As a Christian, I don’t really consider any of the aforementioned holidays to be Christian. As far as I know, there’s nothing anywhere in the new testament promulgating the annual celebration of Easter, Christmas, Halloween, All Saints Day, Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, Pentecost, you name it. That being said, I’m not against such celebrations but I don’t think the way our country appears to celebrate Halloween, Easter, or Christmas should at all be considered “Christian”.
I don’t make much of a fuss over any of these so-called holidays. Sure, we still put up a Christmas tree, I like the lights. But I don’t pretend that observing them is necessary.
Celebrating festivals was a very important requirement in the Old Testament. But as the apostle Paul says in Colossians 2:16 “Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.”
Gift giving and evergreen trees were both part of Saturnalia…
I mean, sure you can tie whatever rituals you want to your religion. But I’m with Klayman that it’s a stretch to say that those rituals are specific to the guy in the New Testament, except as a sort of afterthought.
St. Nicholas was sneaking into homes and giving gifts in the 4th century, which is where we get Santa Claus. Gift-giving being associated with St. Nicholas goes back to his veneration, also in the 4th century.
And yes, gift giving at Christmas symbolizes the gifts the Magi brought to Christ. And there’s no denying that it’s fun.
The Puritans weren’t opposed to incorporating gift-giving into Christmas celebrations… they were opposed to celebrating Christmas at all. Not all Christians do celebrate Christmas, to this day. In particular Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Church of God, and Quakers don’t celebrate Christmas (at least not officially… some individual members might go rogue and join in the celebration).
It’s blatantly dishonest to imply that gift-giving didn’t start until after the Puritans came to America. It was popular well before then; they just didn’t do it because they didn’t do Christmas.
And as for New Year’s Eve… that’s during Christmastide. The 12 Days of Christmas are December 25 - January 5. In some cultures it was typical to give small gifts on each day, or gifts of increasing value each day, culminating in a big celebration on Twelfth Night.
I’m not sure why New Year’s Eve (the seventh day of Christmas) was more special than others, but I don’t think it contradicts the idea of gift-giving during Advent and Christmas.
St. Nicholas’ feast day is December 6, and many Catholics do give their children small gifts on St. Nicholas day in addition to on Christmas.
I’ll add that people weren’t giving gifts of the magnitude that is currently common a millennia ago, but I think that’s more related to the rise in wealth / disposable income than anything else.
There are certainly accounts of lavish Christmas gifts in Queen Elizabeth I’s court, for example. She reigned from 1558 - 1603, well before the Pilgrims came to North America. I can’t get over the blatant dishonesty of suggesting the Pilgrims’ lack of Christmas gifts is evidence that it’s a newer tradition. Just… yikes.
Christians in impoverished areas still give modest gifts.
These are great examples of miscellaneous stories which may well speak to the origins of gift giving. But you are clearly proud of your advanced knowledge on the topic.
So let’s go with, most people don’t know your origin stories. If they don’t know them, how are they motivated by things they are ignorant of?
The question is why folks do it today, not why someone back in time started doing it. I’ll stick with my list, thank you.
Terribly defensive, frankly. I see behavior today and I look for the reason. Simple as that.
Wrt to the Magi myth…if I stopped 100 shoppers at the local Target and asked them why they were buying gifts, how many would include “because the Magi” in their response? You say most would. I find that unlikely.
The use of evergreen trees, wreaths, and garlands to symbolize eternal life was a custom of the ancient Egyptians, Chinese, and Hebrews. Tree worship was common among the pagan Europeans and survived their conversion to Christianity in the Scandinavian customs of decorating the house and barn with evergreens at the New Year to scare away the Devil and of setting up a tree for the birds during Christmastime. It survived further in the custom, also observed in Germany, of placing a Yule tree at an entrance or inside the house during the midwinter holidays.
No, I think most would say because it’s tradition or simply because it’s Christmas. If you asked them if they are Christians who attend church regularly and then ask the ones who do attend regularly why Christians give gifts at Christmas then I think a majority would respond with something about the Magi / Three Kings / Wise Men.
I don’t expect non-Christians or nominal Christians to know as much about the origin of Christmas traditions.
If you want to go with, “what motivates people to give gifts today?”, then EimonGnome is more right than “because the magi did it.” If you want to ask about the origin of the custom, i think it’s relevant that gift-giving was a traditional part of Saturnalia before the Christians decided to celebrate Jesus’ birth at the same time. People were already exchanging gifts midwinter before Christianity
Saturnalia, held in mid-December, is an ancient Roman pagan festival honoring the agricultural god Saturn. Because of when the holiday occurred—near the winter solstice—Saturnalia celebrations are the source of many of the traditions we now associate with Christmas, such as wreaths, candles, feasting and gift-giving.
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Instead of working, Romans spent Saturnalia gambling, singing, playing music, feasting, socializing and giving each other gifts. Wax taper candles called cerei were common gifts during Saturnalia, to signify light returning after the solstice.
My best guess is that the story of the magi was invented to put a Christian spin on the existing custom of exchanging gifts.
I think it’s a mistake to say something isn’t christian simply because it has some kind of pagan roots.
i’d argue (and klayman at least would probably disagree with me) that christianity isn’t some fully formed, unique entity that leaped from the bible, like athena from zeus’ forehead.
christianity is built on a foundation of judaism plus paganism. if you are a believer, then you think divine inspiration is mixed in too. but historically there is no denying the other parts.
for example, the trinity is based on apologetics for pagans, and uses pagan concepts. “logos” in the gospel of john is lifted straight from stoicism!
and roman catholic confession of individual sins, with penance, is from the influence of the anglo saxons, who had strict rules of honor (or maybe the irish.)
That’s a weird take. I view peer pressure as pressuring me into doing something I don’t really want to do. Like everyone else is making fun of the fat kid and even though I don’t have anything against the fat kid and don’t really like making fun of people in general, I don’t want to feel left out, so I will make fun of him too and feel bad about it later.
That would be peer pressure.
I think most people actually enjoy most traditions, or at a minimum don’t oppose them. Certainly Christmas traditions are so enjoyable that non-Christians and nominal Christians want to embrace them too.
People with no connection whatsoever to either the Wampanoag tribe or the passengers on the Mayflower have adopted Thanksgiving traditions, absent any peer pressure to do so. Because they like it. And so on.
What motivates people to give gifts today is a combination of it being pleasurable to both give and receive gifts and it is a tradition to do so at Christmas.
That doesn’t mean that the tradition doesn’t have Christian roots.
Note that “Christian roots” does not remotely imply “no person before the birth of Christ ever did this even once”.