CHURCH YEAR/SEASONAL DESCRIPTIONS
Christmas
(Nativity)
The Christmas
season is twelve days long beginning with December 25 and as a holiday needs no
introduction for most of us—it has so much tradition that we may forget that
the central event for Christians is not Christmas but Easter.
In the
early church the birth of Christ was commemorated, but not as a festival. As
Christianity grew and became organized as a church, and as its mission spread,
interaction with possible converts became important. The church then
acknowledged many pagan customs rather than opposing them.
The
celebration of the birth of Christ on December 25 was set in the 4th
century, adopting the dates of a Roman festival and the birth of an Iranian god
on December 25, together with ancient celebrations of the winter
solstice. Other Christmas customs have origins outside of church history: the
Romans decorated their houses with greenery and gave gifts in January (the
custom was resurrected in 19th century Germany and brought to England by Prince
Albert). The singing of carols began with the singing of popular religious folk
songs at all festivals.
Later Christian customs were crêches, invented by
St. Francis of Assisi, and our present midnight service on Christmas Eve, which
is a relic of the medieval custom of three masses, at midnight, dawn, and
midmorning. At the time of the Reformation many Christians believed that
Christmas was entirely a pagan and sacrilegious celebration and some
Protestants, notably the Puritans in New England, abolished it. Perhaps this
was taking concerns about the secularization of Christmas to the extreme.
Today it is all too easy for us to get caught up
in being “pagans” in our Christmas activities, but we are brought back to the
true glory of the season in our opportunities for worship that include all
peoples’ ways of showing joy at the festival time of Christ’s coming in glory.
The liturgical color for Christmas is white.
Precious Season: Advent
Next Season: Epiphany
Proper Preface: Preface of the Incarnation
Return to Seasonal Descriptions