CHRISTMAS, kris'mus (ME. Crist mas, eristesmesse. Ch•ist's mass). The day on which the nativity of the Saviour is observed. The in stitution of this festival is attributed by the spurious decretals to Telesphorus, who flourished in the reign of Antoninus Pius (A.n. 138-161) ; but this is unhistorical. It is just when it originated, but surely December 25 was not generally observed as the day prior to Chry sostom's time ( Fourth Century) in the Ea stern Church, although much earlier in the Western; for there was no uniformity in the period of ob serving the Nativity among the early churches; some held the festival in the month of May or April, others in January. It is, nevertheless, almost certain that December 25 cannot be the nativity of the Saviour, for it is then the height of the rainy season in Judea, and shepherds could hardly have been watching their flocks by night on the plains.
Christmas not only became the parent of many later festivals, such as those of the Virgin, but especially from the Fifth to the Eighth Century gathered round it, as it were, several other fes tivals, partly old and partly new, so that what may be termed a Christmas cycle sprang up, which surpassed all other groups of Christian holidays in the manifold richness of its festal usages, and furthered, more than any other, the completion of the orderly and systematic dis tribution of Church festivals over the whole year. Not casually or arbitrarily was the festi val of the Nativity appointed for December 25th. Among the causes that cooperated in fixing this period as the proper (me, perhaps the most pow erful was that almost all the heathen nations re garded the winter solstice as a most important point of the year, as the beginning of the re newed life and activity of the powers of nature. and of the gods, who were originally merely the symbolical personifications of these. In more northerly countries, this fact must have made peeuliarly palpable; hence the Celts and Germans, from the oldest times, celebrated the season with the greatest festivities. At the winter solstice the Germans held their great Yule feast, in commemora t ion of the return of the fiery sun-wheel, and believed that during the twelve nights reaching from December 25th to January 6th they could trace the per sonal movements and interferences on earth of their great deities, Odin, Berchta. etc. Many of
the beliefs and usages of the old Germans. and also of the Romans. relating to this matter. passed over from heathenism to Christianity, and have partly survived to the present day. But the Church also sought to combat and banish —and in this it was to a large extent success ful—the deep-rooted heaeinon feeling, by adding, for the purification of the heathen customs and feasts which it retained, its grandly devised lit urg-v. besides dramatic representations of the birth of Christ and the first events of His life. Hence sprang the so-called 'manger' songs and a multitude of Christmas carols, as well as mas dramas, which, at eertain times and places, degenerated into farces or fools' feasts (q.v.) Hemp, also, originated. at a later period, the Christ trees, or Christmas trees, adorned with lights and gifts, the custom of reciprocal pres ents and of special Christmas meats and dishes, such as Christmas rolls, cakes, currant loaves, dumplings, etc. Thus Christmas became a uni versal social festival for young and old, high and low, as no other Christian festival could have become. At one time the festivities were continued until Candlemas and Twelfth Day.
In the Roman Catholic Church each priest celebrates three masses at Christmas, viz. at midnight, at daybreak, and in the morning. The day is also observed religiously by the An glican and Lutheran churches. The Scotch Pres byterians and English Nonconformists generally rejected all religious observance of the day as a 'human invention' and savoring too much of `papistry.' It is said that the Puritan found ers of New England established the Thanksgiving festival as, in some measure, a substitute for Christmas. At the present time the tendency is strong toward religious observance of the day in all Protestant bodies.