Christmas

the anniversary of the birth of Christ. It is observed on the twenty-fifth day of December-one week before the New Year. The celebration dates from the fourth and fifth centuries. Among the Romans certain Christian practices were adopted from an older pagan feast in honor of the birth of the sun or Sol. Among people of Germanic ancestry, including the English, the celebration of the Christmas season, with holly, mistletoe, wassail, and the Yule log, are relics of an old pagan festival commemorating the shortest day of the year. The custom of making presents at Christmas time is associated in the popular mind with the gifts presented to Christ by the Wise Men of the East; but in reality, at least so far as English-speaking people are concerned, it is derived also from an old heathen usage. The custom of decorating Christmas trees has been traced from Rome to Germany, from Germany to England, and from England to the United States. The prejudice against Christmas observance, as too strongly tinctured with the heathen tradition, was so strong in Scotland that, until recently, children in Presbyterian families had no Christmas. Even yet it is not a popular holiday in Scotland. In New England at an early day, it was considered inappropriate--irreverent--to celebrate Christ's birthday with feasting, gift giving, and jollity. See St. Nicholas; Holly; Mistletoe; Santa Claus