Edward Seaga

This has continued through the years with the people splitting their activities to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto God, what is God's.

Christmas is traditionally a time of good cheer, but this was not always the case. There were periods when the Christmas period was devoid of all joy.

The Emperor Constantine signed the edict of Milan in 313 BC which proclaimed tolerance for Christianity throughout the Roman Empire.

At that time, the most important festival of the year was to celebrate the birthday of the unconquered Son, Mithra, held on December 25, the beginning of the winter solstice. Constantine declared the 25th of December as the birthday of Jesus Christ also as a strategic move that had Christians and pagans celebrating their separate Gods together.

The occasion came at the end of a Saturnalia, a period which was an orgy of food, drink and bawdy behaviour.

Bawdy affair

In England in the Middle Ages, Christmas was also a bawdy affair much celebrated by the peasants and other categories of the poor. It was a carnival of brawling, drunken orgies and carousing.

But it was also the occasion when the poor could knock on the doors of the manor houses and, on admission, get gifts of food and drink. This gave to Christmas the first of its many traditions, the giving of gifts.

But the other feature of the celebration of Christmas, the raucous and immoral behaviour by Christian standards, did not go down well with the leaders of church and state of the time.

On overthrowing the monarchy, Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector, as he was called, took steps to outlaw the un-Christian behaviour at Christmas.

Christmas was banned in 1652, to the delight of the Puritans, but the people simply took it underground. This made it even more exciting, as is generally the case with sin. At one period in Cromwell's rule, the people were shouting for the return of Christmas or the return of a king.

Re-birth of Christmas

With the resumption of the monarchy and Charles II as king, there was a re-birth of Christmas in England. But this was not so in the American colonies.

The Puritans in Boston continued the ban on Christmas but they were not completely successful. Many still feasted at Christmas on turkey and other wild fowl, bread and egg nog.

After the American Revolution, all things English fell out of fashion. The Congress even sat on Christmas day to emphasise the rejection of Christmas.

In the early 19th century, America reinvented Christmas. The population centre, New York, was sharply divided into a minority who were well-off and a great majority who were living under the strife of low income and low employment. The minority feared that sooner or later there would be attacks on the establishment. So, gift giving was restored, which allowed the rich to give to the poor to express goodwill.

In 1843, Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol and Americans of means wanted to avoid being typed as Ebenezer Scrooge, the hard-hearted, miserly villain of Dickens' story, who everyone hated.

Also, a series of Christmas stories written by Washington Irving, America's favourite novelist, centred on the rich giving to the poor.

Family transformation

Another major change was occurring. Up to the late 18th century, families were usually seen as existing to raise children in a disciplined way. As such, this did not encourage the giving of gifts.

This view of the family underwent a transformation in the 19th century. The family became recognised as a social system whim would pursue the happiness of children. Gift giving now took place on a wide scale, to the delight of the merchants.

Christmas became a time of cheer again, especially when two focal points were added: the introduction of a small fig tree as a Christmas tree, which was a practice introduced from Germany; and, the appearance of St. Nicholas, a popular Greek saint who was transformed and redesigned as Santa Claus.

Retailers grabbed the idea and expanded it, arranging as late as 1939 for Santa to get an assistant, Rudolph, the Red Nose Reindeer.

But it was a noticeable oddity that Christmas, which was a celebration of the birth of Christ, was being commemorated everywhere except in the Church as the Protestant churches still maintained the ban introduced by Oliver Cromwell.

SaCred and secular

However, it was the Church that was the loser as Santa Claus and little children simply went on with the celebrations until the Church gave in. At last, there was a combination of the sacred and the secular.

This has continued through the years with the people splitting their activities to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto God, what is God's.

A merry Christmas to you all!

Source: A documentary from the History Channel: Unwrapping Christmas. Edward Seaga is a former Prime Minister. He is now a Distinguished Fellow at the University of the West Indies Email: odf@uwimona.edu.jm.