Christmas has just passed and I thought this would be a good time to write a little about where Christmas came from. Everyone (well, I hope everyone does) knows about the birth of Christ and that Christmas is a time where Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus. But where did Christmas really originate? Is that it? Well, I'm here to tell you that it most certainly is not it and there is more to the story than you've most likely been told.

Mesopotamia was the first to have a celebration during the winter. Mesopotamians were polygamists(one who believes in more than one god). One of their main gods was Marduk. Marduk was thought to fight the gods of chaos every year during the winter. The Mesopotamians had a twelve day festival called Zagmuk in order to help Marduk in his fight. At the end of the festival the tradition was to kill the King so as he could help Marduk in his further fights. The Mesopotamians wanted to avoid this so they would dress up a criminal in fancy clothes like royalty would wear and kill him to save the life of the King.

Later on in history, the pagan Europeans(not having the knowledge we do now about the sun and the tilting of earth's axis during winter months) would hold rituals and celebrations to try to get the sun to come back. When the sun finally came back a celebration was held. This celebration was called Yuletide or just Yule. Yule is where a couple of our Christmas traditions come from such as burning a log in the fire. The Europeans did this as they ate around it. Maybe your family hangs apples from the Christmas tree, well guess what? Congratulations you've been celebrating a pagan tradition! The pagans did this to remember that the warm weather was coming.

During the first three hundred years of Christianity the celebration of birthdays was not allowed. This included Jesus' birthday. Many people stopped celebrating Christmas because there were no references to Christmas in the Bible or to the date of Jesus' birth. Puritans in England believed that they weren't supposed to celebrate Christmas and the traditions of Christmas because it was considered to be against the second commandment(not worshiping idols) to have a nativity or Christmas tree.

In Massachusetts in 1659, a law was made by the Pilgrims to ban Christmas. The law managed to stay in effect for twenty-two years. Anyone who was caught celebrating Christmas was fined five shillings. Today, many Jehovah Witnesses and fundamentalists Christians still do not celebrate Christmas. Some people even believe that Santa is a pagan image that was made to make fun of God.

With all religion aside, I believe that Christmas is a time for people to be at peace with themselves and their families. Well, it's at least a time to pretend to be at peace. Peace is the essence of the Christmas spirit, oh yeah, and presents. Just kidding kids.

Learn more about this author, Rachel Weaver.
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