History or Nostalgia?

One characteristic of the culture war seems to be the substitution of nostalgia for history. I was watching a TV special about the history of the celebration of Christmas recently in which one historian commented that each generation remembers the Christmases they experienced as children and assume that those celebrations were and will continue to be eternal.

The evidence of history however shows that the celebration of Christmas has not been a completely stable tradition even in Western Civilization. For instance, the celebration of Christ’s birth was banned by the early church. While the death and resurrection of Christ was celebrated as early as the second century A.D., the birth of Christ was not celebrated until the middle of the fourth century.

The early church lived in a world where emperors were deified and their birthdays were made holidays usually celebrated with drunken reveling and bloody gladiatorial games. The church felt it was wrong to celebrate the birth of Christ as if He was an earthly ruler. Early church leaders even banned scholars from attempting to ascertain the date of Christ’s birth.

As the sway of paganism in Rome was being displaced by Christianity in the fourth century, Church leaders saw an opportunity to evangelize the “barbarian” Germanic tribes through the creation of a winter festival to coincide with pagan festivals. So, even though, much of the best scholarship of the time placed the birth of Christ in late March or early April, they decided to celebrate His birth in December (and early January).

So, the celebration of a Mass in honor of Christ (Christ-Mass) was instituted. Some pagan customs were Christianized. Holly, for instance, came to represent the shed blood of Jesus.

As an institution in the Catholic church, Christmas was carried over into the “high church” protestant traditions of the Lutheran and Anglican churches. However, with the rise of Puritanism, the traditions of both Catholicism and the “high church” were rejected. So, when the puritans immigrated to the New World, they made a conscious effort to reject such celebrations.

Massachusetts colony actually had a law on the books banning the celebration of Christmas which was on the books until the mid-1800’s. Other colonies (particularly those with higher numbers of Catholics or Lutherans) were less strict, but still the celebration of Christmas was not widespread in the New World. Even the United States Congress for it’s first 67 years did not recess for Christmas.

It wasn’t until the early 1800’s that Christmas began to make a comeback in the New World. But even then, it was a largely secular holiday. Most protestant churches had their roots in the puritan tradition and did not generally have Christmas programs. It was only when they saw their congregations visiting Catholic churches during the holidays that they began in the late 1800’s to respond with programs of their own.

The American tradition of Christmas has not ever been a mostly sacred holiday. It has always been largely a secular one. I’m not saying this to justify such an attitude but rather to create a perspective. Before we look back at some “ideal” time when Christ was the center of Christmas is more fantasy than historical reality. Even in the Middle Ages and Renaissance periods, Christmas celebrations often became bacchanalian events with little concern about the Christ child.

We cannot look to history for a period when Christ was the center of Christmas. Such periods are brief, if they existed at all. However, we can individually make Christ the center of our Christmas and create a “historical” tradition in our own families that they will carry on to the next generation. The culture at large may not keep Christ always in Christmas, but you and I can.