Christmas, also called Yule, the Nativity, and Noel, is the Christian holiday that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ.
The word Christmas comes from “Christ’s Mass”, the Mass said in the Roman Catholic Church on this holiday. Christmas Day is generally
celebrated on 25 December. Many Eastern Orthodox Churches celebrate Christmas on 6 January because their church year follows the Julian, rather than the Georgian, calendar. However, the actual date of Christ’s birth is not known. The early Christians did not set aside a feast day for observing the Nativity, or birth of Christ. It was not until the 4th century that the
celebration of Christ’s birth began.
Originally the celebration of the Nativity was held on 5 and 6 January. Among Christians it replaced a popular pagan feast celebrating the appearance of, or revelation of, a god. The Christian holiday came to be known as Epiphany, from the Greek word epiphaneia, meaning “the appearance”.
By the year AD 336 the birth of Christ was being celebrated in Rome on 25 December. This was the day on which pagans observed the festival of “the unconquered sun”, their celebration of the winter solstice, or shortest day, after which the nights begin to grow shorter and the days longer. The Romans also celebrated the Saturnalia, or feast of the God Saturn, during the week before 25 December. This was a celebration during which presents were exchanged and there was much merry making. It was intended to bring cheer to the dark days of the winter. For the Christians in Rome, Christmas replaced both of these pagan celebrations. Each December they commemorated the birth of Jesus Christ, whom they often referred to as their “light” or “sun”. by the 5th or 6th century, most Christians were celebrating two important winter holidays – Christmas and Epiphany. Christmas marked the anniversary of Christ’s birth, but Epiphany, celebrated on 6 January, came to have a mixed significance. In the Roman Catholic Church, Epiphany commemorates the visit of the Magi, or Wise Men, to the Infant Jesus Christ. In the Orthodox Churches, Epiphany celebrates the baptism of Christ.
For several centuries Christmas was celebrated only as a Church festival observed by religious services. Gradually, however, it developed into a holiday marked by feasting and gaiety. During the Middle Ages, Christmas was one of the most popular holidays of the year. In the 16th century, leaders of the Protestant Reformation objected to the non-religious aspects of the celebration. In Britain, Christmas was abolished by the Puritan parliament, although it was restored when Charles II came to the throne in 1660. in North America, the Puritans also forbade the observance of Christmas, and in much of the New England area the holiday continued to be ignored until the 19th century. Elsewhere in the English-speaking world Christmas was celebrated according to the customs brought by settlers from other lands.