(Mary) Did You Know?

Year after year at Christmas, I see or hear people talk about "putting Christ back in Christmas." Yes, where that's a nice sentiment, and yes He is the reason for the season, but what people don't realize is our traditions actually weren't originally centered around Christ. Did you know that it took over 300 years to decide what day to celebrate Jesus' birth? (No, Jesus wasn't born on December 25th and we didn't miraculously remember it all these years.) In fact, according to Roman records, the census that Mary and Joseph had to participate in typically happened in the springtime. The real reason we celebrate on December 25th is because the Catholic Church wanted to offset the pagan celebration of the winter solstice.
As for traditions, did you realize that the celebration of Christmas was actually banned for quite some time, even when America was "discovered" (think about that before you say United States was founded on religion...it was founded on religious FREEDOM, the freedom to worship how you wanted, but not as a religion-based country). Think of the song "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." Now think of the lines, "Bring us some figgy pudding" and "Won't go until we get some." Those aren't polite requests. Tradition of medieval times was to loot and raid and have one long, continuous party. Carolers weren't groups of people with sometimes questionable musical talents. They may have sung a tune or two, but that was only to get you to the door to demand refreshments and gifts. And don't even think about dodging them like Jehovah's Witnesses...if you didn't come to the door, they took it as a sign that no one was home and would break in and raid your home. Christmas of the olden days was full of madness and mayhem, and almost NOTHING to do with Christ. It wasn't until Queen Victoria embraced her husband's German customs of family and children for all to see that people calmed down and thought about things more important than getting drunk (though it seems many people still feel a "holiday" is an excuse to go all out).
A final thought...some Christians today get very upset over the term Xmas (I'm not bashing Christians, I'm just letting you know if you didn't know this as I did...or didn't...know, that is). They say that it's people being lazy and not wanting to write out the word Christmas or that it is non-believers wanting to go through the motions of celebrating the holiday but by leaving Jesus out of it. In some cases this may be true. But in truth the joke is on them. By using the term Xmas, they are actually leaving Christ in. I didn't know this. I had started to believe the laziness or non-believer aspect as well. But I did research (you know my penchant for wanting to know obscure things) and discovered that the Greeks actually used the letter "X" to represent Christ. Early Christians then adopted this around the time when they were being jailed and killed for their beliefs to prove they were Christians. So when Christmas became official, the "X" was just incorporated.
There's many other traditions that I thought were interesting but would take you quite a while to read, so I may save those for another day.


Merry Xmas!