History of Christmas

Ancient Midwinter: Saturnalia, Yule & the Unconquered Sun

Long before the birth of Jesus, midwinter was one of the most important turning points in the ancient calendar. In the darkest weeks of the year — around the winter solstice on December 21–22 — peoples across the Northern Hemisphere held festivals to mark the return of the sun and to celebrate survival through the coldest months.

The Romans celebrated Saturnalia, a week-long festival honouring Saturn (the god of agriculture) from December 17 to 23. It was one of the most popular and carnivalesque events of the Roman year: courts were closed, wars were suspended, schools shut, and the social order was temporarily inverted — slaves ate at the same tables as their masters, or were served by them. The streets filled with feasting, drinking, singing, and the exchange of gifts and wax candles. Homes were decorated with laurel and evergreen branches. The parallels with modern Christmas — feasting, gifts, decorated greenery, a spirit of generosity — are striking and not coincidental.

The Roman feast of Dies Natalis Solis Invicti (Birthday of the Unconquered Sun) was held on December 25, celebrating the birth of the sun god Sol Invictus — a festival given official status by Emperor Aurelian in 274 AD. The alignment of this date with Christmas is one of the reasons historians believe early Christians chose December 25 for the celebration of Christ's birth.

The ancient Mesopotamian new year festival Zagmuk (celebrated around the winter solstice) lasted twelve days, featured a battle between the god Marduk and the forces of chaos, and included feasting and the replacement of the old year's king — possibly a distant ancestor of the twelve-day Christmas tradition. Meanwhile, the Germanic and Norse peoples of northern Europe celebrated Yule (or Jul) — a midwinter festival involving the slaughter of animals, feasting, the burning of a large log through the night (the Yule log), and honouring the god Odin, who was believed to lead a ghostly hunt through the winter sky.

Early Christianity: How December 25 Was Chosen

The Gospels of the New Testament do not specify a date for the birth of Jesus. Early Christians disagreed on when to celebrate the nativity — some favoured January 6 (Epiphany), others March 25 (the Annunciation), and still others various dates in spring. The first reliable historical record of Christmas being celebrated on December 25 comes from a Roman almanac dated 336 AD, during the reign of Emperor Constantine I — the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity.

Pope Julius I is traditionally credited with officially designating December 25 as the date of Christ's birth around 350 AD, though the historical record is disputed. Bishop Liberius of Rome made the first explicit reference to celebrating the Nativity on December 25 in 354 AD. The choice of December 25 was almost certainly influenced by the desire to align the new Christian feast with existing midwinter celebrations — allowing converted pagans to continue celebrating in winter while redirecting the celebration toward Christian meaning.

The theological argument made by some early Christian writers — that Jesus was conceived on March 25 (the Annunciation) and therefore born nine months later on December 25 — provided an independent religious justification for the date. Whatever the original rationale, by the 5th century December 25 was the universally accepted date for Christmas throughout the Western church.

The Eastern church initially celebrated Christ's birth on January 6 (Epiphany), and while most Eastern churches eventually adopted December 25, the Eastern Orthodox churches that follow the Julian calendar still celebrate Christmas on January 7 by the Gregorian calendar — because December 25 in the Julian calendar falls on January 7 in the Gregorian calendar used by the rest of the world.

Medieval Christmas: Twelve Days, Wassailing & the Lord of Misrule

In medieval Europe, Christmas was not a single day but a twelve-day festival stretching from Christmas Day (December 25) to Epiphany (January 6). The feast of the Nativity was one of the most important celebrations in the Christian calendar, alongside Easter. Medieval Christmas combined solemn religious observance — church services, fasting on Christmas Eve, midnight liturgies — with boisterous secular revelry.

The concept of the Lord of Misrule — a commoner appointed to preside over Christmas celebrations, invert the social hierarchy, and lead mock ceremonies — was widespread in medieval England and Scotland. Lords of Misrule were appointed in royal courts and great households, overseeing twelve days of feasting, dancing, gaming, and theatrics. The tradition had clear parallels with the Roman Saturnalia and may have descended directly from it.

Wassailing was a medieval custom of going door-to-door, singing songs, and asking for drinks or food in exchange — the origin of modern Christmas carolling. The word "wassail" comes from the Old Norse toast ves heill (be in good health). A communal bowl of spiced ale (the "wassail bowl") was passed around at Christmas gatherings. In some regions, wassailing was also directed at fruit trees — singing to apple trees and dousing their roots with cider to encourage a good harvest in the coming year.

Medieval Christmas food featured the boar's head as the centrepiece of Christmas feasts in great houses — a tradition celebrated in the famous "Boar's Head Carol" still sung at some Oxford college dinners. Mince pies in their original form were oblong and filled with a mixture of meat (usually shredded mutton), fruit, spices, and sometimes gold leaf — an expensive mixture that symbolised the gifts of the Magi.

The Victorian Revival: Dickens, Prince Albert & Christmas Cards

By the early 19th century, Christmas in Britain and America had faded to a relatively minor religious holiday. The Puritan suppression of the 17th century (when Christmas was officially banned in England from 1647 to 1660) had left a lasting dampening effect on Christmas celebrations. It was the Victorian era that created most of what we now think of as "traditional" Christmas.

Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Queen Victoria's husband, brought German Christmas traditions to Britain when the couple married in 1840. In 1848, the Illustrated London News published an engraving of the royal family gathered around a decorated fir tree at Windsor Castle. The image was widely reproduced and immediately made the Christmas tree fashionable among the British middle classes. Within a decade, decorated Christmas trees were common in homes across Britain and, after the image was reprinted in America, across the United States as well.

Charles Dickens' novella A Christmas Carol, published in December 1843, is arguably the most influential single work in shaping modern Christmas culture. Dickens wrote it in six weeks, partly out of financial desperation, and it sold out its first edition on Christmas Eve 1843. The story of Scrooge's redemption — and the associated imagery of a warm, generous, family-centred Christmas feast by the fireside — almost single-handedly revived the English Christmas. Dickens followed it with four more Christmas novellas and made Christmas themes central to his journalism and public readings.

Also in 1843, Sir Henry Cole commissioned artist John Callcott Horsley to design the first commercial Christmas card. About 1,000 copies were printed and sold for one shilling each. The card bore the message "A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to You" and depicted a family party with children being given wine. As penny postage (introduced in 1840) made sending cards affordable for all classes, Christmas card sending became a mass custom by the 1880s. The first Christmas cracker was invented by confectioner Tom Smith in London around 1847, inspired by French bonbons wrapped in paper.

The 20th Century: Commercialisation, Radio, & Global Spread

The 20th century transformed Christmas from a primarily Western Christian holiday into a global cultural phenomenon. Mass media played a crucial role. Radio in the 1920s and 1930s brought Christmas music and seasonal programming into homes worldwide. The first royal Christmas broadcast was made by King George V in 1932, written by Rudyard Kipling, establishing a tradition that continues today. Bing Crosby's recording of White Christmas (1942) became the best-selling single in history at the time and created the nostalgic, snow-covered Christmas archetype that persists in popular culture.

Commercial Christmas expanded dramatically through the 20th century. The practice of Christmas shopping as a seasonal economic event grew with department stores in the late 19th century, and by the mid-20th century "the Christmas season" — beginning immediately after Thanksgiving in the USA — had become the defining commercial period of the year for retailers worldwide. Christmas advertising, Christmas window displays, and Father Christmas in department stores became established institutions.

The post-World War II economic boom transformed Christmas in Western countries: rising wages, suburban home ownership, and mass production made elaborate Christmas trees, electric light displays, and abundant gift-giving accessible to the working class for the first time. Television from the 1950s onwards spread Christmas imagery — white Christmases, decorated trees, family dinners, Santa Claus — to every corner of the world, including non-Christian countries such as Japan, where a secular Christmas culture developed rapidly in the 1960s–1980s.

The late 20th century saw a growing debate about the commercialisation of Christmas — concerns that commercial pressures had overwhelmed the religious and spiritual dimensions of the holiday. These debates have continued into the 21st century, alongside growing discussion about the environmental impact of Christmas consumption and the globalisation of a festival originally rooted in one particular religious and cultural tradition.

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