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Charlie Brown’s Christmas always brings tears to my eyes. My throat tightens when Linus tells what Christmas is all about and suggests the scraggly tree just needs a little love. Of the many holidays honored in diverse traditions this darkest time of year, Christmas is the one that stirs my heart.
Granted, its claims as a holy day are weak. No historical or biblical source suggests what time of year Jesus was born. Christmas originated in the fourth century when Pope Julius I fixed Jesus’s birthday on December 25 to co-opt existing midwinter revels. It became a raucous holiday marked by riots and booze. Religious leaders in seventeenth-century Boston banned it as non-biblical. Unlike factual origins, meanings are assigned by humans and change over time. The idea that Christmas has a “true meaning” is relatively recent, starting in the 1800s with the writings of Washington Irving and Charles Dickens. Christmas is no more an age-old family celebration of peace and love than it is the anniversary of Jesus’s birth. On the other hand, this is as good a time as any to heed the call for light in the darkness, hospitality to the stranger, generosity over greed, and hope in the face of fear.
9 Comments
Beth Genne
12/25/2017 07:45:26 am
Wonderful! Merry Christmas to one of my favorite authors!
Lisa
12/25/2017 11:34:51 am
So. the Christmas Light Fight (TV contest show) is actually a completely appropriate way to celebrate, with lights perhaps at least partly supplanting riots and booze. Thank you, Sarah. I am glad to know this.
I love thinking of the lights as taking the place of riots and booze, like a family-friendly version of wild exuberance. Hadn't thought of it that way, but it seems right. Thank you!
Lisa Imhoff
12/26/2017 03:51:42 pm
The meaning of a Swedish smorgasbord is not merely to set out food buffet-style. It's a Christmas tradition of laying out a nice spread for one's dead ancestors to eat on Christmas eve after the living go to bed; the dead come during the night to feast. If the spread isn't good enough, well, that might bode bad for the year, to disappoint or insult the dead ancestors could bring bad fortune. Alcohol played a big part in this celebration as well, although I'm not sure there were many riots. They were all too drunk. Or dead.
Lisa Imhoff
12/27/2017 05:19:50 am
Gosh, I don't know if it's still practiced. For one thing, you'd have to believe your dead ancestors would come back for a visit, and most modern Lut'rans probably don't.... But I think something like that is practiced in Mexico? On the other hand, any Swede who lays out the buffet and sets the table the night before a big celebration could claim to be practicing the tradition. It's really kind of ominous, in that your ancestors didn't come in a spirit of love and acceptance. It was an annual test! Maybe practices tend to outlive their traditional meanings. I don't know if Mexicans literally believe their ancestors come back. In Chicago I visited the Mexican museum in season for a large display of Day-of-the-Dead altars, They were beautiful and very personal memorials to deceased relatives. Our tour guide had made one, to her brother, who was shot dead in Chicago gang violence. I found it very moving.
Lisa Imhoff
12/27/2017 06:50:03 am
There are many ways to honor the dead. Which is OT in a sense, but your OP is about the evolution of celebrations over time. We may eventually lose "the reason for the season" but keep some practical or pleasing aspects of it. Leave a Reply. |
AuthorI'm a historian who writes novels and literary nonfiction. My home base is Madison, Wisconsin. Archives
December 2020
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