The Christmas Tradition
By Abigail Lashmar
Happy holidays everyone! I wanted to bring to light the history behind some common holiday traditions in this article. Many of the traditions I will mention are focused around Christmas as that is what my family and I celebrate. So to begin, Christmas is a holiday celebrated on December 25th and it is both a religious holiday as well as a worldwide cultural event. Christians celebrate Christmas day as the day Jesus was born. A leader in this faith guided and formed the basis of this religion. However, It is now considered a worldwide holiday! In fact, In the US Christmas day has been considered a federal holiday since 1870! To start, who is Santa Claus? The jolly old man who gives you a generous amount of gifts and eats all your milk and cookies, of course. This tradition can be traced back to St. Nicholas. He was a monk who gave away all his earnings in order to aid the sick and the poor. This eventually granted him the title of “the protector of children and sailors”. The The Dutch name for Saint Nicholas is “Sint Nikolaas” or “Sinter Klaas” for short, which is where “Santa Claus” was derived from. Decorating Christmas trees has been a very popular way to symbolize the holidays for many many years. This tradition goes all the way back to Germany in the middle ages in fact! Germans as well as other European settlers increased the popularity of this tradition incredible amounts by the time the 19th century rolled around. An individual by the name of Mark Carr is credited with opening the very first Christmas tree lot back in 1851. It has grown in popularity so much that it was estimated back in 2019 that roughly 77% of households in the US display a Christmas tree in their home. The number of households in Canada displaying a tree during the holiday season continues to increase as the years go on as well. The last tradition I'm going to mention is advent calendars. The earliest version of this tradition can be traced back to Germany once again. It was in 1903 when a publisher by the name of Gerhard Land, suggested young kids may open one “door” per day, which would reveal a bible quote, a poem or sometimes even a small gift on the days leading up to Christmas. Since then, it has increased tremendously in popularity. Now you may get an advent calendar with anything inside! Chocolate, books, nail polish, makeup. You name it and I am sure there’s an advent calendar waiting for you to pick it up! Once again Happy holidays to everyone! I hope the season is full of lots of love and how for each and every one of you.
