The History of Christmas & Christmas Traditions By: Rhonda Chisholm
Table Of Contents What is Christmas? Why Use Holly? Why Such A Big Deal? Why 12 Days of X’mas Who Is Santa? Other Traditions Why Exchange Gifts? Christmas Songs Who Is Rudolph? Credits
What is Christmas? • It is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. • It is celebrated on December 25 each year. The first celebration was in Rome in 336 AD. • It is both a holiday and a Holy Day • The word Christmas comes from the words Cristes Maesse or Christ’s Mass.
Why is Christmas Such a Big Deal? There are two main reasons: • There are 1. 8 million Christians in the world. • The weeks leading up to Christmas is the biggest shopping weeks of the year.
Who Is This Santa Claus Person? • The first well-known gift-giver, St. Nicholas lived in Turkey about 300 A. D • He was orphaned and later became a priest. • He gave to the needy, especially children. • He later became a bishop - hence the hat, long gown, white beard and red cape. • When the Church started to celebrate Christmas, St. Nick was incorporated into the season.
Why Do People Exchange Gifts? • The tradition started with the gifts that the wisemen brought to Jesus. • After seeing Jesus with his mother, they opened up their treasures of gold and of incense and myrrh. • However, no one was in the habit of giving elaborate gifts until late 1800’s. • The Santa Claus story (descibed above) combined with a retail phenomenon has made gift giving the central focus of the Chrismas tradition.
Who is Rudolph? • The whole story of Rudolph appeared in 1939. • It was written by Robert Ward who worked in the advertising department at a retail chain. • His original name was Rollo, but executives did not like it so it was changed. • The name was choosen by the author’s young daughter. • Gene Autry turned the poem into a song in 1949.
Why Do We have Holly Draped Over The Mantel & Staircase? • The church banned the traditional use of mistletoe. • As a substitute it suggested holly. • The sharply pointed leaves were to symbolize thorns in Christ’s crown. • The red berries symbolize the drops of his blood.
Why 12 Days of Christmas? • The 12 days between Dec. 25 th & Jan. 6 th • Jan. 6 th represents the day Jesus was baptized and the day he was visited by the wisemen. • In the past, the tradition was to give gifts throughout the twelve days instead of all on one day.
Other Traditions • Stockings - date back to time of original St. Nicholas around 300 A. D. • Christmas Tree - German tradition started in 700 A. D. • Christmas Cards - started in England in 1843 and America in 1846. • Pointsettias - in 1828 Joel Pointset imported the plant to America from Mexico.
Christmas Songs There is a set of songs that are played continuously during the christmas season. Click the wreath to see a list of X’mas Songs To play the Christmas Song Game , click on Santa
Credits • • • Christmas Song Game How Stuff Works History of Santa Web Graphics Clip. Art AAA Clip. Art Click on Candy Cane to go to Table of Contents
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