I wish to dispute a couple of Christmas origin claims in Gerry Chidiacs Dec. 16 column, A Season of Hope
While trees have been symbols for various peoples, the Christmas tree was, at most, only loosely adopted from them. Legend has it that Martin Luther went for a walk one clear Christmas Eve and was impressed by the stars shining through the branches of an evergreen. The next day he cut one down, set it up in his house and decorated it with candles. From that beginning the Christmas tree spread throughout Germany.
When Britains Queen Victoria married Germanys Prince Albert and he came to live in England, he brought the tradition with him and from the royal palace, it spread throughout the whole British Empire.
The idea that the Dec. 25 Christmas date was borrowed from the Dec. 25 Roman Sun God festival would seem to be incorrect. Sun God festivities were also held on Aug. 9, Aug. 28, Nov. 18 and Dec. 21. Moreover, there are actually two dates for Christmas, the Roman (western) Dec. 25 and Orthodox (eastern) Jan. 6 (sometimes Jan. 7 or 8).
The choice of Dec. 25 as Christmas would appear to be entirely coincidental to any Roman festival and is instead connected to the Jewish Passover celebration. The early church wanted to establish the actual date of Jesus death. It was known to have taken place on a Friday during Passover. But the date of Passover varies from year to year because it begins on the night of the first full moon after the spring equinox. Because moon phases are out of sync with the calendar, that date changes every year. Using all the data they could find, the church chose March 25 and April 6 as they most likely dates of the crucifixion. (We now know that it was April 3 in the year 33.) There was a belief at the time that a holy man would die on the anniversary date of his conception. Thus if he was conceived on March 25 or April 6, his birth 9 months later would be Dec. 25 or Jan. 6.
Unlike his death, we can never know the actual date of his birth, not even the year, so one date would be as good as any other but it sure is nice that it lights up the darkest part of the year.
Art Betke
Prince George
