Christmas Miscellany Read online

  Christmas Miscellany

  Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Christmas

  Jonathan Green

  Copyright © 2009 by Jonathan Green

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 555 Eighth Avenue, Suite 903, New York, NY 10018.

  Skyhorse Publishing books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Skyhorse Publishing, 555 Eighth Avenue, Suite 903, New York, NY 10018 or [email protected].

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Green, Jonathan.

  Christmas miscellany : everything you always wanted to know about Christmas / Jonathan Green. p. cm.

  9781602397576

  1. Christmas--Miscellanea. 2. Questions and answers. I. Title.

  GT4985.G73 2009

  394.2663—dc22

  2009022234

  Printed in China

  For Mum, who made Christmases past such a wonderful and memorable time, and for Clare, Jake, and Mattie, who mean that Christmas is still something to look forward to today.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  INTRODUCTION

  WHAT IS MYRRH ANYWAY?

  WHY IS CHRISTMAS CELEBRATED ON DECEMBER 25?

  WHY IS TURKEY EATEN AT CHRISTMAS?

  WHERE DOES THE CHRISTMAS TREE COME FROM?

  WHY ARE CARDS SENT AT CHRISTMAS?

  WHO IS THE REAL FATHER CHRISTMAS?

  WHY ARE CAROLS SUNG AT CHRISTMASTIME?

  WHY DO PEOPLE OPEN ADVENT CALENDARS IN THE RUN-UP TO CHRISTMAS?

  WHY ARE STOCKINGS HUNG UP ON CHRISTMAS EVE?

  WHY DO PEOPLE PUT UP CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS?

  WHAT IS FIGGY PUDDING?

  WHO WERE THE THREE KINGS?

  WHERE DOES THE CHRISTMAS WREATH COME FROM?

  WHY ARE REINDEER SO ASSOCIATED WITH CHRISTMAS?

  WHAT ARE THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS?

  WHY IS FISH EATEN ON CHRISTMAS EVE?

  WHEN, AND WHY, WAS CHRISTMAS CANCELED?

  WHAT IS A YULE LOG?

  WHAT WAS THE FIRST NOËL?

  WHAT HAVE HOLLY AND IVY GOT TO DO WITH CHRISTMAS?

  WHAT IS MULLED WINE?

  WHY ARE SPROUTS EATEN WITH CHRISTMAS DINNER?

  WHY DO WE DISPLAY NATIVITY SCENES AT CHRISTMAS?

  WHAT IS WASSAILING?

  WHO WAS GOOD KING WENCESLAS?

  WHY DO PEOPLE KISS UNDER THE MISTLETOE?

  WHY IS CHRISTMAS SO OFTEN SHORTENED TO XMAS?

  INTRODUCTION

  At Christmas play and make good cheer, For Christmas comes but once a year.

  The Christmas that we celebrate today is a creation of the past as much as it is a thing of the present. The customs that we keep are an amalgamation of the practices of other times, cultures, religions, and countries. Such diverse groups as the Romans, the Vikings, the peoples of Medieval Europe, and the Victorians, and such faraway places as Germany, Holland, and the Middle East have all had as big an impact on the creation and evolution of Christmas as have the birth of the baby Jesus, the Bible, and the Holy Land.

  Indeed, many of the Christmas customs we keep today have their origins thousands of years before Jesus Christ was even born, when people worshipped the sun as the giver of life. And yet, most of us keep these customs without knowing, or even wondering, why.

  Why do we put up Christmas trees, send Christmas cards, stuff ourselves with turkey, and hang up stockings on Christmas Eve? You might answer by saying that it’s traditional, or simply because it’s Christmas. But how have these traditions come about in the first place?

  And then there are the fascinating facts about Christmas that have been forgotten in this modern age. Did you know that the first Christmas lights used to adorn a tree belonged to Thomas Edison, or that Santa Claus’s official post office is in Finland?

  To give you an example of the sort of thing we hope to enlighten you about during the course of this little delight of a book, and to quote the classic Monty Python’s Life of Brian, “What is myrrh anyway?”

  WHAT IS MYRRH ANYWAY?

  Everybody has heard of gold, frankincense, and myrrh in the context of the Christmas story. They were, of course, the gifts brought to the baby Jesus by the three wise men. There probably isn’t anyone who doesn’t know what gold is (a relatively rare, shiny yellow metal, chemical symbol Au), but what of frankincense and, in particular, myrrh?

  Of the two, frankincense is the better known. It is a type of incense made from the aromatic resin of the Boswellia tree. It was introduced to Europe by Frankish crusaders (hence its name) and used lavishly in religious rituals. When blocks of the hardened resin are burnt, the frankincense gives off a sweet-smelling smoke.

  Myrrh is also a type of incense. Commiphora myrrha is a thorny shrub native to Somalia and the eastern reaches of Ethiopia. Today, it can also be found growing in other parts of the world, particularly the Arabian Peninsula, as it has been introduced to these regions over the years. However, at the time of Christ’s birth, part of what made myrrh so valuable was the distances that had to be traveled to get ahold of the stuff.

  Myrrh, as it would have been given to the infant Jesus, is the dried sap of the shrub, a resinous material, reddish-brown in color. The clearer the resin and the darker it is, the better the quality. The scent of raw myrrh is sharp and pleasant but also slightly bitter. The smoke it produces when burnt is also quite bitter, but with a sweet, tarry odor and notes of vanilla.

  Its enduring connection has always been with funerals and cremations, hence its prophetic significance as one of the gifts given to Jesus. Up until the fifteenth century it was used as an embalming ointment.

  Did you know . . .?

  Each of the three gifts given to the Christ child by the wise men had symbolic significance. Gold was a symbol of kingship and glory, but also of Christ’s divinity. Frankincense, as the perfume used in ritual worship, stood for both purity and ascending prayer, and spoke of Christ’s godhead and godliness. Myrrh, the fragrant burial ointment, was a symbol of Christ’s mortality, foretelling his death on the cross, and ultimately his resurrection.

  Both myrrh and frankincense are collected in the same way. Delicate incisions are made into the bark of the tree using a special tool. The milky sap that exudes from these incisions hardens as soon as it comes into contact with the air, forming “tears” that are then collected two weeks later. This process is called “tapping.” Once collected, the resin is stored for twelve weeks, giving it time to harden completely. The globules of resin are then sorted and graded, a process usually undertaken by the merchant buying it from the collector.

  Gum resins were first collected in this way in Arabia, a region that one ancient chronicler, Diodorus Siculus, described as exuding “a most delicate fragrance; even the sailors passing by Arabia can smell the strong fragrance that gives health and vigor.”

  Myrrh was highly prized in ancient times and was literally worth more than its weight in gold. In ancient Rome it cost five times as much as frankincense, although the latter was by far the more popular.

  Did you know . . .?

  The Romans burned myrrh at funerals to mask the smell of burning bodies, cremation being their favored way of seeing a person off into the afterlife. The less-than-entir
ely-rational Emperor Nero burned a year’s worth of myrrh at the funeral of his wife Poppaea in AD 65 (having possibly killed her himself).

  Myrrh’s connection with Christ doesn’t begin and end with the gifts given by the wise men. According to the Gospel of Mark, it was also offered to Jesus mingled with wine as he hung in agony from the cross at his crucifixion, the intention being to numb the pain he was feeling. This practice of using myrrh as an additive to wine was common in the ancient world and has even lasted to this day in certain parts of the globe. Myrrh was also used to anoint Jesus’s body after his death.

  Did you know . . .?

  Myrrh is put to a wide variety of uses in traditional Chinese medicine. It is supposed to help alleviate toothaches, and is used as liniment for bruises, aches, and sprains. It is also prescribed for rheumatic, arthritic, and circulatory problems. However, most amazing of all, according to Western herbalism, it is supposed to have the power to make you younger looking!

  You probably wouldn’t be surprised to learn that something so rare and highly valued in ages past is much more widely available today. However, you might be surprised to discover that it is quite possible that you have some lying around the house yourself. It is found in everything from perfumes and lotions to toothpastes and mouthwashes; its antiseptic properties help treat and prevent gum disease. Nursing mothers have known of its analgesic properties for a long time as well, rubbing it onto babies’ gums to relieve the pain they feel when teething.

  As well as its connections with Christmas through the story of the Nativity, myrrh also has a link to Santa Claus—or at least the fourth-century bishop Saint Nicholas, who inspired the festive gift-giver. It was said that healing myrrh flowed from the saint’s sacred relics. Pilgrims seeking such miraculous healing at his shrine would pray to Saint Nicholas as follows:

  With divine myrrh the divine grace of the Spirit anointed thee, who didst preside as the leader of Myra, and having made the ends of the world fragrant with the myrrh of virtues, thou holiest of men, through the pleasant breathings of thine intercessions always driving away the evil stench of the passions. Therefore, in faith we render thee great praise, and celebrate thine all-holy memory, O Nicholas.

  Did you know . . .?

  In Russia, in 1998, two icons associated with Tsar Nicholas II were reported as streaming myrrh, letting off a gentle flow of it each day. When this curious phenomenon was investigated further, both icons were found to have once been kept at a church dedicated to Saint Nicholas.

  WHY IS CHRISTMAS CELEBRATED ON DECEMBER 25?

  Let’s clear one thing up before we go any further. Why is Christmas celebrated on December 25? Well, it’s because December 25 is the date of Jesus’s birth, isn’t it? No, it isn’t. Contrary to popular belief, December 25 is not Jesus Christ’s birthday. Oh, and he wasn’t born in ad 0 either.

  In AD 525, Pope John I charged the scholar Dionysius Exiguus with the task of producing a feast calendar for the Church. Dionysius also estimated the year of Christ’s birth but, due to a number of mistakes in his math, he arrived at a date that was a few years shy of the actual event.

  So, let’s look at the facts.

  First of all, the year of Jesus’s birth. He was probably born in 6 BC—that’s six years before the birth of Christ, believe it or not! Historians have worked this out from the fact that Jesus was born at the time of a Roman census, when “[a] decree went out from the Emperor Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.”

  The Romans were meticulous about record-keeping, as well as making sure that their taxes were collected, and we know that they carried out censuses of the Empire in 20 BC, 6 BC, and ad 8. Cross-referencing these with other historical facts, such as the reign of King Herod, it is most likely that 6 BC was the year of Christ’s birth. But what of the actual date?

  We can’t be certain of that, but the best guess that scholars can make is that Jesus was probably born in the spring. The Gospel of Saint Luke relates that when the shepherds were told of Christ’s birth, they were “out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night.” Now, even in the Holy Land, you wouldn’t want to be out in the open keeping an eye on your sheep in the middle of winter. This was the sort of thing that would happen in the spring, at lambing time.

  It might seem incredible to us now, when December 25 is so linked to celebrating the birth of Christ, but for early Christians Christmas itself was not celebrated in any special way. Little fuss was made of the date, which wasn’t even fixed at any particular time of year! For these Christians, the most important time in the Church calendar was Easter, when Christ’s conquest of death and subsequent resurrection were celebrated.

  In fact, early Christians proposed two entirely different dates for Christ’s birth. In the tradition of adapting existing pagan festivals to become Christian ones, some early Christians wanted to celebrate the birth of Jesus on January 6. This date was proposed by some because it was when the Egyptians observed the festival of the virgin-goddess Kore, while others believed it to be the birthday of Osiris, god of the underworld (and the first Egyptian mummy), who had himself risen again from the dead (albeit with the assistance of his sister-wife Isis).

  However, another group wanted to make March 25 the special day on which to commemorate Christ’s birth, as this, according to the Ancient Roman calendar, was the date of the spring equinox. This event symbolized the rebirth of the earth, and one Roman writer, Hippolytus (c. ad 170-235), even worked it out to be the anniversary of God’s creation of the world itself. A document supposedly written by one Theophilus of Antioch (AD 171-83) is one of the earliest recognized references to December 25 being the date of Jesus’s birth. In the third century ad, December 25 was already a recognized festival, and one that commemorated a special birth. It was the birthday of Mithras, the Persian god of the sun. The cult of Mithras had been brought back to the heart of the Roman Empire by soldiers who had been serving in Syria. There are many surprising similarities between the life of Christ and that of the mythical Mithras.

  Mithras was born in a cave, as was Jesus (according to both the Protoevangelium of James and Justin Martyr from the second century, as this was the typical location of stables in classical Palestine). Mithras sacrificed a bull, from the blood of which sprang the whole of creation, just as God, Jesus’s father, had created the world. At the end of his life, Mithras took part in a feast, just as Jesus took part in the Last Supper, before being taken up into heaven in a fiery chariot, just as Jesus ascended to heaven after his resurrection from the dead.

  Nonetheless, it wasn’t until the year AD 350 that the then Pope, Julius I, made it official. He decreed that Christ’s birth would be celebrated on December 25 because it would make it as easy as possible for those Romans who were still pagans (which was most of them) to make the change to the new rituals. The first official mention of there being a Feast of the Nativity on December 25 is in a document known as the Philocalian Calendar, dating from ad 354, but which makes reference to an older document from AD 336. So we at least know that by 354 the celebration of Christmas had become an annual event.

  But what of our name for this festival; where did that come from? The first written reference we have to the word “Christmas” itself being used comes from a Saxon book dating from 1038 that mentions Cristes Maesse, meaning “Christ’s Mass,” from which we get “Christmas.”

  Christmas itself is predated by two major pagan festivals, the Roman Saturnalia and the Viking Yule. Saturnalia was characterized by its turning of the established order on its head, with servants becoming the masters and vice versa. Its legacy lived on in the medieval Christmas when a Lord of Misrule was appointed to oversee the often noisy and disorderly festive celebrations.

  It is thought that these midwinter festivals were transformed into Christmas celebrations after the arrival of Saint Augustine in England, at the end of the sixth century, and the subsequent widespread adoption of Christianity by the British. Certainly Christmas Day AD 598 was
marked by a spectacular event, when more than 10,000 Englishmen were baptized as Christians.

  Some pagan customs were adopted by Christianity in part to help people accept the new religion and convert to it willingly, it being easier and less antagonistic to apply Christian meanings and symbolism to the old rituals than to try simply to stamp them out.

  Did you know . . .?

  The Holy Roman Empire, an attempt to resurrect the Empire in the West, was established in AD 800 when Pope Leo III crowned Frankish King Charlemagne as Roman Emperor on Christmas Day, though the Empire and the imperial office did not become formalized for some decades.

  So, apart from the Persian sun god Mithras, who else was born on Christmas Day? Well, according to the law of averages, plenty of people have been denied the pleasure of receiving presents twice a year by having their birthday fall on December 25. Among the more well-known are the scientist and mathematician Sir Isaac Newton (1642), the actor Humphrey Bogart (1899), the author Quentin Crisp (1908), the comedian Kenny Everett (1945), the singer Annie Lennox (1954), Shane McGowan of The Pogues (1957), whose name will always be associated with Christmas thanks to his penning of “Fairytale of New York,” and the pop star Dido Florian Cloud de Bounevialle Armstrong (1971), better known as just Dido.