jesus but did you know that many of our modern day Christmas traditions have they are roots in ancient culture and practices, some which actually predate Jesus and had nothing to do with Jesus. Let's take a closer look at few holiday customs.
carols
Why today we don't hats to go to wishing a neighbors goods cheer in song, caroling originally had little to do with Christmas. The carols of the 12th and 13th centuries were liturgical songs reserves for church processions. The type of caroling we are more familiar with didn't arrive until England's Victorian era. Many popular seasonal songs the "Hark the Herald angels sing!, "The first noel and "God rest ye merry gentlemen" were written around that period.
food and drink
But let's be honest, caroling takes a back seat to the most important and beloved traditions those involving a stomachs. Most obscurely, there's pudding which while not eat much today is always tunefully requested in the second verse of the song "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." In the sixteenth century, pudding was eaten at the end of the Christmas meal. The dessert, which very simply is a pudding made from figs, can be seen on Bob Cratchit's table in the famous film version A Christmas Carol.
Christmas tree
When Germany's Prince Albert came to England in 1842 marry Queen Victoria, he brought the Christmas tree with him. The royal family decorated it with small gifts, toys, candles, candies and fancy cakes, giving rise to the modern ornaments eight years later, a photograph of the royal tree appeared in a London newspaper and ownership of the green item become the height of holiday fashion in Europe and in America where the Christmas tree originated with German Lutherans immigrant in the 17th century spread to Pennsylvania in the 1820s.
Christmas stockings and Santa Claus
The origin of the fireplace stocking owes more to myth and fact. We know, thanks to "Twas The Night Before Christmas", that hanging stocking by the chimney with care dates back at least to the poems 1823 publication. But the story of other footwear came to be hung by the fire seemingly is a hazy one. Legend says the original Saint Nicholas, who travel around bringing gift and share to the house in need, came upon a small village one year and heard of a family in need an improvised widower, devastated by the passing of his wife could not afford to provide a dowry for his three daughters. St.Nick knew the man was too prideful to accept money so he simply drop some gold coins down the chimney which landed in the girl's stocking , hunk by the fireplace to dry so the tale goes.
Mistletoe
Lastly among conventional holiday Institutions is the elusive mistletoe. Celtic legend says the plant can bring good luck, heal wounds, increase fertility and ward off evil spirits. While it is hard to say what if any truth lies in this legends of yore, at the very least, it provides an excuse to kiss a hot guy or girl pal. The tradition of smooching underneath the mistletoe begin in the Victorian era and was once believed to inevitable lead to marriage. But it seems to have lost a little of That Power. Now, when someone kisses you it might just mean they have had a few too many sips of holiday punch at a drunken party the most modern, sloppy Christmas tradition of them all.
Jesus is the reason for the season rejoice
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MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!!!
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