Christmas, the begining.

In the early years of Christianity Easter was the main holiday.  The birth of Jesus was not celebrated until introduced in the fourth century by church officials.   Pope Julius I chose Dec. 25 in an effort to adopt and absorb the traditions of the pagan (Roman) Saturnalia festival.  (Dec 25 was the traditional date for such festivals since Babylonian times.)  By holding Christmas at the same time as traditional winter solstice festivals, church leaders increased the chances that Christmas would be popularly embraced.  Doing so, however, risked a certain loss of control by the blending of the two events.

First called the Feast of the Nativity, the custom spread to Egypt by 432, England by the end of the sixth century, and Scandinavia by the eighth.   By the Middle Ages, Christians attended church on Christmas, then celebrated raucously in a drunken, carnival-like atmosphere similar to today's Mardi Gras. Each year, a beggar would be crowned "lord of misrule" and eager celebrants played the part of his subjects. The poor would go to the houses of the rich and demand their best food and drink.  If owners failed to comply, the visitors would terrorize them with mischief. Christmas became the time of year when the upper classes could repay their real or imagined "debt" to society by entertaining less fortunate citizens. During a period of religious reform, Cromwell and the Puritans outlawed its celebration in England, America, and Ireland during the 1600’s.