The fortieth day after Christmas was
Candlemas. The Egyptian Christmas celebration on
January 6 was adopted as
Epiphany, one of the most prominent holidays of the year during
Early Middle Ages. Christmas Day itself was a relatively minor holiday, although its prominence gradually increased after
Charlemagne was crowned on Christmas Day in 800 AD.......
Northern Europe was the last part to Christianize, and its pagan celebrations had a major influence on Christmas. Scandinavians still call Christmas
Jul (
Yule), originally the name of a twelve-day pre-Christian winter festival. Logs were lit to honor
Thor, the god of thunder, hence the "
Yule log." In Germany, the equivalent holiday is called
Mitwinternacht (mid-winter night).....
King
Richard II of England hosted a Christmas feast in 1377 at which twenty-eight oxen and three hundred sheep were eaten.
[9] The "Yule boar" was a common feature of medieval Christmas feasts.
Caroling also became popular, and was originally a group of dancers who sang. The group was composed of a lead singer and a ring of dancers that provided the chorus. Various writers of the time condemned caroling as lewd, largely due to overtones reminiscent of the traditions of Saturnalia and Yule).
[9] "Misrule" drunkenness, promiscuity, gambling was also an important aspect of the festival. In England, gifts were exchanged on
New Year's Day, and there was special Christmas ale.
[9] ....
When a
Puritan parliament triumphed over the King,
Charles I of England (1644), Christmas was officially banned (1647). Pro-Christmas rioting broke out in several cities. For several weeks,
Canterbury was controlled by the rioters, who decorated doorways with holly and shouted royalist slogans.
[11] The
Restoration (1660) ended the ban, but Christmas celebration was still disapproved of by the
Anglican clergy.
By the 1820s,
sectarian tension had eased and British writers began to worry that Christmas was dying out. They imagined
Tudor Christmas as a time of heartfelt celebration, and efforts were made to revive the holiday. The book
A Christmas Carol (1843) by
Charles Dickens played a major role in reinventing Christmas as a holiday emphasizing family, goodwill, and compassion (as opposed to communal celebration and hedonistic excess).
[12]...
Christmas fell out of favor in the U.S. after the
American Revolution, when it was considered an "English custom". Interest was revived by several short stories by
Washington Irving in
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon (1819) and by "Old Christmas" (1850) which depict harmonous warm-hearted holiday traditions Irving claimed to have observed in England. Although some argue that Irving invented the traditions he describes, they were imitated by his American readers.
[1] German immigrants and the homecomings of the
Civil War helped promote the holiday. Christmas was declared a federal holiday in the U.S. in 1870....
In the midst of
World War I, there was a
Christmas truce between German and British troops in France (1914). Soldiers on both sides spontaneously began to sing Christmas carols and stopped fighting. The truce began on Christmas Day and continued for some time afterward. There was even a soccer game between the trench lines in which Germany's 133rd Royal Saxon Regiment is said to have bested Britain's Seaforth Highlanders 3-2.
In modern times, the
United States has experienced some controversy over the nature of Christmas, and whether it is a religious or a secular holiday. Because the US government recognizes Christmas as an official holiday, some have thought that this violates
separation of church and state. This has been brought to trial several times, including
Lynch v. Donnelly (1984) and
Ganulin v. United States (1999). On December 6, 1999, the verdict for
Ganulin v. United States (1999). declared that "the establishment of Christmas Day as a legal public holiday does not violate the Establishment Clause because it has a valid secular purpose." This decision was appealed, and upheld by the
Supreme Court on December 19, 2000.
Blame in on pregnancy hormones....
