Merry Christmas
On December 25 most of the world’s two billion Christians will observe Christmas, the festival commemorating the birth of Jesus. (For churches that follow the Julian calendar, Christmas falls on the Gregorian calendar’s January 7.) The customs associated with Christmas come from a variety of sources. Some have roots in the Bible and Christian liturgy. Others are drawn from pre-Christian folklore. Since the 19th century a variety of nonreligious Christmas traditions have also evolved, making it possible to celebrate Christmas as a more or less secular festival. Although Christmas traditions are different around the world, some of the most-common elements are special music, food, and decorations and exchanging gifts.
The origins of the Christmas festival are hard to pin down. Christmas was not a part of the early Christian liturgical calendar, since the first Christians rejected the celebration of birthdays as a pagan custom, preferring instead to commemorate the Crucifixion and Resurrection at Good Friday and Easter, respectively. Celebrations for the birth of Jesus are first documented in Rome in the middle of the 4th century CE. From Rome the festival quickly spread to the rest of the Christian world. The origins of the December 25 date are also unclear. One theory holds that the date was picked to compete with the Feast of Sol Invictus, a Roman winter solstice festival.
In the centuries that followed, Christmas grew in popularity, especially in Europe where it fused with practices borrowed from pagan midwinter festivals such as the tradition of decorating with lights and evergreen boughs. The first Christmas trees appeared in northern Europe in the 16th or 17th century. In Europe traditions also developed concerning Father Christmas, a legendary figure who spreads good cheer and brings gifts.
In the West the tradition of gift giving between friends and family has grown more elaborate in the 20th and 21st centuries. In some places the start of the Christmas shopping season has become an important date in its own right, hotly anticipated by retailers and consumers alike.