From before written history, peoples of the northern hemisphere have with good reason celebrated the middle of winter, the death of the old year and the birth of the new...

Typically these celebrations centre around the Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year, marking the point at which the days begin to grow longer again, generally around 21st December. Modern-day pagans typically draw on a range of Norse and Celtic/druidic beliefs and celebrate ‘Yule’ or ‘Mother Night’ in a variety of ways, from solemn rites of nature-worship to festive parties (despite their popular image, these don’t involve running around outdoors with no clothes on – it’s just too cold!). The ancient Romans celebrated three important end-of-year festivals: the feast of Saturnalia (Saturn was the god of agriculture and abundance) around December 17th, a time of year when there was greatest hardship among the poor, by feasting and helping those less well off than themselves by gift-giving. Following this on 25th December was the Solstice of Mithras, the Greek-Roman sun-god, marking his rebirth and the renewal of light and hope. Then there was New Year’s Eve, a festival of torchlit processions, song and fortune-telling in honour of the two-faced god Janus, who looked both backwards at the old year and forwards toward the new.

At this time, ancient Romans would gather whatever winter greenery they could find to decorate their homes and symbolise new life and growth. This is similar to the Nordic/Celtic-druidic tradition of using evergreens, typically holly (male) and ivy (female), to represent fertility and the persistence of life through the darkest times. In Scandinavia people would bring a large log of ash or oak (the yule log - representing the ‘burning wheel’ of the sun) into their homes and burn it over a number of days, believing that each spark from the fire represented a new pig or calf that would be born in the coming year; the ashes would be sprinkled on their fields to bring fertility. December was the perfect time of year for a feast because some of the fattened animals would be slaughtered so as not to feed them over the leanest part of the winter, meaning an abundance of fresh meat. Also much of the mead, beer and wine was fermented and ready to drink. So you can see that before Christian times, the origins of many of the traditions we associate with Christmas were already established (with the exception of disappointing TV – that was to come later – see here)

The true birth date of Jesus is not known, though some historians point out that December is unlikely since the Bible tells of shepherds tending their flocks at night, but it would have been too cold at that time of year. Whatever the true date, in early Christian times the main holy-day was Easter, and Jesus’ birth of was not in itself celebrated. It was not until 350 AD that Pope Julius I decreed that Christ’s birth would be celebrated on 25th December – probably because it was easier, more natural and popular to appropriate the existing pagan festive season than to try and re-brand it and move it to another time of the year. Even until the early Middle-Ages the feast of Christmas was overshadowed by that of Epiphany, on January 6th, celebrating Jesus’ baptism and the visit of the magi. Only after the Christian Emperor Charlemagne chose to be crowned on Christmas Day 800 AD did Christmas began to increase in significance; it was also the day chosen by William the Conqueror for his coronation, after his defeat of Harold at the Battle of Hastings on 14th October 1066.

Christmas in the Middle Ages was a time for exchanging gifts and helping the poor, but also of great feasting, drunkenness, gambling and promiscuity. Indeed the earliest incarnation of Father Christmas, as 15th century character predating the much later association with ‘Santa Claus’, was as a bacchanalian figure revelling in drunkenness and merrymaking. Increasingly the feast was frowned upon by the more spiritual and puritanical members of the church, and at the time of the Reformation in the 16th century many Protestants saw Christmas as being a debased and ‘Popish’ festival. In 1647, after their victory in the English Civil War, England’s puritan rulers banned the celebration of Christmas altogether, resulting in widespread rioting and civil unrest.

It was reinstated in 1660 after the Reformation, but not celebrated as widely as it had been. Christmas was also unpopular with many 16th century puritans in America; in Boston it was banned for a 22 year period, and in the 17th century after the American Revolution, many saw it as an English tradition that they should no longer celebrate. The dwindling popularity of Christmas in England through the 18th Century was turned around by its revival as a family-orientated time of goodwill, compassion and giving. One of the major influences was Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, published in 1843. The Christmas it depicted became the blueprint for the meaning of Christmas in Victorian times, and today is still considered by many to reflect the essential spirit of Christmas and Christian values. It’s less well known that Dickens wrote the book expressly with the intention of getting some cash quickly to pay off a troublesome debt.

The UK spends around £20 billion on the festive season, hardly surprising it’s the most significant event in UK retailers’ calendars, with 60% of annual turnover coming between November and January. We consume 10 million turkeys, 25 million Christmas puddings, and spend a total of over £1.6 billion on food alone. That’s in addition to the £900 million spent yearly on Christmas decorations (most of which are thrown away afterwards) and the cost of the 250 million pints of beer and 35 million bottles of wine (alcohol consumption goes up by around 40%). The average Briton spends about £600 on presents, much of this on credit cards and loans. The most popular gifts for adults to receive are clothing, pre-recorded music and perfume/aftershave. The least popular – gift tokens and footwear. In 2007 it is estimated that the average British child will open 18 presents on Christmas morning, worth a total of £330. Of these, about 1 in 10 will be broken by New Year, only 40% will make it until March, and just a quarter will still be working by the following Christmas. About 46 million ‘old’ toys, costing £870 million, and 80,000 tons of clothes, will be thrown away. It’s been estimated that 1 in 3 presents are unwanted; half of these are put away and never used, a quarter are given to others or to charity, and over 1 in 6 are thrown away immediately after Christmas.

Going to Church...
In 2002 the Church of England was reporting around 2.6 million people attending services on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Although this is less than half as many as were attending 40 years ago, in recent years there appears to be a slight upward trend, with attendance at 2.8m last year, mostly due to increase in the popularity of carol services and cathedral services. Statistically, those who live in seaside-towns were less likely to go to church than those who lived elsewhere… any idea why, Hastings?

Merry Christmas?
According to an ICM poll in 2005, 85% of British consumers agreed that ‘Christmas starts too early and is too commercialised’ while only 12% disagreed. 44% said they would be glad when the Christmas period ended. Other research suggests that 1 in 4 people find Christmas an extremely stressful time. Debt, insolvency, crime, illness and death all peak around or just after the festive season. Up to half a million elderly people will spend their Christmas alone. At least 600 people will be spending it sleeping rough on the streets. Each year over 2,000 people visit hospital after accidents involving Christmas trees, trimmings, Christmas lights and other decorations. A&E departments and the Samaritans go into overdrive and more people die from heart attacks than on any other day of the year. The busiest day of the year for divorce lawyers is January 8th (with up to 1 in 5 couples making enquiries).

A Break from Work...
Christmas office parties are social minefields – 1 in 10 office workers have told a colleague or their boss that they fancy them, and over a third have struck lucky with a kiss, or more. A tenth of women took advantage of their boss’s ‘high spirits’ to ask for a pay rise, while a similar proportion of male workers probably didn’t do their promotion prospects any good by being physically sick in front of their colleagues through excessive drinking. The rise in digital photography means that many more of these moments are immortalised forever, but lower-tech reprographic methods are still in use: a survey carried out by Canon UK revealed a 25% increase in call-outs to repair their photocopiers during the festive season, frequently to repair broken glass that had been sat on or paper jams that revealed evidence of intimate photocopying exploits that were outside normal warranty terms. More than 40% of office workers plan to log in and check their work email over the Christmas holidays.

What Makes it All Worthwhile...
Around 35% of people planned to support charities because they wanted to help someone worse off than themselves. 1 in 4 Britons said they had signed up for a charity or was likely to volunteer to help others in some way. 62% of people said Christmas made them reflect on spiritual matters, and 79% on ‘what is important’. And Christmas remains a family time – over 2 million adults have 10 or more relatives getting together at their home for festive celebrations. 86% rated spending time with family and friends as being the best thing about Christmas, with only 7% quoting time off work, 3% food and drink and 2% presents.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!