Such solar symbolism could support more than one date of birth. An anonymous work known as De Pascha Computus (243) linked the idea that creation began at the spring equinox, on March 25, with the conception or birth (the word nascor can mean either) of Jesus on March 28, the day of the creation of the sun in the Genesis account. One translation reads: "O the splendid and divine providence of the Lord, that on that day, the very day, on which the sun was made, March 28, a Wednesday, Christ should be born". [24] [84] The Liturgical Year. Thomas Nelson. November 3, 2009. ISBN 978-1-4185-8073-5 . Retrieved April 2, 2009. Christmas is not really about the celebration of a birth date at all. It is about the celebration of a birth. The fact of the date and the fact of the birth are two different things. The calendrical verification of the feast itself is not really that important ... What is important to the understanding of a life-changing moment is that it happened, not necessarily where or when it happened. The message is clear: Christmas is not about marking the actual birth date of Jesus. It is about the Incarnation of the One who became like us in all things but sin ( Hebrews 4:15) and who humbled Himself "to the point of death-even death on a cross" (Phil. 2:8). Christmas is a pinnacle feast, yes, but it is not the beginning of the liturgical year. It is a memorial, a remembrance, of the birth of Jesus, not really a celebration of the day itself. We remember that because the Jesus of history was born, the Resurrection of the Christ of faith could happen. Norris, Rebecca (October 29, 2019). "Here's the History Behind Why Red and Green Are the Traditional Christmas Colors". Country Living . Retrieved December 18, 2020.

What is Christmas and when and how is it celebrated around

Connelly, Mark (2000). Christmas at the Movies: Images of Christmas in American, British and European Cinema. I.B.Tauris. p.186. ISBN 978-1-86064-397-2. A chapter on representations of Christmas in Soviet cinema could, in fact be the shortest in this collection: suffice it to say that there were, at least officially, no Christmas celebrations in the atheist socialist state after its foundation in 1917. Holidays at the Museums: Carnegie Museum of Natural History". Carnegiemnh.org. November 26, 2013. Archived from the original on December 27, 2013 . Retrieved December 25, 2013. The nativity sequences included in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke prompted early Christian writers to suggest various dates for the anniversary. [40] One of the most ubiquitous festive songs is " We Wish You a Merry Christmas", which originates from the West Country of England in the 1930s. [215] Radio has covered Christmas music from variety shows from the 1940s and 1950s, as well as modern-day stations that exclusively play Christmas music from late November through December 25. [216] Hollywood movies have featured new Christmas music, such as " White Christmas" in Holiday Inn and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. [216] Traditional carols have also been included in Hollywood films, such as "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" in It's a Wonderful Life (1946), and " Silent Night" in A Christmas Story. [216] Traditional cuisine Christmas dinner settinga b c Restad, Penne L. (1995), Christmas in America: a History, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 96. ISBN 0-19-510980-5. Griffiths, Emma (December 22, 2004). "Why get cross about Xmas?". BBC News. Archived from the original on November 11, 2011 . Retrieved December 12, 2011. The government of the People's Republic of China officially espouses state atheism, [276] and has conducted antireligious campaigns to this end. [277] In December 2018, officials raided Christian churches prior to Christmastide and coerced them to close; Christmas trees and Santa Clauses were also forcibly removed. [278] [279] See also The Christmas Tree". Lutheran Spokesman. 29–32. 1936. The Christmas tree became a widespread custom among German Lutherans by the eighteenth century. Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (sole date), Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church (sole date), and P'ent'ay (Ethiopian-Eritrean Evangelical) Churches (primary date)

Christmas - Wikipedia

The Girlhood of Queen Victoria: a selection from Her Majesty's diaries, p. 61. Longmans, Green & Co., 1912. University of Wisconsin. Zugger, Christopher Lawrence (2001). Catholics of the Soviet Empire from Lenin Through Stalin. Syracuse University Press. p.210. ISBN 978-0-8156-0679-6. As observed by Nicholas Brianchaninov, writing in 1929–1930, after the NEP and just as the worst of collectivization was beginning, the Soviets deemed it necessary to drive into the heads of the people the axiom that religion was the synthesis of everything most harmful to humanity. It must be presented as the enemy of man and society, of life and learning, of progress.... In caricatures, articles, Bezbozhnik, Antireligioznik, League of Militant Atheists propaganda and films. School courses [were give] on conducting the struggle against religion (how to profane a church, break windows, objects of piety). The young, always eager to be with the latest trend, often responded to such propaganda. In Moscow in 1929 children were brought to spit on the crucifixes at Christmas. Priests in Tiraspol diocese were sometimes betrayed by their own young parishioners, leading to their imprisonment and even death, and tearing their families apart. cited in Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries, Ramsay MacMullen. Yale:1997, p. 155). Senn, Frank C. (2012). Introduction to Christian Liturgy. Fortress Press. ISBN 978-1-4514-2433-1. Archived from the original on December 31, 2015 . Retrieved December 23, 2014.

How likely is a white Christmas?

The last widespread white Christmas in the UK was in 2010. It was extremely unusual, as not only was there snow on the ground at 83% of stations (the highest amount ever recorded) but snow or sleet also fell at 19% of stations. As in England, Puritans in Colonial America staunchly opposed the observation of Christmas. [100] The Pilgrims of New England pointedly spent their first December 25 in the New World working normally. [100] Puritans such as Cotton Mather condemned Christmas both because scripture did not mention its observance and because Christmas celebrations of the day often involved boisterous behavior. [125] [126] Many non-Puritans in New England deplored the loss of the holidays enjoyed by the laboring classes in England. [127] Christmas observance was outlawed in Boston in 1659. [100] The ban on Christmas observance was revoked in 1681 by English governor Edmund Andros, but it was not until the mid-19th century that celebrating Christmas became fashionable in the Boston region. [128] Hynes, Mary Ellen (1993). Companion to the Calendar. Liturgy Training Publications. p. 8. ISBN 9781568540115. In the year 567 the church council of Tours called the 13 days between December 25 and January 6 a festival season.

Is it Christmas Yet - Countdown to Christmas Is it Christmas Yet - Countdown to Christmas

Stephen W. Nissenbaum, "Christmas in Early New England, 1620–1820: Puritanism, Popular Culture, and the Printed Word", Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 106:1:79 (January 1, 1996) Tamkin, Emily (December 30, 2016). "How Soviets Came to Celebrate New Year's Like Christmas (and Why Russians Still Do)". Foreign Policy . Retrieved January 6, 2022. Various factors contributed to the selection of December 25 as a date of celebration: it was nine months after the date linked to the conception of Jesus—March 25, which also marked the vernal equinox (celebrated as the Feast of the Annunciation) and it was the date of the winter solstice on the Roman calendar. [17] The early Church Fathers John Chrysostom, Augustine of Hippo, and Jerome attested to 25 December as the date of Christmas. [41] The early Church connected Jesus Christ to the Sun through the use of such phrases as "sun of righteousness." [40] [52] The early Christian writer Lactantius wrote "the east is attached to God because he is the source of light and the illuminator of the world and he makes us rise toward eternal life". It is for this reason that the early Christians established the direction of prayer as being eastward, towards the rising sun. [41] In the Roman Empire, in which many Christians resided, the winter solstice was marked on December 25. [16]Protests followed as pro-Christmas rioting broke out in several cities and for weeks Canterbury was controlled by the rioters, who decorated doorways with holly and shouted royalist slogans. [57] Football, among the sports the Puritans banned on a Sunday, was also used as a rebellious force: when Puritans outlawed Christmas in England in December 1647 the crowd brought out footballs as a symbol of festive misrule. [118] The book, The Vindication of Christmas (London, 1652), argued against the Puritans, and makes note of Old English Christmas traditions, dinner, roast apples on the fire, card playing, dances with "plow-boys" and "maidservants", old Father Christmas and carol singing. [119] During the ban, semi-clandestine religious services marking Christ's birth continued to be held, and people sang carols in secret. [58] The Examination and Tryal of Old Father Christmas, (1686), published after Christmas was reinstated as a holy day in England

Is it Christmas? - explain xkcd 2236: Is it Christmas? - explain xkcd

Hastings, James; Selbie, John A., eds. (2003). Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics. Vol.6. Kessinger Publishing Company. pp.603–604. ISBN 978-0-7661-3676-2. Archived from the original on November 22, 2018 . Retrieved February 3, 2012. Roll, Susan K. (1995). Towards the Origin of Christmas. Kok Pharos Publishing. p.97, cf. note 173. ISBN 978-90-390-0531-6. Archived from the original on April 9, 2021 . Retrieved April 9, 2021.

What is a white Christmas?

Many popular customs associated with Christmas developed independently of the commemoration of Jesus' birth, with some claiming that certain elements are Christianized and have origins in pre-Christian festivals that were celebrated by pagan populations who were later converted to Christianity; other scholars reject these claims and affirm that Christmas customs largely developed in a Christian context. [95] [22] The prevailing atmosphere of Christmas has also continually evolved since the holiday's inception, ranging from a sometimes raucous, drunken, carnival-like state in the Middle Ages, [96] to a tamer family-oriented and children-centered theme introduced in a 19th-century transformation. [97] [98] The celebration of Christmas was banned on more than one occasion within certain groups, such as the Puritans and Jehovah's Witnesses (who do not celebrate birthdays in general), due to concerns that it was too unbiblical. [99] [57] [100] Since 1960, around half of the years have seen at least 5% of the network record snow falling on Christmas Day. This means we can probably expect more than half of all Christmas Days to be a 'white Christmas'. Hill, Christopher (2003). Holidays and Holy Nights: Celebrating Twelve Seasonal Festivals of the Christian Year. Quest Books. p.91. ISBN 9780835608107. This arrangement became an administrative problem for the Roman Empire as it tried to coordinate the solar Julian calendar with the lunar calendars of its provinces in the east. While the Romans could roughly match the months in the two systems, the four cardinal points of the solar year—the two equinoxes and solstices—still fell on different dates. By the time of the first century, the calendar date of the winter solstice in Egypt and Palestine was eleven to twelve days later than the date in Rome. As a result the Incarnation came to be celebrated on different days in different parts of the Empire. The Western Church, in its desire to be universal, eventually took them both—one became Christmas, one Epiphany—with a resulting twelve days in between. Over time this hiatus became invested with specific Christian meaning. The Church gradually filled these days with saints, some connected to the birth narratives in Gospels (Holy Innocents' Day, December 28, in honor of the infants slaughtered by Herod; St. John the Evangelist, "the Beloved," December 27; St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, December 26; the Holy Family, December 31; the Virgin Mary, January 1). In 567, the Council of Tours declared the twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany to become one unified festal cycle. Marling, Karal Ann (2000). Merry Christmas!: Celebrating America's Greatest Holiday. Harvard University Press. p.44. ISBN 978-0-674-00318-7.