All About Christmas

Many of the celebrations in the United States that are associated with Christmas were traditions brought by German and English immigrants. Along with the well-known and practiced tradition of a brightly decorated Christmas tree, other traditions brought by these immigrants include Advent calendars, Christmas greeting cards, gingerbread houses and gingerbread cookies.

Christmas in the United States today can be seen as focused around family, travel, shopping and decorations.

Family and travel go together during Christmas in the United States because family members often have to travel fairly long distances to be with each other at one location. The growth of cities that have primarily economic activity, suburbs for residences, as well as the fact of different industries being found in certain geographic locations, are among the reasons that family members often live great distances from each other in separate states.

Christmas and its festivities therefore present a wonderful opportunity for many members of the family to gather in celebration and see each other in an intimate setting. The traveling involved makes the Christmas season a busy time of the year for rail and air travel.

The occasion of seeing many family members at Christmas is also linked to the activity of shopping that is an important feature of Christmas in the United States. The Christmas season officially begins on the Friday after Thanksgiving, known as Black Friday and which now ranks second in shopping for a single day to the Saturday before Christmas.

Much of the shopping that is done is to purchase gifts for friends and family. Gifts for family members are usually exchanged after dinner on Christmas day, when everyone gathers in the room with the Christmas tree. Gifts are usually left at the base of the Christmas tree in the weeks leading up to Christmas Day.

Gifts may also exchanged before Christmas at parties held by friends and parties held at workplaces.

Second to gifts, shopping is also done at Christmas for decorations. While the Christmas tree may be the centerpiece of attraction, garlands, wreaths, candles and decorative lighting placed outside on lawns or along rooflines are also used to create a beautiful holiday appearance for homes.

Canadians enjoy Christmas activities that are similar to those celebrated in the United States. That is so because in the 1700s when some German immigrants in the United States migrated to Canada, they continued to practice many of the activities associated with Christmas. The geographical proximity of the two countries also means they share many things, so similarities in Christmas traditions wouldn’t be an exception.

One thing that accounts for the difference between the two countries however, is the Eskimo population in Canada. Eskimos in Canada celebrate a festival during winter and have other traditions that are absent from American Christmas celebrations.

A practice also exists in Nova Scotia in which small groups of masked individuals march around about two weeks before Christmas. These masked groups attract attention by creating stir with much bell ringing and engaging in a noisy caper in an aim to get candy, sweets and goodies from onlookers.

This tradition bears some similarity to Jonkonoo celebrations in the neighboring islands of the Caribbean. Those celebrations also involve masked individuals, including some that appear on stilts that make them as tall as trees. The parade of Jonkonoo regale onlookers with various antics and present a minor scare to some children, who are then calmed with candies and other treats.

In Nova Scotia, onlookers can try to calm the noise and rowdiness just a little if they can correctly guess the identity of the masked person. A correct guess puts an end to the noise as the mask is removed, exposing the individual. For their part, maskers also play nice by friendly nudging answers from children about whether they have been naughty or nice and handing out candies and treats accordingly.

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Greetings at Christmas extend beyond a mere wish of ‘Merry Christmas’ or ‘Happy Holidays.’ Christmas greetings embody a wish that all will go well in whatever preparations need to be made, and a genuine sentiment that much joy, happiness and well being will be experienced by the individual and loved ones during the season.

The season of good cheer and wishes also reflect the jolly ho, ho, ho nature of Santa Claus. To the delight of children, it is very easy for them to run into many jolly fellows dressed as Santa Claus during the Christmas season who will quiz them about whether they have been good or naughty.

Many times when friends, relatives and loved ones call each other during the Christmas season, they will speak to the children and wish them Merry Christmas, but not without a warning that they had better be good or else there will be no presents from Santa Claus. For children therefore, a greeting of Merry Christmas has the purpose of increasing their anticipation for the arrival of Christmas Eve and Santa’s visit to leave toys and Christmas presents under the tree.

Because children also take part in many traditions associated with Christmas, holiday greetings for them is also a reminder of the fun they will have in doing such activities as decorating the tree, helping to bake cookies and wrapping presents. When children have these things to look forward to at Christmas, it creates a lasting memory for them and helps to make their childhood one on which they will later reflect on with much fondness.

The more prevalent greeting of ‘Happy Holidays’ that is used today reflects in part the also prevalent nature to be politically correct in speech and communication. The greeting of ‘Happy Holidays’ can be given to anyone whether or not they celebrate Christmas. It avoids any offense being taken if someone is wished Merry Christmas when it’s a celebration in which they don’t participate or observe.

Happy Holidays is also used to extend a greeting of goodwill beyond Christmas to the coming New Year holiday period. For procrastinators and the chronically late greeting card senders, they can still drop a ‘Happy Holiday’ greeting card in the mail to friends and loved ones close to Christmas Day or even after and it will still be relevant.

Christmas greeting cards play a big role in communicating Christmas greetings and good cheer for the holiday season. It’s a tradition that started in Britain in 1840 with the start of the first public postal deliveries. The production of large numbers of Christmas greeting cards started about twenty years later in 1860 with the improvement of printing methods.

Today, Christmas greetings and greeting cards have further evolved with massive changes and development in technology. The computer, which has become a necessary electronic equipment in just about every home, is commonly used to send Christmas greetings through emailing an online greeting or postcard. Online greeting cards also have brought other changes such as being interactive or animated and they can also be easily personalized with pictures of individuals or families. Online greeting cards can be sent from websites that are accessible to everyone or they can be easily created on a home computer.

Another way in which Christmas greetings are sent is by mailing gifts and presents to relatives and friends who live elsewhere. Except for the dreaded tax season, there is no other time when post offices become more crowded than during the Christmas season. Post Offices therefore play an important role in relaying Christmas greetings by handling thousands of greeting card mailings and gift packages for Christmas.

With just about everyone having a cheerful spirit for the Christmas season, it becomes very easy to pause for even a brief conversation and extend a greeting of goodwill to friends, acquaintances, colleagues, neighbors and others.

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Christmas as a holiday period was instituted and celebrated at about the same time as other winter solstice festivities because church leaders at the time believed that would make more people participate in the new holiday period. That objective was achieved, but people also carried over some pagan celebrations and traditions into the religious Christmas celebrations.

As an example, people would attend church and then take part in a raucous, drunken and carnival-like celebration, that has some similarities to Mardi Gras. During this celebration every year, there would be a crowning of a beggar or student as the ‘lord of misrule.’ Those taking part in the activities would pretend to be loyal subjects to the ‘lord of misrule,’ During this time some of the poor would also visit the rich in their houses and ask for some of their best food and drink. Those among the rich who didn’t cooperate would be subject to rowdy behavior and mischief by the poor. For their part, the rich used Christmas as the time when they would reach out to the poorer members of society by tolerating them in such visits or by leaving out food and clothing for them.

For many centuries before the birth of Christ and the recognition of Christmas, there had always been celebrations in many countries during the middle of winter. During the darkest days of winter for example, the early Europeans were said to celebrate light and birth. The winter solstice was a period of rejoicing for many people because it meant that the worst part of winter was over and they could therefore look forward to having days that were longer with more hours of sunlight. In that tradition, the Norse peoples in Scandinavia would celebrate a period of Yule from Dec. 21, which was the winter solstice or start of winter, through January.

To recognize the re-emergence of the sun, fathers and their sons would take large logs home and set them on fire. There would then be a big feast until the log was completely burned out. That could take as much as 12 days to happen. The custom also was one of hope for the Norse because there was the belief among them that every spark from the fire represented a new pig or calf that would be born in the New Year.

Many parts of Europe also thought that the end of December was a perfect time to celebrate because during that time, a lot of cattle would be killed to avoid having to feed them during winter. For many people, the end of December was the only time during the year when they had a significant amount of fresh meat. By that time of year also, wine and beer that was made earlier in the year would have fermented and be finally ready for drinking.

The tradition of Santa Claus has also been an ancient legend with slight differences or variations in olden days from the 1700s in some countries. In German and Switzerland, children who were well behaved would receive a Christmas present from Christkind or Kris Kringle. Christkind, which means Christ child, was believed to be an angel-like figure that went along with St. Nicholas on his holiday journeys to deliver gifts.

A jolly elf by the name of Jultomten was believed to deliver presents in Scandinavia in a sleigh that was pulled by goats. And in France, Pere Noel is the one who fills the shoes of French children with Christmas gifts, sweets or treats at Christmas time.

In Russia, there’s a legend that Babouschka was an elderly woman who gave incorrect directions to Bethlehem to the three Wise Men so that they wouldn’t find Jesus. She later felt sorry for doing so but couldn’t find the Wise Men to tell them about the error. Today in Russia, it is believed that on Jan. 5, the day before the Epiphany or Three Kings Day, Babouschka visits Russian children and leaves presents by their bedsides in the hope that one of the children will be Baby Jesus and will forgive her.

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