Professors look at Xmas traditions

While not every American celebrates Christmas, the tradition's history and effects are felt throughout the nation, regardless of beliefs. These traditions and beliefs are many times shrouded in mystery and confusion, so several UNO professors came together this holiday season to decode the history behind the holiday.

"Christmas has become a holiday for everything, so it shouldn't be religious," said John Grigg, a UNO history professor. "But religion was the original reason for the holiday."

Today, in a world of Black Fridays and online purchasing, commercialism has taken some of the Christmas joy out of the holiday.

Susan Maher, chair of the English Department, explained that Christmas marketing really took off in Victorian England, particularly with Victorian Christmas stories.

"The fact that we have A Christmas Carol still being performed across the country shows its considerable influence," said Maher.

She said Charles Dickens, the author of A Christmas Carol, was especially interested in addressing the materialism in his world.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Maher said an example of successful Christmas marketing in America was Frank Baum.

"The Wizard of Oz books were Christmas books," Maher said. "A new one was published every Christmas."

Paul Williams, a professor of religious studies at UNO, said as the Industrial Revolution gained steam, Christmas changed as well.

"You are seeing the rise of industrialism in America. One thing about Washington Irving [the author of The Night Before Christmas] and Dickens is that they are trying to come to terms with the gritty realities of radical class disparity, so they want to see an event that all levels of society can gather around."

However, despite its later image, the beginning of Christmas is widely debated.

Charles King, a history professor, said, "The usual theory is that Christmas is an attempt by the early church to create a competing holiday."

Several sources point to older festivals as the foundation for the Christmas holiday.

"The birthday of Mithras was celebrated [on] Dec. 25," said Associate Professor of History Jeanne Reames, who has studied the history of the early Christian church. "He was born in a cave and visited by shepherds. Also, the giving of gifts was part of the festival of Saturnalia."

Many also believe Saturnalia, a Roman festival, echoed the ideas of a bitter lower social class.

"Almost all religious traditions have some kind of festival that allows for the inversion of social order," Williams said.

The festival of Saturnalia was a Roman holiday that lasted for several days around the time of the winter solstice. The master would serve a feast for his slaves, and the slave would be temporarily declared free.

The meaning of the holiday the early Christian church offered to replace festivals like Saturnalia was focused on the birth of Jesus Christ. However, even in the Bible, there are few references to the nativity scene.

"The birth narratives appear only in Matthew and Luke, and are considered later additions to the books," said Reames. "In the early church, Christmas was a poor third behind Easter and Pentecost."

Regardless of it origins, though, Christmas has risen to a status historically beyond that of its early roots. Now it is deeply integrated into American culture, and a part of a tradition that brings people of many diverse backgrounds together to enjoy the holidays.