Christmas As Major And Traditional Holiday

Christmas As Major And Traditional Holiday

Christmas is an annual holiday when Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus in churches while others go about exchanging gifts and celebrating friends’ parties.

It is on December 25th.

There have been plenty of Christmas traditions including dinner, exchange of cards, posing as Santa, putting up home decorations like Christmas tree and preparing recipes.

Western households tend to be decorated inside out with colorful lights and holiday decorations. They normally put in extra efforts on spreading goodwill, compassion and peace throughout the Christmas holidays.

Western countries tend to celebrate longer considering the fact that Christmas and New Year is just a week combined while Middle-East and Asia tends to do so only on those special days.

Armenian Apostolic Church celebrates Christmas on January 6th. Eastern Orthodox churches celebrate Christmas on January 7th. The date is simply tradition and is not regarded as Jesus’ actual date of birth.

The word Christmas originates from 2 words: Christ’s mass. Many of the seasons decorations led back toChrist’s birth like Nativity managers, star ornaments along with the giving of gifts.

Christmas day in the Middle ages was more of a festival. King William I of England chose Christmas Day to get crowned king in 800.

During the Reformation, Protestants condemned the celebration of Christmas as mere trappings, while Catholics promoted the festival like a religious event.

Colonial America saw the Puritans forbidding the trappings of the Christmas celebration. Hence it was outlawed in Boston in 1659 to 1681. However Christian residents of Virginia and New York celebrated the holiday.

Charles Dickens’ book A Christmas Carol, published in 1843 did much to rejuvenate Christmas.

It was to spread goodwill and compassion. Washington Irving also wrote short stories about Christmas along with the Twas the Night Before Christmas poem by Clement Clarke.

There was great controversy within the 20th century on the nature of Christmas. The issue was taken to trial many times to decide due to the view which a federal holiday would have been a violation of separation of church while stating.

On December 6th, 1999, the verdict for Ganulin vs. United States stated that the establishment of Christmas Day as a legal public holiday will not violate the Establishment Clause since it has a secular purpose.

This decision was later upheld on December 19, 2000 through the U.S. Supreme Court. Many Christians believe Christmas has become too secular.

So it is common to hear cries of getting back to the true meaning of Christmas rather than just as another holiday.

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