Today we talk about the Christmas spirit and how peace on earth and generosity are more prevalent at Christmas.
So, is this real or made up and where did it originate?
The celebration of Christmas was a marriage of the religious celebration of Jesus birth and the pagan winter solstice.
By the 17th Century, Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans vowed to get rid of Christmas for good and canceled Christmas. When Charles II was restored to the throne, the Christmas holiday returned with him.
From 1659 to 1681, the celebration of Christmas was actually outlawed in Boston. Anyone exhibiting the Christmas spirit was fined five shillings.
After the American Revolution, English customs fell out of favor and Christmas was not celebrated.
In 1819, Washington Irving wrote of a celebration of Christmas in an English manor house and stated “Christmas should be a peaceful, warm-hearted holiday bringing groups together across lines of wealth or social status.” Historians believe that this was an invention of his imagination and not from a celebration he may have attended.
Charles Dickens released his popular A Christmas Carol in 1843. He coined the phrase Merry Christmas and God Bless Us Everyone. His book shared the general theme of peace on earth and good will to all men.
Queen Victoria and her family introduced the use of the Christmas tree with lights on it as a decoration.
From there the holiday began to snowball with poems such as A Visit from St. Nicholas, the creations of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman.
“As Americans began to embrace Christmas as a perfect family holiday, old customs were unearthed…Although most families quickly bought into the idea that they were celebrating Christmas how it had been done for centuries, Americans had really re-invented a holiday to fill the cultural needs of a growing nation.”
Christmas was declared a federal holiday in the United States on June 26, 1870.
But, if we go back in time we think about the joy of the angels as they sang glory to God and all those that saw the infant Messiah. They were the first to have the Christmas spirit.
For Christians, the Christmas joy is knowing that Christ came to earth as an infant, so that he could grow and show us how to live. Then Jesus died for our sins, but he did not stay dead. He rose from the grave three days later and sits at the right hand of God. We are promised that one day He will return.
So, in the words of Tiny Tim, “God bless us, every one!”