Why We Kiss under the Mistletoe: Christmas Traditions Explained

INTRODUCTION

In all the civilized world there is no spot so secluded, and, perhaps, no heart so dark that the sound of Christmas chimes fails to awaken in it a sense of joy and exultation. Round and round the earth rolls the grand sympathetic melody, calling on rich and poor alike, to put aside for a day all disputes and jealousies; and over and above all trouble and perplexity swells the sublime, reiterated strain: Peace and good-will, good-will and peace, peace and good-will to all mankind.¹

The anonymous author who wrote these words in 1871 may have been a bit melodramatic, but his claim still strikes a chord today. What is it about Christmas that continues to captivate our hearts? Is it the childhood memories of presents under the tree? The sentimental music? The sense of coziness? Certainly the religious reason, the birth of the Savior, is cause for celebration, but most people hold Christmas dearer to their hearts than Easter, which is technically the more important feast in the Christian year. Why Christmas?

One of many Norman Rockwell Christmas-issue magazine covers. American Boy

This book helps to answer that question by giving you a history of the holiday and the meaning behind the customs that make it so special. In this book you will learn just about everything you need to know not only about the big day itself but about the long buildup to it and the comet tail of celebrations following it. While most Christmas books cover only a few days of the year, we will take you through over two months of merriment—and cover customs treasured in dozens of different cultures, spanning twenty centuries of history.

And as we do, we will carefully separate fact from fiction, unearthing the true meaning behind many of our most beloved Christmas customs and tales. The Christmas story is so storied that there are now even myths about Christmas myths. With an impartial but loving eye, we lay out the various theories about why we do what we do. Where does the Santa Claus legend really come from? Is the Christmas tree a pagan yuletide observance? What exactly is a carol? Is Groundhog Day a part of the Christmas cycle? And, of course, why do we kiss under the mistletoe?

Finally, we introduce you to a side of Christmas that you did not know existed, from forgotten traditions of mischief and mayhem to ghoulish figures haunting the holiest of nights.

All told, this book will introduce you to hundreds of magical figures, foods, drinks, songs, superstitions, practices, and, above all, stories about the most wonderful time of the year.

It is our hope that this book will deepen your appreciation of the Christmas season and enable you to celebrate it with heightened understanding and greater joy.

Merry Christmas!

Chapter One

CHRISTMAS’S ROLLER COASTER PAST

The origins of Christmas are more tangled than an old box of Christmas lights, and its history is rowdier than a 1960s holiday office party.

ORIGINS

Let’s start with the origins. The Gospels according to Matthew and Luke provide the only canonical accounts that we have of the birth of Jesus Christ. According to these narratives, the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph were espoused, that is, they had completed the first stage of a first-century Jewish wedding (the signing of the marriage contract) but not the second (the introduction of the bride to her husband’s home, which could be months and sometimes more than a year later). During that waiting period, Mary conceived the Christ Child through the agency of the Holy Spirit and then left town for three months to help her aged cousin St. Elizabeth give birth to St. John the Baptist. When she returned, St. Joseph noticed that she was with child. After being told by an angel in a dream to take Mary to wife (that is, to complete the second stage of the wedding, taking her into his home) and to adopt Jesus as his own, he did so.¹

As the time drew near for Mary to bear her Son, the holy couple traveled from their home in Nazareth to Bethlehem in order to be enrolled in a Roman census. Because there was no room for them in an inn, Mary delivered her Child in a stable, which according to oral tradition was a sheltered cave (where Bethlehem’s Basilica of the Nativity now stands). Angels announced the good news to nearby shepherds, who came to adore Him, and Magi who had been following a star from the East did so as well, but only after they had paid a visit to King Herod to inquire into the whereabouts of the newborn King. The question unsettled the paranoid and wicked Herod, who ordered the death of all baby boys in Bethlehem in an attempt to eliminate the competition. Joseph, however, was warned of Herod’s plot in a dream and fled with the Holy Family to Egypt. After Herod died, another dream told Joseph that it was safe to return to Nazareth.

Critics of the infancy narratives claim that the facts do not add up: Herod the Great was not king when the census of Quirinius was taken but rather died four years before the birth of Christ; the census would not have been taken during the winter and would not have required bringing one’s expectant wife; there were no astronomical anomalies (no Christmas star) that we know of in 1 B.C.–A.D. 1, and so forth. Biblical critics also claim that because the story of Jesus’ birth resembles that of Moses in some respects (both, for example, involve the slaughter of innocent boys), it must be fictitious.²

There are, however, compelling points in favor of the original Christmas story. The Christmas star need not have been an astronomical event; it could have been a miraculous apparition limited to the Magi. We should not be hasty in drawing conclusions about dating: it is difficult to align three different ancient calendars (the Jewish lunar calendar, the Roman solar calendar, and a different Greek solar calendar). The conclusion that Herod died in 4 B.C. (four years before the birth of Christ) is based on a miscalculation of a passage in the writings of Flavius Josephus. And if you posit that the Magi met the Holy Family after their return to Nazareth rather than, as is popularly imagined, in the stable at Bethlehem, the chronology lines up.³

As for the belief that the story of Christ’s birth must be false because it resembles Moses’s, there is no logical necessity to think so. The resemblance could be coincidental or, better yet, part of God’s master plan, in which case the parallels are proof of the story’s veracity rather than its falsity.⁴

DATES

As for when we observe Jesus Christ’s birthday, we know that in the late second or early third century Christians in Egypt celebrated Christ’s birth and His baptism as an adult in the River Jordan on January 6 and that other Eastern-rite Christians eventually followed suit. In Rome, on the other hand, there is evidence that Christmas was celebrated on December 25 as early as A.D. 336. Eventually (from the fourth century on), the East adopted December 25 as the date of Christ’s birth and January 6 as the date of His baptism while the West kept its Christmas date of December 25 and adopted January 6 as the visit of the Magi (though it also commemorated Christ’s baptism on January 6). To this day, there is a difference in emphasis between the calendars of Western Christians (Roman Catholics and Protestants) and Eastern Christians (Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Church of the East, and Eastern-Rite Catholics). In the West, there is a buildup to Christmas as the big day and then a plateauing that lasts until the lesser Feast of the Epiphany on January 6. In the East, Christmas Day is important, but Theophany (January 6) is the grand high point of the season; indeed, it is second only to Easter in the entire year.

How these dates were chosen remains a hotly debated topic. There are three main theories.

The first, the history of religion theory, is that Christians in Rome chose December 25 to supplant a Roman pagan festival called the Birth of the Unconquered Sun and that Christians in Egypt chose January 6 to supplant an Egyptian festival of the god Aion, who was born of a virgin.⁵

Although this theory has enjoyed the most scholarly support over the years, it has been criticized for overlooking one important detail. Christmas may not have been celebrated on December 25 until 336, but Christians were nonetheless talking about December 25 as the date of Jesus’ birthday as early as 240. The Roman feast of the Unconquered Sun, on the other hand, was not instituted until 274. Did Christians try to coopt a pagan feast, or did pagans try to coopt a Christian date? Most likely neither. The Roman Emperor Aurelian, who instituted the celebration of the Unconquered Sun, was more concerned about the winter solstice (which at the time fell on December 25) than about stealing thunder from a small religious minority.⁶

Either way, Christians were not thinking of pagan customs when they first arrived at a date for their Savior’s birth.

Which brings us to the second hypothesis, called the calculation theory. According to this view, early Christians were influenced by the Jewish notion of an integral age, the belief that the prophets died on the same date as their birth. Some early Christians calculated that April 6 was the date of Christ’s crucifixion, while others thought that it was March 25. March 25 became the date of Christ’s conception in the womb (the Feast of the Annunciation), and nine months after March 25 is December 25. Similarly, if you add nine months to April 6, you get January 6.⁷

The theory is intriguing, but unfortunately there is no evidence that the early Church knew about the rabbinical belief in an integral age, nor does the theory explain why Christians would have modified the belief from a two-pronged focus on birth and death to the three prongs of conception, birth, and death.⁸

Finally, there is the third theory, which is that Jesus Christ was actually born on or around December 25.⁹

King David had divided the Levitical priesthood into twenty-four courses (1 Chronicles 24:7–18), and the Gospel according to St. Luke records that Zechariah, who was burning incense in the Temple when he had a vision of St. Gabriel the Archangel, was in the course of Abijah (Luke 1:5). Calculating from Luke’s account and Talmudic sources, we can conclude that Zechariah’s turn to serve in the Temple as a member of his course most likely happened during the week of September 5–11 in the year before Jesus’ birth. Assuming that John the Baptist was conceived shortly thereafter (Luke 1:23–24), he would have been born somewhere between June 20 and 26. Jesus was six months’ younger than His cousin (Luke 1:36), so He would have been born between December 21 and 27. This thesis, however, has yet to gain widespread acceptance.

So who is right? Here’s what we know:

In former ages and even in some places today, birthdates were not of great concern—either because the actual date of birth was difficult to determine or because there were other, more important factors to take into consideration. In ancient Greece, Plato’s birthday was celebrated on the Feast of Apollo: either the great philosopher forgot to tell his disciples when his birthday was, or his disciples thought it more important to associate him with the god of light, beauty, and poetry. In some Christian cultures even today, one’s name day (the feast day of the saint after whom one is named) is a bigger celebration than one’s birthday. In Japan, where the group is traditionally more important than the individual, there were no personal birthday celebrations prior to the influence of American culture in the 1950s. The old Japanese equivalent of a birthday was either New Year’s Day (when everyone knew he was a year older) or Girls’ Day on March 3 (for all daughters and mothers) and Boys’ Day on May 5 (for all sons and fathers).

Second, even in the unlikely event that the early Christians decided to celebrate the birth of Christ on December 25 to coopt a pagan holiday, they clearly understood the difference between their religion and the one they were supplanting. Church leaders sternly rebuked converts who retained even the external symbols of the old festivals, as the writings of Tertullian, St. Augustine, and Pope St. Leo the Great attest. And the doctrine of the Incarnation, which teaches that Jesus Christ is 100 percent human and 100 percent divine, is not the same as stories of demigods being 50 percent human and 50 percent divine. Understanding the pedigree of demigods requires no more imagination than following a family tree chart on ancestry.com

, whereas understanding how the Divine Person Jesus Christ is not only the Son of Man but also consubstantial with the Father demands a whole new metaphysical skill set. As the Christian believer sees it, there is not so much a pagan yearning for the gods that Christianity replaced as there is a human yearning for the divine that paganism responded to imperfectly and tragically, and that Christianity purifies and fulfills joyfully.

Third, say what you will, the symbolism works. The Bible describes Jesus Christ as the Light or the Sun or the Dawn, and so it is appropriate that His birthday is celebrated around the time of the winter solstice. A Jewish boy is circumcised eight days after his birth, and so if Jesus’ birthday is celebrated on December 25, it is appropriate to commemorate His circumcision on January 1 (Luke 2:21). In accordance with the Mosaic Law, Jesus was presented in the Temple and His mother was ritually purified forty days after His birth (Luke 2:22–24), and so it is appropriate to celebrate this event on February 2, the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary (a.k.a. the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord). The Bible states that John the Baptist is six months older than the Messiah (Luke 1:24–26), and so it is appropriate that his birthday is said to fall six months later (June 24). St. John the Baptist famously says of Jesus, He must increase, but I must decrease (John 3:30), and so it is appropriate that John’s birthday be celebrated on or after the summer solstice, when the days start to grow longer. The Blessed Virgin Mary conceived by the Holy Spirit nine months before giving birth to Jesus, and so it is appropriate that the Feast of the Annunciation is celebrated on March 25, a date that follows the spring equinox and marks the end of the dead, dark winter and the beginning of a new era of life and rebirth.

And for those who enjoy straining their brains, these dates afford matter for deeper, more mystical explorations. St. Augustine notes that there are 276 days between March 25 and December 25, which happens to be the sum of 46 x 6. Forty-six is the number of years that it took to build the Holy Temple (John 2:20), and six (for reasons too complicated to explain here) is the symbol for one year. Thus 276 is an apt numerical symbol of the Temple that is Christ’s own body (John 2:21), which was built up from a single zygote on March 25 to a newborn baby on December 25.¹⁰

Mind blown? Merry Christmas!

MEDIEVAL MERRIMENT AND MISCHIEF

Christmas got off to a slow start in comparison to Easter and even some saints’ feast days, but it more than caught up. As a sign of its new importance, Christmas marked the beginning of the new Church year from the fifth to the tenth century (curiously, the Inuit in the Arctic circle still begin the new year on Christmas the same). In A.D. 425 the Roman emperor banned chariot races, which were popular but cruel, on Christmas Day, and a century later the emperor declared Christmas a civic holiday during which work and public business were prohibited. In 506, the Council of Agde urged Christians to receive Holy Communion on Christmas Day, in 563 the Council of Braga forbade fasting on Christmas, and in 567 the Council of Tours established the Twelve Days of Christmas from December 25 to January 6 and mandated fasting during Advent to prepare for the great feast. Christmas also became the occasion for important events. In the year 496 St. Remigius baptized King Clovis I and three thousand Franks, in 598 St. Augustine of Canterbury baptized ten thousand Britons, and in 800 the Pope crowned Charlemagne head of the new Holy Roman Empire, all on Christmas Day. The holy day was on its way.

Christmas was enormously popular during the Middle Ages, and it is thanks to our medieval forebears that we have many of our familiar Christmas customs, such as caroling, Yule logs, Nativity scenes, Christmas pageants, and so on (see Chapters Eight through Eleven). But the holiday was not quite the same then as it is now. As we will see in Chapter Twelve, Christmastime was a season of misrule. Customs such as the Feast of Fools and the Boy Bishop upended the social hierarchy that prevailed during the rest of the year and relieved folks of the roles they usually played in their daily lives. Christmas also had a dark side (the subject of Chapter Seven), confronting primal fears about winter and pagan superstitions about the season. Christmas in the Middle Ages was less a private celebration of family and children and more a public occasion for adult feasting and tippling—and as we will see in Chapter Ten, some of these delights are still with us.

On the other hand, despite their vices, medieval Christians understood the religious core of the holiday and cherished it. It was not unusual for the faithful to attend three Masses on Christmas Day (one at midnight, one at dawn, and one later in the morning) and to participate in religious services throughout the Twelve Days of Christmas. And with the love of God came a love of neighbor. Many medieval Christmas customs involved extra solicitude for the poor and kindness to all. Even the animals benefited from this seasonal largesse as they were spared from labor and feasted on extra hay.

THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN

The raucous medieval Christmas was asking for a backlash, and a backlash it got. For centuries the Catholic clergy tried to stem or outlaw abuses while keeping the spirit of the holiday, with varying degrees of success. But the first total assault on Christmas, by