CHRISTMAS WAS FIRST CELEBRATED IN THE YEAR 98, but it was 40 years later before it was officially adopted as a Christian festival. December 25 was not designated as the time to celebrate the birth of Christ until about the 5th century. Up to that time it had been irregularly observed at various times of the year, e.g., December, April, and May, but most frequently in January.

Clovis, the first Christian king of France, was baptized on Christmas Day, 496. The Pilgrim Fathers, who condemned all church festivals, spent their first Christmas in America working hard all day long amid cold and stormy weather, and commenced the building of the first house in Plymouth in 1620.

It is a significant fact that no great battles were fought on Christmas Day. They have occurred on the 24th and 26th of December, but the anniversary of the advent of Peace on Earth has ever been observed by a cessation of hostilities. Wouldn’t you think that if they could stop for one day, they could extend it indefinitely? Human beings are a strange lot indeed.

In history Christmas has been a very remarkable day. It was on Christmas Day that Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in the Cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelie. On Christmas Day in the year 1066, William the Conqueror was crowned King of England in Westminster Abbey.

Back in the early 1700s, when the United States were the Colonies, the settlers in Williamsburg, capital of Colonia Virginia, celebrated Christmas with customs they had brought from England. There was no Santa Claus (a Dutch tradition), no Christmas trees (a German tradition), no nativity crèche (an Italian tradition), and no chimney stockings (an American tradition).

Christmas in Colonial Williamsburg was primarily a holy day, but the atmosphere was not necessarily solemn. Churches and homes were decorated with greens, while candles burned in all the windows to welcome carolers.

There was public celebration, too. Musicians played special concerts, and fireworks and cannon were exploded to heighten the general merriment. Feasting was in order with dishes of roasted fowl and hare, narrow pudding, ham, oysters, sausage, shellfish, often capped by whole roast boar on a platter. Some gifts were given then as a part of the Christmas celebration, but not nearly on the present-day scale.

21st Century folks have their Christmas traditions, too. I wonder what the historians will say about our time. Hopefully it won’t be a negative report of the secularization of the day. I’m just afraid that the Babe’s coming may be lost amidst the stresses and busyness of our culture. Perhaps we should return to Colonial Williamsburg.