A BRIEF ON CHRISTMAS

The word "Christmas" means the mass of Christ and is the name for the Christian observance of the nativity of Jesus on 25 December, or simply put, it is a Christian festival celebrated on December 25, commemorating the birth of Jesus.

Christmas has a complex and much debated history. There is no scriptural clue or evidence to support the theory that this was the actual date of Christ's birth. The Early Church celebrated it (if at all) on 6 January, and the first document setting it on 25 December is a Roman calendar of AD 354. Coincidentally, December 25 had already been identified by Sextus Julius Africanus in AD 221 as the day on which Christmas would be celebrated.

In liturgical importance, Christmas was originally in fourth place, following Easter, Pentecost, and Epiphany, yet in terms of popular observance it has become the most important feast day of the year and the basis for a vast commercial retail industry derived from it. The practice of exchanging gifts had begun by the 15th century. The Yule log, cakes, and fir trees derive from German and Celtic customs.

Christmas today is regarded as a family festival with gifts brought by Santa Claus. Many of the features of modern Christmas, such as Christmas trees, cards, and boxes, are Victorian rather than earlier. And thanks to their inadvertent genius at reinventing it, Christmas is now an astonishingly successful and cohesive blending of religious and secular elements, which operates on many levels.

There is space within its framework for people to choose activities and meanings according to their individual tastes and needs. Major elements in the standard modern image of Christmas are: it is family centered; it is child centered; presents are exchanged; homes, churches, shops, and streets are decorated, according to loose but definable rules Including having an angel or a fairy, or a teddy bear on the tree; a tasteful construction of holly and fir-cones, or a riot of tinsel and flickering lights; food is special and plentiful, again following loose rules; greeting cards are exchanged; donations of gifts and monies are made to charities and everyone we meet is verbally wished ‘Merry Christmas’. Carols are sung or heard everywhere; many who do not regularly go to church attend special services and the season is universally declared to be one of ‘peace and good will’. The one thing that is extremely hard to do with Christmas is to ignore it. It is by far the most popular festival in the world today becoming increasingly secular, so much so that it has come to be celebrated even by many non-Christians.