Research Paper On Christmas Over The Years

Kryssel Elevazo

15 February 2017

HUMI07 T/TH 1:30-3:20

Jackman

Christmas Over the Years

Currently, Christianity is the largest world religion with over two billion people around the world following this religion. These followers classify themselves under 34,000 different denominations. Initially, Christianity was derived from Judaism, as Jesus Christ was a Jew, as were his twelve disciples. Despite the origins they’re still very different with few similarities. Christianity is based mainly around the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, but it is also monotheistic just like Judaism. Nowadays, it’s a religion that is practiced by 72% of the European Union’s population, specifically Roman Catholicism. Christianity has spread throughout

In the third century A.D., Roman church officials settled on December 25 (the Bible doesn’t mention the exact date, but it is commonly implied that he was born in the spring or summer time) to make Jesus Christ’s birth into a holiday, probably in an effort to adopt the traditions of the pagans celebrating the winter solstice. This act of syncretism resulted in the birth of Christmas. In the early years of Christianity, Easter was actually the main holiday and Christmas wasn’t celebrated. Yet since the 19th century, Americans began to celebrate and embrace Christmas in the way we think of today such as decorating trees, sending holiday cards and gift giving which has grown into the biggest commercial holiday of the

It’s definitely not as commercialized as it is in the United States, but it’s all about feasting, partying, and helping the poor. They attend church almost every dawn and go caroling. They celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ for four to five months straight. While the traditions are slightly different (such as not using evergreen trees and mistletoes for decorations), the purpose of celebration remained the same. I think this goes to show that there isn’t one “correct” way to celebrate Christmas and that traditions have evolved differently in different