Origin of the Christmas Tree and Other Christmas Traditions
In ancient Rome there was a feast called Saturnalia that celebrated the solstice. What is the solstice? It’s the day that the sun starts coming back, the days start getting longer. And many of the traditions we have that relate to Christmas relate to the solstice, which was celebrated in ancient, pagan Rome on December 25.
So when Christianity became the official religion in a sense, in Rome, they were able to fix this date. … There’s a little discrepancy about it but there’s no question that the fact that it was celebrated in Rome as an important day with gift giving, candle lighting, and singing and decorating houses really cemented Christmas as December 25.”
Another custom we can thank the pagans for? Christmas trees. It has been explained that the evergreen trees signaled the “return of life” and “light” as the winter solstice meant the days were starting to get longer.
They started to hang apples on it, so little red balls on green trees came to be the decorations hung on today's Christmas trees.
All of these things celebrate the idea that life and light are coming back into the world, which is essentially what Christmas means to Christians around the world, except that to them, Jesus is the life and Jesus is the light.
Mistletoe was started by the Druids, who believed it was an all-powerful healing item from the sacred oak tree.
If you met someone in the forest you gave them the sign of peace under the mistletoe so people started to hang mistletoe above their doorways as a symbol of peace. This was such a powerful symbol of paganism that English churches actually banned the use of it.
The Puritans in the mid-17th century believed that since many of the traditions associated with Christmas were pagan in origin, they, including the Christmas tree, should be banned, and they were. It was 20 years before the celebration was reinstituted because it had become just too popular to ban.
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