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It is unknown exactly when or how December 25 became associated with Jesus' birth. The New Testament does not give a specific date. Several scholars have suggested that Sextus Julius Africanus gave this date in Chronografiai, a now lost reference book for Christians written in AD 221. This date is nine months after the traditional date of the Incarnation (March 25), now celebrated as the Feast of the Annunciation. March 25 was also considered to be the date of the vernal equinox and therefore the creation of Adam. Early Christians believed March 25 was also the date Jesus was crucified. The Christian idea that Jesus was conceived on the same date that he died on the cross is consistent with a Jewish belief that a prophet lived an integral number of years. Today many scholars believe that it is likely Jesus was not born on December 25th, but more likely around September 29th.
The identification of the birthdate of Jesus did not at first inspire feasting or celebration. Tertullian does not mention it as a major feast day in the Church of Roman Africa. In 245, the theologian Origen denounced the idea of celebrating Jesus' birthday "as if he were a king pharaoh." He contended that only sinners, not saints, celebrated their birthdays.
The earliest reference to the celebration of Christmas is in the Calendar of Filocalus, an illuminated manuscript compiled in Rome in 354. In the east, meanwhile, Christians celebrated the birth of Jesus as part of Epiphany (January 6), although this festival focused on the baptism of Jesus.
Christmas was promoted in the east as part of the revival of Catholicism following the death of the pro-Arian Emperor Valens at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. The feast was introduced to Constantinople in 379, to Antioch in about 380, and to Alexandria in about 430. Christmas was especially controversial in 4th century Constantinople, being the "fortress of Arianism," as Edward Gibbon described it. The feast disappeared after Gregory of Nazianzus resigned as bishop in 381, although it was reintroduced by John Chrysostom in about 400.
Middle Ages
In the Early Middle Ages, Christmas Day was overshadowed by Epiphany, which in the west focused on the visit of the magi. Christmas did not even have its own liturgy until the ninth century. But the Medieval calendar was dominated by Christmas-related holidays. The forty days before Christmas became the "Forty Days of St. Martin." (So named because they began the day after St. Martin's Day, November 11.) In Medieval Italy, the Saturnalian traditions continued to be practiced during this period, known as Advent in modern times. Charlemagne was crowned on Christmas Day in 800 and King William I of England was crowned on Christmas Day in 1066. The fortieth day after Christmas was Candlemas.
When Northern Europe was Christianized, Yule, the local winter festival, was placed on December 25 to correspond with Christmas. By the 12th century, the wild celebrations characteristic of Saturnalia and Yule had transferred to the Twelve Days of Christmas (December 25 - January 5). The evening of January 5 was called Twelfth Night, a festival later celebrated in the play of that name by William Shakespeare.
In the High Middle Ages, Christmas was so prominent that chroniclers routinely noted where various magnates "celebrated Christmas." King Richard II of England hosted a Christmas feast in 1377 at which twenty-eight oxen and three hundred sheep were eaten. The Yule boar was a common feature of medieval Christmas feasts. Caroling also became popular, and was originally a group of dancers who sang. The group was composed of a lead singer and a ring of dancers that provided the chorus. Various writers of the time condemned caroling as lewd, indicating that the unruly traditions of Saturnalia and Yule may have continued in this form. "Misrule" — drunkenness, promiscuity, gambling — was also an important aspect of the festival. In England, gifts were exchanged on New Year's Day, and there was special Christmas ale.
The 20th century and after
In 1914, the first year of World War I, there was an unofficial truce between German and British troops in France. Soldiers on both sides spontaneously began to sing carols and stopped fighting. The truce began on Christmas Day and continued for some time afterward. Although many stories about the truce include a football game between the trench lines, there is no direct evidence that this event actually occurred, although it seems likely from contemporary accounts.
Throughout the 20th century, the United States experienced controversy over the nature of Christmas, and its dual status as a religious feast day and a secular holiday of the same name. Some considered the U.S. government's recognition of Christmas as a federal holiday to be a violation of the separation of church and state. This was brought to trial several times, recently including in Lynch v. Donnelly (1984) and Ganulin v. United States (1999). On December 6, 1999, the verdict for Ganulin v. United States (1999) declared that "the establishment of Christmas Day as a legal public holiday does not violate the Establishment Clause because it has a valid secular purpose." This decision was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court on December 19, 2000. At the same time, many devout Christians objected to what they saw as the vulgarization and cooption of one of their sacred observances by secular commercial society and calls to return to "the true meaning of Christmas" were common.
Debates about Christmas in America continued into the 21st century. In 2005, when commercial interests sought to ameliorate Christians concerned with protecting the sacredness of their holiday and non-Christians uncomfortable with the perceived connection to faith, some Christians, along with American political commentators such as Bill O'Reilly, protested perceiving that it represented the secularization of Christmas rather than its protection. They felt that the holiday was threatened by a general secular trend, or by persons and organizations with an anti-Christian agenda. The perceived trend was also blamed on political correctness.
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