As we celebrate Christmas Day, anyone who has read about  
one of the holiest days in the Christian calendar, will acknowledge that December 25th, the celebration of the birth of Jesus, may not, in fact, be the right day of the Christian feast, since no mention of it can be found in the Bible, and according to religious scholars, Christmas didn’t become firmly established until the 4th century.
Professor Stephen Nissenbaum, Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts; and the author of the ``Battle for Christmas’’ responded through an email: ``there's no evidence of what time of year Jesus was born, neither in the Bible or anywhere else. The date of Dec. 25, Nissenbaum  points out, was not chosen until almost 400 years after Jesus actually lived, when nobody had any memory of the actual date.’’
     Such sound historic background is cause enough for reflection whether we’re celebrating the right day in the Christian calendar; so when I put the question, or the discrepancy to Jill Raitt, the Religious Studies professor at the University of Missouri wrote back: `` the date itself is not so important; the celebration of believers is that God become human in Jesus of Nazareth…. For believers, Raitt went on to write, the ``fact is not always the same as truth, and truth understood as ultimate reality, trumps facts, as humans-bound by time, space, and culture, perceive them.  Truths can be expressed in poetry, stories, all forms of art as well as in philosophy and theology.’’
     Whether we’ve forgotten the true meaning of Christmas, and have become shamelessly absorbed into the commercialization of the holiday  (Santa Claus, buying of gifts, Christmas trees, the singing of the ``Twelve Days of Christmas’’), a tradition which really didn’t kick off until the Industrial Revolution, Christmas nonetheless has become synonymous with the following customs and traditions.
Here's how they originated.

Santa Claus comes from the Dutch name, Sinterklaus, a word used by Dutch settlers to describe a rotund character with a jolly appearance.

The first nativity scene originated with St Francis of Assisi in 1224 who assembled a manger scene in the village of Greccio, Italy.

Christmas trees grew in popularity after Goethe, described a candle lit tree in ``The Sorrows of Young Werther'' a 1774 novel about a character that commits suicide after being rejected by a love interest.

The poinsettia, was discovered in Mexico by Dr. Joel Poinsett in the 1800's, where it is called the ``Flower of the Holy Night''

The first department store to feature a Santa Claus was in Philadelphia on December 24, 1841 at the J.W. Parkinson's store. The next Santa Claus wouldn't be spotted again until 1890, this time accompanied with his own white beard at the Boston Store in Brockton, Mass.

One of the solemnest Christmas songs, ``Silent Night'', first began as a poem, ``Still Nacht'' by an Austrian priest, Josef Mohr in 1816. On Christmas Eve at the Oberndorf's St Nicholas Church in 1818, it was set to music for the first time.

The popular expression``Yes Virginia, There is a Christmas'', first appeared in the New York Sun on September 21, 1897 in an editorial written by Francis Pharcellus Church in a response to one of his readers, Virginia O'Hanlon who wrote: ``I am 8 years old. Some of my friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, ``If you see it in The Sun, it's so.'' Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus.

Congress didn’t proclaim Christmas a federal holiday until 1870

Hallmark put its first Christmas cards on display in 1915.

The First Rockefeller Christmas tree in New York City first appeared in 1931; and the first tree lighting to be televised came in 1951 on the Kate Smith Show.

The First Radio City Music Hall Christmas Show was launched in 1933.

According to Richard J. Callahan, Jr. Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Missouri, following the American Revolution, ``many Americans did not celebrate Christmas because they felt it was a tradition that belonged to English culture.’’

-Bill Lucey
billlucey@bellsouth.net