What's the 'It' About Christmas?

It's the season of Christmas and cheers are all around. Christmas Eve has passed and the season is still on. What's the 'it' about Christmas that it still survived after years of controversy about its conception? What is its x-factor that it has become a worldwide celebration that even non-Christians partake of the holidays in good faith and in good cheer?


What is Christmas anyway? Like as if you didn't know.


Christmas is the annual celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ and is celebrated every 25th of December. It is both religious and cultural and celebrated by billions of people around the globe, Christians and non-Christians alike. Christmas season closes the Advent and starts the twelve days of Christmastide, which finishes on the Feast of Epiphany in January and is a civil holiday on countries that celebrate it--which is virtually everywhere. It's a season marked by pretty decorations, lights, Christmas trees, buying of gifts, singing of Christmas carols and other practices that could be done in general or specific in a locality. Exchanging of gifts is on Christmas Eve and special food is prepared on the table and, yes, there's much laughter and merrymaking and reunions of families and friends alike.    


How did Christmas come about? Some of these, you surely don't remember anymore from your Christian Living classes at school. 


The first record of Christmas celebration on a December 25 happened in 345 AD in Rome, though nations in the East was already on it but on a January 6 in relation to the Feast of Epiphany. It was only later that they adapted 12/25 as their Christmas Day. There's a lot of controversy going on about why this date was chosen as Jesus' birthday and a lot of scholars has already theorized, explained and/or defended accordingly. The controversy revolved around the "coincidence" that Christmas Day is also celebrated in a winter 
solstice, the day marked by celebrations revolving around the pagans' worship of the sun god, like, err, his birthday? Sol Invictus, Saturnalia, Brumalia, Sankranti... all pertaining to particular gods, celebrated annually on a winter solstice before the dawn of Christianity. 'Course, defenders of the church argued that this date was chosen as a form of cosmic symbolism--winter solstice being the birth of Christ, summer solstice the birth of John the Baptist and their corresponding equinoxes their deaths. That should be fine, cosmic symbolism it is. Even living in a tropical country, 
I know that green grass doesn't grow in winter and grass is what them sheeps were munching when the angels came to announce in glorious song that the messiah has come. Except that... there seemed to be a Catholic feast that preceded every pagan feast there is in the book. There's a saint for every pagan that died a hero or a martyr. There's a pagan echo to every leaf or flower or fruit in that Christmas decor on your door. The Christmas Tree preceded a tradition of tree worship and Santa Claus is a merger of St. Nicholas and Father Christmas and his image immortalized by a famous cartoonist. Etc. Etc. In this age, when all information is just one click away, to argue about this is almost... laughable. Yet, those brainiacs aside, people will still celebrate Christmas. Like there's no tomorrow.


So why do we celebrate Christmas? Do you think it's still about religion?


For thousands of years, it has always been there. A collective desire to imprint, to secure, to identify, to symbolize. We exemplify this in our traditions, in our culture, in myths, in art. There's no religion to it--Christmas has become our own. It has become a symbol of family ties, of brotherhood, of prosperity. It's a symbol of hope that things will be better the next year; our own cosmic cycle. It has become a mythology of the perfect hero that would lead us, guide us and save us from ourselves. In it's evolution, it has become our evolution. 


For mainstream Christians who held it in loving esteem, "figures" doesn't count because Christmas is the time for giving and for caring. Christmas is kissing and bear hugs and forgiving. Christmas is good, positive vibes expressed in red, green and gold and lanterns and carols. That is why it's important. The way it has always been before it was given a different name.