The NEAAAT Times

     Christmas; a time for family, giving, and baking. Christmas is one of the many holidays celebrated during the winter time and seems to bring families together for the holiday season. And don’t forget the Christmas carols, where people listen to Christmas themed music for the entire month of December. Who doesn’t love a good-natured snowball fight or snowman? Of course, Christmas and all of its traditions had a beginning.

     During Christmas, we have many traditions that we celebrate. These vary from the warm hot cocoa with marshmallows to fighting with cold snowballs. These small yet important traditions had a starting point as well. Who doesn’t love a good Christmas cookie (or the cookie dough for that matter)? People have asked for some Christmas themed origins, so I will go a step further and give you most of the traditions that people commonly celebrate during the Christmas time all the way down to the pickle (yes, the pickle).

 

The Beginning:

     Let's go back to about 1 - 4 BC (date is not quite known), when Mary and Joseph came riding into a stable on a camel not having anywhere else to go, for all of the inns were full. Mary was about to give birth to her child, given to her by the Lord to help forgive the world of sin. Mary gave birth to her child named Jesus, son of the Lord. Next came three wise men bearing gifts for the baby. and then a shepherd with his sheep. All came to see the child on the night of the 25th. This baby comes to be known as Christ, and that is why his day of birth is the celebrated Christmas.

 

Christmas Trees:

     Oh, Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree… Everyone that celebrates Christmas has a Christmas tree, whether it is one made of plastic or a true evergreen tree. We put ornaments, lights, and sometimes a star on top. The Christmas tree is an evergreen tree (pine spruce or fir), a tree that stays green all year long which gave hope to the people during the winter when all the plants had shed their green and turned to dead looking plants. It was thought that the life in these evergreen plants would ward off witches, ghosts, evil, and illness, this is the same with wreaths. People thought that since the light would come for shorter periods and it was dreary outside that the sun had become sick for the winter and the evergreens gave them hope that the sun would come back whole and healthy. The Germans are known for bringing about the Christmas tree tradition. A man named Merlin Luther was the first man to light candles on his Christmas tree. Ornaments were homemade by the owner of the Christmas tree, some people would string apples, nuts, and marzipan cookies. Now if we put food on our trees we put popcorn, cranberries, and candy canes on our trees.

 

The Christmas Pickle:

     Now to the strange tradition, the Christmas Pickle started in the 1880s. In the 1880s, the Germans had brought in the Christmas tree and that came with ornaments. Woolworth stores started to make glass ornaments shaped like fruits and vegetables and a pickle is a vegetable so that was in the mix. In order to bring up sales, the salesman made up a myth about the Christmas pickle and why you just had to have it on your tree. The myth goes like this; two brothers were walking home from school and having a long walk home stopped by their closest inn. The Innkeeper was an evil man and killed the two boys, putting their bodies in a barrel full of pickles.Then St.Nicholas came and brought the brothers back to life. Nowadays people hide a pickle ornament on their trees on Christmas eve and the first child / person to find it opens the first present.

 

The Candy Cane:

     The candy cane is a Christian symbol for Christmas time. There was a candy maker who wanted to make a candy that represented Christ so he started with a strip of pure white candy to represent his sinless nature. Next he shaped it to a “J” for Jesus’s name. After shaping it he painted three thin red stripes to represent the cuts on his hands from the crucifixion. Lastly, he painted one thick red line for the blood shed by Jesus. Now we hang this peppermint or fruity candy on our trees or we just eat them.

 

Christmas Cookies:

     During the winter we bake for weeks, eating the cookie dough from the bowl and decorating our Christmas cookies. Many associate cookies with Christmas, especially gingerbread cookies. These cookies first became known for being with Christmas in Europe in the 1500s. This was when baking was not allowed unless you were a baker except during winter, this law was lifted and people baked to their heart’s content. The gingerbread cookie was first made out of breadcrumbs boiled in honey and spices. They were then flattened and dried. Later people modernized the ingredients and they became associated with Christmas when people cut them in shapes of animals and people to use as Christmas decorations. Cut out cookies began in Church where there was an activity called mumming where people would act out a nativity scene with food, mainly cookies cut into shapes. Later people cut out cookies to look like people decorated with icing and a face from a magazine (taken off before eaten) and put in windows. Not very many people liked this because they thought it wasn’t religious enough. Once Santa came to be, these cookies came back. Leaving out cookies for Santa started during the Great Depression to teach children generosity.

 

Santa Claus:

     Jolly, in a big red suit, has eight flying reindeer, it's Santa Claus! Santa Clause is now the figure that fits through every child’s chimney on Christmas eve night to deliver presents and fill stockings. He first started off as a monk named St. Nicholas who people know for his kindness and piety. There are people who say that he gave away all of his inherited family wealth to travel to help the sick and poor. He once saved three sisters from being sold to slavery and prostitution by their father by giving them a dowry that signified that they could be married. He became very popular for his generosity and was soon known as the protector of children. He, unfortunately, died on December 6th and on that day people would have a feast in his honor every year. The Dutch called him Sinter Klaas a shortened version of St. Nicholas. In the 1800s, the Dutch brought their Sinter Klaas traditions to America celebrating his feast. Washington Irving made Sinter Klaas popular by referring to St. Nicholas as the protector of children in his book and people changed him to the modern day Santa Claus that stuffs stockings and puts toys under trees.

 

Stockings:

      Even those who have no fireplace hang stockings for smaller Christmas gifts. Remember those three sisters that St. Nicholas saved? Their father was a proud merchant that wouldn’t have accepted anyone's help outright, so St. Nicholas had to plan a different approach. One night Sinter Klaas snuck into the house with three bags of gold and dowries for the three sisters. He hung the sacks up on the mantle and left. When the word spread about what happened to the sisters, people hung up their stockings hoping for gifts themselves.

 

Gift Giving:

     I hope you still remember the three wise men from the beginning of the story. If you didn’t, the three wise men were rich merchants that came to baby Jesus's birth bearing gifts. These gifts were jewels and other riches. This started the tradition of giving gifts at Christmas.

 

Christmas Caroling:

     Many people love to go around to houses during the Christmas time and sing their favorite Christmas songs to anyone who will listen. This started thousand of years ago in Europe, instead of Christmas songs, however, these were pagan songs.The word carol means dancing to something so when people caroled they would run in circles around stone circles. Carol's used to be for all year round, but now it has been left to Christmas time. Later in time Christians used the idea to sing hymns for the Christmas time.For a time, carols had a downfall where people stopped celebrating Christmas. In 1223, a man named St. Francis of Assisi started to create nativity plays in Italy, people sung songs that led the story. This spread to many European countries such as Germany, France, and Spain. In 1410, the earliest real carol was about Mary and Jesus meeting many different people in Bethlehem but only bits and pieces of it still exist. Sadly in 1647, a man named Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans came to take power over England. He banned the celebration of Christmas and that includes Christmas carols, this did not stop them and the people sang their carols in secret. This was fixed once William Sandys and Davis Gilbert came to collect various Christmas songs to put back together.

 

Snowball Fights:

     Snowball fights: not to be taken lightly. The true origin of the snowball fight is unknown, but there is definitely history and incidents to be known. Popular newspaper New York Times wrote an article February 12th, 1855 about many incidents with the dangerous game. An elderly woman Mrs. Wilkinson was unfortunate to be struck across the cheek (resulting in a severe cut) by a boy that was throwing snowballs. Another incident happened to a man named Thomas whom while riding in his sleigh was hit in the back of his head, rendering him unconscious for an hour and a half until he was taken to a drug store where with difficulty he was awoken. The incidents go on and on, and people are warned not to participate in this game.

 

     All of our Christmas traditions are important to us, and all of them have a great history behind them. Christmas time has a great effect on all of us and that's the best part of Christmas. The only thing we must remember about these traditions is that the most important thing about them is that we do them with our families. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night! (Or morning, maybe evening depending on when you are reading this…)