Talk:Christmas/Archive 1

Calculation

the article says:

Early Christians sought to calculate the date of Christ's birth based on the idea that Old Testament prophets died either on an anniversary of their birth or of their conception. They reasoned that Jesus died on an anniversary of his conception, so the date of his birth was nine months after the date of Good Friday, either December 25 or January 6.

I think the whole paragraph is wrong. Jesus' conception (March 25, Annunciation) is calculated for having occured 9 months before Christmas, Christmas being the starting date, not the other way around. We don't have a starting date for the conception as May 25

Unlike what the phrase says, the birth couldn't have been fixed on a particular day if his death was anniversary of his conception: He was crucified on Nissan (late March/early April) of a lunar calendar, with no exact date known. Pictureuploader 15:35, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

In ancient times, a great deal of significance was attached to March 25.[1] It was thought to be the date of the equinoix as well as the anniversary of the Genesis creation story.

Few celebrated Christmas in Roman times. It became a major feast day after 800 because it is the day Charlemagne was crowned emperor. To assume that Annuciation must have been calculated based on the date of Christmas is to project modern attitudes into the past. Kauffner 11:25, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Edit "Decorations" section?

Should “Christmas figures” be changed to “winter figures”? Sleighs and snowmen aren’t necessarily Christmas in nature, but they are definitely winter-y in nature. Also, should the mention of municipal legal battles be mentioned here as it is, or as a sub-set of “Decorations”, or in a totally different section dealing with “Christmas Religious/Secular Controversies” which could include court battles and John Gibson’s book “The War On Christmas” or the spat between Bill O’Reilly and The Daily Show, or stores greeting with “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”, etc?BoomBox 10:35, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Tomorrow's Featured Article?

I have requested that Christmas be the featured article (view the proposal at Wikipedia talk:Tomorrow's featured article#Christmas (To be featured on December 25)). The article certainly deserves to be showcased. Don't forget to vote! Brisvegas 06:28, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Orthodox calendar

O.K., many of the Orthodox resisted switching to the Gregorian calendar from the Julian calendar, and so though their societies run on the Gregorian calendar, they continue to celebrate their religious holidays according to the Julian one. That means a difference in date. It does not mean that they do not celebrate on the 25th. --MichaelTinkler

If you want to be real specific, Dec 24 Christmas Eve is the most important part of German Xmas and I believe other Europeans too? Everyone goes to church and celebrates on the 24st. 25th is the gathering of the family to the traditional Christmas goose dinner.26th is the 2. Xmas day.user:H.J.

H.J., I hate to break it to you, but the 24th is 'most important' because of the Catholic Church (papal propaganda?). In the middle ages monks developed the custom of celebrating the vigil or 'evening before' (hence, 'eve') of feasts. This practice is known technically as 'anticipation'; in other words, 'starting early'. Christmas Eve and Easter Vigil (the night before Easter) are still the most important two night-time services in Catholicism. --MichaelTinkler

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To MichaelTinkler No need to break it to me, Protestant church is in the evening, Catholic church is at midnight. Used to go to both. To the anticipation you might want to add the "Advent" , another part of Xmas , greatly overlooked and "forgotten" in USA but very important other places. Back to the propaganda- http://www.newadvent.org/cathgen/12456a.htm dates the official phase of the propaganda start in 1572 . That is of course only when it was actually recorded as such.When I use it I should put it in " ". The seperat German Mythology is a good idea. But the whole thing with Mythology (Asatru) or whatever (for me) goes too much into the unreal . The German(ic) gods, were not really gods in that sence, more an attempt of explaining natural phenomina and should probably rather be called nature spirits instead of the English word gods. I would like to know what Stabreim (the type of poem) is in English though user:H.J.

Sorry - didn't know where to put this, but this entry needs to be reviewed, it has obvious direct overtones with someone who had already made up their minds about to if/when Jesus was God and when he was born:

Much older than this, though, are the references in a 6-year almanac of Priestly Rotations, found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. These are from before the Lord reached school-age. With no thought either for or against one date or another for the birth of One yet unknown to the general population, this almanac lists the times when John the Baptist's father would have served - and calculations from one of the times that he served, considering how soon after John was born, then how many months behind him Jesus came, gives the approximate date of December 25 in deed.

"Papal propaganda"

You should not use the term 'papal propaganda' to describe late antique and early medieval evangelization efforts even in quotation marks because it is anachronistic. Evangelization was not coordinated by the popes, nor was there an official institution in Rome to train missionaries before the late renaissance. For instance, St. Boniface was not sent by the popes. He volunteered. He went. He was sponsored by the Franks. The popes accepted his mission, but did not send him. If you want to make a general statement, say 'Christian missionaries.' It has the advantage of being both correct and neutral. Stabreim is usually translated as alliteration, and the form is called alliterative poetry. --MichaelTinkler

Don't know about other Christians in America, but the Catholics, Anglicans (Episcopalians), and Lutherans I know (the ones who actually go to church) ALL know about Advent, and many light Advent candles... JHK

To MichaelTinkler and JHK Thank you both. I have never heard of alliteration poetry and would have never thought of translating or explaining Stabreimverse that way. I see that you are touchy about 'papal propaganda' and will remind myself not to use it. Maybe we do want to add "Advent" to the Christmas page ? user:H.J.

Liturgical year page

Actually, I think that there needs to be some kind of Liturgical year page or section somewhere -- to Christianity rather than to Christmas, though. Also (and I am speaking for Michael without his authority) I think the objection is not to the use of 'papal propaganda', but the fact that you are misusing the term, because it has a very specific historical meaning. In the general vein of being touchy, I know that I am particularly so whan an article does not address the purported subject, or when the conclusions drawn in the article have no basis in historical fact and/or method. I guess that's the problem with open content -- you have enough people who care from a professional, as well as a personal, point of view, and we edit as if we were editing the work of our peers -- except that we're nicer on the wiki! JHK

Does anyone fancy working on WikiProject Christian liturgical year? Gareth Hughes 10:58, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Eastern Orthodox calendar

When the article says Eastern Orthodox celebrate on "the civil date of January 7", does that mean by the Gregorian or Julian calendar? If I suspect they mean the Gregorian calendar by "civil", what date do they celebrate it on by the Julian? (I understand they still set Christmas by the Julian.) In which case, we better give the Julian, not Gregorian date, since the Gregorian date will move over time, but the Julian date will remain the same forever (or at least until such time as the Eastern Orthodox decide to finally switch totally to the Gregorian calendar :) -- User:SJK

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There are a couple more wrinkles to the Eastern Orthodox calendar here, and I only half understand them. One is that there's a third calendar involved called the Revised Julian Calendar, which was adopted by many Orthodox in about 1923. It's used by the Orthodox Church in America, among others. For the most part, it brings them into sync with the Gregorian Calendar so they both agree on when a given date occurs (no more 10 or 13 day differential), and it keeps the Spring Equinox on March 21. But they also calculate Easter according to the 325A.D. method, same as the Old Calendarists, so that all Orthodox still celebrate Easter on the same day, along with the movable feasts that are based on N days or Sundays before or after Easter.

Now with regard to Christmas in particular, this feast used to be combined with Theophany ("Epiphany" in the West?), which falls on January 6 and is all about Christ's baptism. In both feasts, Christ is revealed to the world, first simply by being born into it, in the second through the voice from Heaven and the blessing of the Holy Spirit acknowledging who He is, and also revealing God as three persons, since all three are present in that scene. At any rate, the date of Theophany on one calendar comes pretty close to the date of Christmas on the other; I suspect the time between them might be the famous "12 days of Christmas" though I'm not sure; guess I need to research this better.

Also with regard to Advent, the Orthodox observe a 40 day fast, sometimes called "Winter Lent", leading up to Christmas, or the Feast of the Nativity. It's not as strict as Great Lent which leads up to Easter, and exact fasting guidelines vary between jurisdictions. --Wesley

Epiphany, on the 6th, is about 'Christ being revealed' by the presence of the wise men. There is the feast of the presentation at the temple, I forget what date. Christ's baptism is when John the Baptist baptises him as an adult. Not sure which of these corresponds to Theophany. The 12 days of Christmas is Boxing day to the 6th I think, unless it's Christmas day to the 5th. Certainly, Epiphany is the end of Christmas. Advent is traditionally a mini lent in the west too, but rarely treated as such and was never 40 days. Skittle 21:10, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Saturnalia

what was december 25 originally, before it was appropriated by Christianity? Saturnalia? -- SJK

Saturnalia was originally Dec. 17, later expanded to Dec. 17-23. You're thinking of the Sol Invictus festival, or "Rebirth of the Sun."

I don't agree with the premise of your question, the idea that particular pagan holidays were "appropriated" by Christians. December 25 was considered the date of the winter solstice and more than one religion could independently decide to connect it's god to this astronomical event. Kauffner 08:44, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Christianity rolled up a raft of pre-Christian traditions: Graeco-Romano, Celtic, Nordic and Eastern e.g. elements of Mithraism, etc. These tend to figure more in the geographical areas in which these absorbed cultures previously inhabited e.g. things like Yule logs are more likely to be seen in Scandinavia where these were a part of the old Odinnic cult celebrations and less prevalent in e.g. Ireland. Dec 25 and the Christmas festive brou-ha-ha are not culturally homogenous entities. Concepts like the Peterman, etc are unheard of in Britain yet prevalent in Holland, for example.sjc

Merry Christmas

I just had to say... Merry Christmas!

I'm saying the same thing... although it's a bit late.

) [8-) ;) --KA

Judicial non dies

What on earth does "Epiphany and Christmas were not made judicial non dies until 5~4." mean? User:SGBailey 13:00 Dec 12, 2002 (UTC)

Judicial holidays. Anjouli 17:12, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Thanksgiving

The article reads: "Christmas is celebrated to a lesser extent in the United States, where Thanksgiving is generally considered the major festival in the year." This statement really surprises me, as I am an American living in the U.S. and I've never heard anyone say or suggest that Thanksgiving gets more attention than Christmas. In the United States, Christmas far surpasses Thanksgiving in terms of preparation, commercialism, and secular as well as nonsecular observance. Anyone else agree with me on this? I didn't want to change the article willy-nilly.

I'd agree there. Most people I know have dinner for Thanksgiving, but do little else. Christmas, for most people I know, is a much bigger thing.. relatives drive/fly in, they decorate their homes, shop for weeks in advance, prepare large dinners, etc. Some people I know actually take all day to open presents.. -Jazz77

Capitalisation of "He"

Should the "He" and "His" referring to Jesus in this article be made with lowercase 'H'? Seems like capitolizing it is not NPOV, and it is also kind of distracting. The Jesus Christ article uses lowercase for the pronouns.

Perhaps your reliance on the precedent of the Jesus Christ is appropriate, but your appeal to NPOV is not. Whether the pronouns are capitalized or not, they each (equally) display a point of view (whether Jesus Christ was God), IMHO Yoink23 21:10, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

^^No they don't -- the usage of "he" instead of "He" says nothing about whether Jesus was God or not; it simply says we're using a pronoun to mean "Jesus" and "Jesus" happens to be a male human. --tilgrieog

Note that the Authorised Version (aka King James Version) of the Bible also uses lower case for the pronoun for Jesus. "of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ." (Mt 1:16, to pick the first such pronoun in the NT). I would say AV is somewhat normative for English speakers and writers for spelling conventions and the like - although (because?) it is Protestant. Hence also we spell Messiah with a final 'h' rather than a final 's'. Messias is found in older Catholic English versions and is the Latinisation of Mašíaḥ. Stroika 18:19 Tuesday 20th December 2005 (GMT)

Sol Invictus / Yule

I believe there should be something about the European origins of Christmas, that is the Roman Sol Invictus or German Yule. Or should this go elsewhere?

(IIRC) you are correct that Christmas was choosen to supplant a Roman holiday (It could be Sol Invictus - I can't remember the name). Please add it to the article. →Raul654 17:15, Mar 8, 2004 (UTC)

It is often said that Christmas occurs at 25 December because it occurs on the date of an earlier Roman holiday. I can find no evidence of this. Looking at early calendars, the Saturnalia is earlier on in December, and over by the 25th and the festival of the unconquered sun is an Imperial invention I believe, and may well be later than the earliest references to Christmas (though of course these are arguable).

My suspicion is that the relationship between Christmas and Saturnalia (and maybe DSI) is a neat and oft-repeated explanation with little basis in fact. Anyone any evidence.

Agnes Michels's book "The Calendar of the Roman Republic" is a very good account of the festivals of Rome up to CJC. 82.68.102.190 20:06, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Africanus identified Dec. 25 as the birthday of Jesus in 221. Aurelian picked the date of the Sol Invictus festival in 274, so I don't see how Sol Invictus could have influenced the date of Christmas. Christmas is nine months after Annuciation (March 25), so there is a rational for the date that has nothing to do with pagan festivals.

Yule meant either a month-long festival or a festival on the day of the full moon. Either way, the date wouldn't correspond to December 25.Kauffner 09:53, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Pagan Rites and Antichrist Activities

"In vain they worship me, teaching for doctrine the doctrine of men." (Matthew 15:9) I feel explains it all. I would not want Christ to assess all I have done to worship Himand find out He classified all my attempts as vain. The Bible offers 7 HOLYdays and a Weekly Sabbath to worship Jesus Christ properly.

Look at like this: You hire people to do a job, they decide not to do what you tell them and go ahead and do it their way. Your work is not being done. Do you keep those employees or fire them? How do you think Christ feels about us "Doing it Our Way?"

Finally Christmas is a modern evolution of a pagan festival that came from Babalonia from the time of Nimrod. It involves Nimrod who had a son, Tammuz, by him mother (whose name I cannot spell, Sin-a-ram-us.) Any way, the back ground event is briefly as follows: Nimrod was killed by Isrealites when he waged war to kill all who worshiped God. At his death, the Isrealites chopped his body in to pieces and sent those pieces in opposite directions. his mother/wife delcared herself god as Nimrod was now in heaven and will depart heavenly gifts upon his/her followers (Aka the Tree with Gifts) for the express purpose to destroy God's people on Earth. The Yule Log is his body, a remembrence to hate God's people. ** This stuff is in your public library, read it and learn the truth. **

Christmas is the exact opposit of what it poses to be.

It really depends on how you define "your way". I would say, "employers" are different from each other. Some are more lenient when some are more stern. I would tend to believe Jesus is a lenient one according to Bible so his definition of "your own way" is loose. Also, if one date has to be picked to celebrate Jesus' birth, does it really matter if "pagans" use that day too if you believe there's but one god? There are many "paganisms" in this world and every day can be a pagan day then :-) O you close-minded Christian fundamentalists! Henrysh 22:49, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

What library suggested the Yule Log and the Christmas Tree originated from Nimrod? The Yule Log is to do with keeping light and warmth (the fire) going unbroken through the darkest period. The Christmas Tree came fairly recently (far more recently than Nimrod), and putting gifts under it came even later. Sounds like a highly specific library you visit.Skittle 21:21, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

History of Christmas section in article

This section feels to me as if it should be a separate article; the subject matter isn't primarily Christmas, but even the parts that are come at it in a detailed & unfamiliar way that doesn't seem consistent with the rest of the article. But I'm tired and it's late (my usual excuses) and I can't get my mind around it now. Anyone else? Elf | Talk 04:46, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I noticed the same, and just made a major edit to remove POV (see below) and improve flow, but it still needs better composition.--Johnstone 16:33, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Biblical quote used to criticise the Christmas tree

Because it is based completely on one particular translation of Jeremiah, I have removed the following criticism of the Christmas trees from the article:

"Jeremiah 10:1-5 speaks of this custom, "Hear the word which The Lord speaks to you, O house of Yisrael. Thus said The Lord, 'Do not learn the way of the nations, and do not be awed by the signs of the heavens, for the nations are awed by them. For the prescribed customs of these peoples are worthless, for one cuts a tree from the forest, work for the hands of a craftsman with a cutting tool. They adorn it with silver and gold, they fasten it with nails and hammers so that it does not topple. They are like a rounded post, and they do not speak. They have to be carried because they do not walk. Do not be afraid of them, for they do no evil, nor is it in them to do any good.'" The Bible describes the Christmas tree as an idol. It might not be by chance that at Christmas we place our gifts at the foot of the tree just as many other idols are offered gifts at their feet."

An alternate translation of the underlined portion, in the New Jerusalem Bible (which is translated directly from the original Hebrew) reads:

"Yes, the customs of the peoples are quite futile: wood, nothing more, cut out of a forest, worked with a blade by a carver's hand, then embellished with silver and gold, then fastened with hammer and nails to keep from moving. Like scarecrows in a melon patch, they cannot talk, they have to be carried, since they cannot walk. Have no fear of them: they can do no harm—nor any good either!"

Since they are not carved out of wood, and do not resemble a scarecrow, this is hardly a rail against Christmas trees.--Johnstone 16:33, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Constantine, etc.

I have removed the following paragraph:

"When Constantine, who was a self-proclaimed Sun-worshipper all his life, came into the picture, he created the Catholic Church (Catholic meaning Universal), revealing that his true intention was to allow numerous pagan rituals and ideologies to be intermixed with belief in the Creator. This made room for the pagans without forcing them to drop their pagan practices and accept Christianity. The Pagans had no difficulty worshipping the Catholic Madonna and child because they were just seen as another manifestation of the Queen of Heaven and her son. The Pagans made no compromises; they didn't need to, they just continued their Pagan worship within the church.

It appears to be based on statements in The Da Vinci Code that have been debunked in The Da Vinci Hoax (and others). Constantine was not a life-long sun-worshipper. He was baptised in 337, just before his death. ("It was common for Christians at the time to put off baptism until their deathbed. Serious sins committed after baptism would require severe penance, so some considered it safer to wait until the end of life to be baptized.") He did not create the Catholic Church, and "intermix" pagan rituals and ideologies into it. ("Why would Christians who had suffered just a few years earlier under Diocletian for refusing to renounce their unique beliefs about God, Jesus, and salvation willingly compromise those same beliefs without so much as a whimper?") Equating the Madonna and child with pagan goddess and child-god is "a curious statement since any sensible person recognizes that the image of a nursing mother is hardly unique to one religion or culture." --Johnstone 16:33, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Nimrod

I am removing the following, and will add it to Nimrod (king):

Genesis 10:8-10 describes Nimrod as one of the great grandsons of Noah. It says, "And Kush brought forth Nimrod, who was the first potentate on earth. He was a mighty hunter in the eyes of The Lord, therefore it is said, "Like Nimrod the mighty hunter in the eyes of The Lord." And the beginning of his reign was Babel, and Erek and Akkad and Kalned, in the land of Shin'ar." Nimrod was looked upon as a great leader and protector. His being a hunter and protector of the small villages from wild animals gave reason for him to be viewed as their savior.

Traditions outside of the Bible suggest that Nimrod died a violent death. One tradition says that he was killed by a wild animal. Another says that Shem killed him because he had led the people into the worship of Baal. According to ancient Egyptian and Babylonian traditions, his mother was Semiramis; sometimes Semiramis is referred to as the mother of Nimrod, and sometimes as his wife, leading to the belief that Nimrod married his mother. Also according to these traditions, Semiramis, who rose to greatness because of her son, was presented with a difficulty when her son died, so instead she pronounced him to be a god, so that she herself would become a goddess.

One tradition says that after Nimrod was killed, Semiramis claimed that an evergreen tree sprouted from a tree stump, which she said indicated the entry of new life into the deceased Nimrod; every year on the anniversary of Nimrod's birth (December 25th) they would leave gifts at this evergreen tree. This is presented by some as a possible explanation the origin of the Christmas tree. Even though Semiramis claimed to be a virgin she had another son, named Tammuz, who she said was the reincarnation of Nimrod. She became known as the "Virgin Mother", "Holy Mother" and the "Queen of Heaven" and was symbolized by the Moon. So began the worship of Semiramis and the child-god, and the whole paraphernalia of the Babylonian religious system.

After the decline of Babylon, the religion was transported to Egypt where the people worshipped Isis and her son Osiris (otherwise known as Horus). The same mother and child deities appeared in Pagan Rome as Fortuna and Jupiter, and in Greece as Ceres, the Great Mother, with the babe at her breast, or as Irene, the goddess of Peace, with the boy Plutus in her arms.

Christmas traditions around the world

I said this in Talk:Santa Claus too: I think it's a good idea to scrape together all the bits of information about the celebration of Christmas in non-English speaking countries that doesn't relate to the history of Christmas into a new page called "Christmas traditions around the world" or something. There we can list foreign names for Santa, Christmas decorations, etc., etc. and leave the Christmas and Santa pages devoted entirely to English speaking traditions and their histories.

Is everyone cool with this plan?

--Carl 03:57, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'm not cool with it, as I've just said on WP:FAC. When the article was changed into being devoted entirely to English-speaking countries, the article name ought have been changed, too. Wikepedia is supposed to be an international encyclopedia in English, not the U.S. + UK + Commonwealth encyclopedia. The logical thing would be to have a central page called "Christmas", which summarized and linked to both existing pages like Christmas customs in Poland and also to Christmas customs in the U.S., Christmas customs in the UK, Christmas customs in Australia and so on. Unless indeed people think a joint Anglophone Christmas (or something) is more suitable, in view of how much the anglophone Christmas customs and media Christmases have in common with each other. In other words, there should be no intermediate layer of Christmas around the world — the English-speaking countries are in the world.--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (talk)]] 22:38, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC) P. S. I rather agree with you about Santa Claus, on the other hand. That's completely different.--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (talk)]] 23:04, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I thought that plan was already in effect, as the current article links (both in the "national customs" section and in the "see also" at the end) twice with "Christmas around the world", where non-English speaking traditions are discussed. I had hoped that the holiday cheer would either loosen up the critics, or inspire someone to buff this up instead of shoot it down. At least I gave it a try, but with so many people chipping in on this popular subject, it is near impossible to write the article "by committee".Sfahey 23:15, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

C'mon. The spirit of the season can't or won't make room for the non-English-speaking world in an article named Christmas, what kind of holiday cheer does that project? I hope somebody will buff up the article, but if you put it up for FA, I think it's appropriate for me to criticize it even if I don't have the time to put in big-time work on it myself (which I think it needs: either that, or a simple name change). I only criticized in some detail because I thought it might be helpful, sorry if it ruined your Christmas instead. I do understand it must be frustrating to try to keep an article like this from popping off in all sorts of directions.--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (talk)]] 00:20, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I created the "Christmas around the world" article, because the article on Santa Claus used to have the Finnish name for Santa listed in bold in the header for the article. I think we can all agree, that non-English names for things don't belong in the header of English articles. That's why we have links to other languages. I then looked around and found that both the pages on Santa Claus and Christmas were littered at random with factoids about the celebration of Christmas outside the Anglosphere. I figured it would make most sense to collect these factoids into a central location and refocus the Christmas and Santa articles on English speaking traditions. I agree that other traditions should also be described, but since a lot of overlapping information about non-English traditions were already being cross posted between Christmas and Santa, it made most sense to put them both into one place. "Christmas around the world" was the best title I could think of for this, but I agree that it's a poor title. Perhaps the article should be renamed "Non-English speaking Christmas traditions." In any event, the page has enough information to stand on its own, and I remember having to write a report about how Christmas is celebrated in other nations when I was 8, so probably having the information consolidated into a page will be of use to other children in the future. Reflecting some more, perhaps the Christmas article should be split up into three different articles: Christmas (religious observance), Christmas (Anglophone traditions), and Christmas (Non-anglophone traditions). The three topics are each full enough to merit a full page, and it's a good project for a collaboration of the week.--Carl 11:41, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I just worked in a lot of stuff in the lead and elsewhere to make this a tad more universal. To make this live up to the ideal notion of an international article demands a much heavier hand, as much of the remaining items in the article are hopelessly parochial. It's too bad that "Japanese toilet", "Pepsi-can stove", and "Exploding whales" can make it to the front page, but topics that generate universal interest are doomed to die in committee.Sfahey 03:54, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Some relevant discussion from Wikipedia:Featured article removal candidates/Christmas:

• Strong Keep Thanks to those that brought attention to this article needing some clean-up, but removal is premature - the article is shaping up nicely for a christmas main page feature. Abeo Paliurus 05:24, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
  • It still has none of the sections on regional customs that it originally had (previously 23 paragraphs). I would say that it still has quite a lot of work to do, and that it should be resubmitted to FAC to make sure it meets today's FA standards. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2005-12-22 13:29
    • Of course then some will object that the article is too long (it is 39kb as is). Abeo Paliurus 13:46, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
      • The article used to have a large section on regional customs. That version became Featured. This version has no sections on regional customs. If you're worried about the article being too long, trim away some of the other stuff to add in a section on regional customs. Otherwise the article is showing a strong western bias, particularly toward the U.S. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2005-12-22 13:50
        • It's pretty normal for unwieldy sections to split off into a separate article as WP grows. I don't necessarily see the creation of a separate article as "degrading" the main one. The problem is when the split creates a POV ghetto, leaving readers of the main article oblivious to other significant facets of the topic. This seems to be the Brian's concern, and I agree that the issue does need editorial attention. (copied to Talk:Christmas). --Dystopos 14:43, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Commercialization

I found some information on the over-commercialization of Christmas and I've sent the articles to some of my relatives. To the view of Rev. Lau of my church, Christmas should be the day for celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. For over 130 years, people have been shopping a lot during the Christmas cycle, esp. those in U.S. and Canada. This year, economists estimate that the sales amount of Christmas cycle will amount to 23% of annual total. I and the Rev. disagree because this seems to completely ruin he real purpose of this festival. If you have other comments, you can add or you can reply me at cheung1303@netvigator.com --Cheung1303 03:29, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Getting better

You now can read well into this article without getting swamped by the much-criticized Anglo-American slant. Evidently, nominating it for FAC was helpful. Anyone want to take it the next step ... chopping up UK and US "Media Christmas" for example, or incorporating the international stuff better into the main text? ... and perhaps re-nom it in time?Sfahey 00:22, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Many imprvnts this week. In the same vein as above, anyone want to move/shorten/shuffle those Ang-Amer centric sections ... and maybe shorten or footnote the (interesting but parochial) Oliver Cromwell section as well ... and re-nom. this timely article?Sfahey 00:05, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Holiday vs. Holy day

Come on...which is it Really? I believe we need to include HOLY ; (I did a Find search) not once is the word Holy said. We may have enter a said period in our time when Christmas is no longer considered a Holy day, but rather a Holiday - along with Groundhog Day, Boxing Day and not to mention the endless lines at your local Wal-Mart.
PEACE RoboAction 08:41, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

What are you talking about? Christmas is a secular HOLIDAY in as much as it is recognized as such by many governments around the world. Perhaps some people see it as holy, but calling something a holiday doesn't imply that it cannot have a religious aspect. In fact, it may imply just the opposite. The compound term holy day in contrast emphasizes the holiday's religious aspects and thus creates bias. Theshibboleth 06:32, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

• Holiday and Holy Day are etymologically synonymous. The "War on Christmas" is a witch hunt. Go read the gospel again and pay attention to the parts where pharisees and do-gooders pestered Jesus about such trivialities and he reminded them over and over again the they can stop worrying about petty conflicts and get back to their duty to love one another. --Dystopos 14:55, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Category:Holidays of the United States

I hope it's seen as helpful rather than scroogey that I've removed the article from Category:Holidays of the United States, sincde that's defined as "a collection of articles about holidays celebrated only, or primarily, in the United States". Incidentally, please do not add the article to the wider Category:Holidays either, as it is already a member of that (through the subcategory Category:Christmas.--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (talk)]] 21:37, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Food poisoning scare?

I did not find any reason for the reference to Swedish newspapers testing foods in the paragraph which I shortened. Without such an explanation the item seemed lengthy (and bizarre). Sfahey 21:04, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

In that case, I totally don't understand why you've now put the food poisoning scare sentence back, after I removed it. (The seasonal scare is an established media tradition, and personally I think the article can do with a little bizarre, but that's me.)--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (talk)]] 21:34, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

(at the risk of beating a dead reindeer) I don't like to delete material which someone made the effort to contribute. In this case I saw flowery phraseology and slang ("slap-up") about a (food poisoning) scare which had not itself been mentioned. I thought it warranted toning down and explication, but not necessarily deletion. Curiously, the sentence which was left behind after someone else deleted the whole (Swedish food) thing suggested that a Disney movie is the most-entrenched tradition of Swedish Christmas. Can THIS be true? I gave it the benefit of some doubt and just inserted the qualifier, "perhaps".Sfahey 22:52, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought my edit summaries were very clear, those someones were all me. I contributed the paragraph about the julbord tradition and the media julbord scare tradition, you shortened it (don't understand the bit about you adding an explanation or explication), I removed the whole food material because I thought it a hollow shell without the attractively traditional aspect of the media scare, you reinserted it. Please just put any and all parts of the paragraph that you don't approve out of their misery, have you never heard of cruelty to animals? There are no someones out there to offend, nobody else added or removed any Swedish stuff. Incidentally, the reference to Ingmar Bergman, that you have also cleaned off (too flowery?), that was me, too. As for the Disney special on Christmas Eve being the one overarching Swedish Christmas tradition, yes, it's true. There's a lot of regional variation in Sweden, because the land is big although the population is small, so quarrels are liable to break out about any and all non-Disney aspects of Christmas, depending on where people have their roots. ("Baked ham? The hell you say! The traditional boiled pike!"--"Lutfisk!"--"All that matters is that you make your own mustard from whole mustard seed!"--"Herring salad!" Etc.). I quite understand if you won't take my word for the sense of national unity Swedes get from watching Disney on Christmas Eve, but ask any Swede--User:Fredrik or User:Mic come to mind. Merry Christmas.--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (talk)]] 00:40, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Contradictions?

The article states that the accounts of Matthew and Luke are contradictory or conflicting. I have read the story in both places many times and see no conflicts or contradictions. Eyewitness accounts commonly have different areas of focus or viewpoint. While Matthew and Luke were not direct eyewitnesses, they lived at a time where they were able to speak to those that either were eyewitnesses or only once or twice removed from the direct eyewitnesses, such as Mary herself or James the brother of Jesus. Luke gives the story primarily from Mary's viewpoint, whereas Matthew gives the story primarily from Joseph's viewpoint. -- Daniel Leatherwood

Yes, the differing way they deal with the announcement of Mary's pregnancy is easily reconciliable. I'll have to read them again to confirm that Matthew sends the family to Nazareth only to escape Herod's threat, while Luke has them from Nazareth to begin with, and in Bethlehem only for the census.Sfahey 20:15, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I agree too. Where're the contradictions? None. They compliment each other nicely I should say. So please remove this line: As one of the tenets of their faith, Christians accept the veracity of the story of Christmas, apparent difficulties reconciling the different versions of events notwithstanding. Thank you. --Garlics82 14:04, Dec 25, 2004 (UTC)

XMAS during wars

I think that during IWW and possibly IIWW on many fronts the fighting stopped and soldiers from different sides mingled. Can anybody verify this, and possibly and more similiar trivia from other historical periods? This would definetly be a good example of 'good will towards man'. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 15:59, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

hmmmm. that may relate to the carol, "Silent Night". The article is long already, but I will look into this eventually.Sfahey 02:35, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The carol in mind was "Christmas in the Trenches". Its story is worth looking up.Sfahey 15:24, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes, the famous "Christmas truce of 1914", if I remember the year right. It was early on in the war anyways. On Christmas eve, the Germans and English started singing Christams songs loudly at each other. In the morning, they went out into no mans land under flag of truce and initiated a short cease fire. Everyone got along quite well, traded goods (Germans had beer and cigars, English had better food and cigarettes, I believe) and even traded bits of uniforms for souveniers. Football games started. The truce dragged on. One Englishmen met his former barber, a German who had been living in England. The two sides helped each other post letters to loved ones in enemy territory. The officers couldn't convince the men to start killing one another again. They eventually resumed "fighting" but intentionally fired too high so as to miss. All the men had to be transferred elsewhere and fresh troops for both sides brought in, because those who had been a part of the Christmas truce refused to kill each other.

From other point of view: during WWI there where some battles in Latvia that are now refered as Christmas battles, if I remember corectly my school book stated that one of sides choosed to attack shortly before christmas because other side wouldn`t expect it -- Xil - talk 20:18, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

And every year after that, the officers fiercely cracked down to keep the men fighting. And the last eye witness to the truce died recently. Sad. Good will to all men, until the officers catch on. Skittle 21:34, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

HIS Star

I'm referring to this line in "The story of Christmas": "Like the Magi, the shepherds observed a huge star directly over Bethlehem, and followed it to the birthplace." The whole 2nd chapter of Luke, in fact, the whole Bible never mentioned about the shepherds seeing the star as the wise men did which stated in Matthew 2:2. Assumption shouldn't be made.

Obviously, these are two different incidents which took place in different times and places: The first case (Luke 2:1-20), at the night when Jesus was born, the angle announced the news to the shepherds. They went for a search for Him with the only sign given: "And this shall be a sign unto you; ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger."-Luke 2:12.

The second event (Matthew 2:1-13), the wise men from the east saw the star and came to worship Him. Whether the star appeared before or after the birth, surely they needed some time to travel, ranging from days perhaps months to be more appropriate in those years (talk about Arabia to Jerusalem...). Well may be it was such a co-incident that the star started shinning way before Jesus was born, exactly the time needed for their journey and boom- bunch of people wedged in a manger (the wise men? Not necessary three, could be four, five or more...). However, let's go back to Matthew 2:1-2,"Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem...". Jesus was already born while they were still in Jerusalem asking Herod the king for the precise location.

Few keywords from KJV to take note of between Luke and Matthew:

• babe -> young child;
• manger -> house; ,
• Jesus, Mary and Joseph -> Jesus and Mary only.

--Garlics82 15:43, Dec 24, 2004 (UTC)

Sicily joke: the reindeer goats are officially extinct, let it go, please

On Dec 20, an anon contributed a pretty amusing joke paragraph under "Regional customs" about the unique Sicilian species the "reindeer goat" trecking through the snow [sic] on Christmas Eve to receive the blessing of the Marchese of the village (himself a Wikipedian, I have no doubt) from the balcony of his palazzo. I regretfully removed the paragraph some hours later. But yesterday, Dec 23, 66.56.91.185 (another anon, not, I believe, identical with the Marchese) reinstated it ! C'mon, folks, a joke's a joke. It's over now. If you don't believe me, google for the reindeer goats, break out a map to check out the Sicilian climate, and, finally, check the Marchese's Christmas blessing in a Latin dictionary. I'm removing it again.--Bishonen | (Talk) 21:58, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Constantine

I thought that Constantine I set Xmas to be Dec 25 to coincide with an important pagan holiday? Someone, other than myself, should look into that.

That's true. It was set to coincide/replace the holiday of Dies Natales Invicti Solis.

Christmas and political correctness?

Could this article benefit from a paragraph on political correctness? It seems like in recent years the public celebration of Christmas (even in secular ways) has caused controversy due to the holiday's religious nature. Meanwhile, some Christians have become upset that public celebration and recognition of one of their favorite holidays is becoming almost taboo.

Would this article benefit from a short paragraph about this? - Chardish

Perhaps a separate article, "The Christmas Controversy?" Is it a religious holiday or a secular holiday with religious origins? Either way, is it appropriate for the holiday to completely dominate a society (I'm speaking from a US perspective here) simply because the majority of its citizens are Christians? Is downplaying Christmas or acknowledging other holidays really an "attack" on Christmas as the Fox News Channel (and other conservatives) would have us believe? --207.69.138.10 05:38, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

A "short paragraph on political correctness" wouldn't be a single paragraph for very long, I bet: it would be bound to provoke the usual acrimonious Religious Right versus Liberal battle and edit war along the usual US lines (speaking from a non-US perspective here), as seen in so many places on Wikipedia. I think it would take over the Christmas article, discourage anybody interested in contributing on other aspects, and leave the page yet another charred battleground. I agree with anon, a separate article is a good idea, with a link from this one.--Bishonen | (Talk) 08:33, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sections

Would anyone else be in favour of moving/copying some content onto sub-pages? Christmas dinner for example, is blank at the moment, as are Christmas traditions, Christmas worldwide, The_Christmas_story, and presumably Santa_Claus has lots of people writing on his own page without needing to repeat their work here. Ojw 12:48, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

That would be good. The references to the subtopics should still be 1-2 sentences, to make coherent narrative. Stan 13:28, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

!!!Hey! That's not the way to do it, Ojw! You've deleted half the article without even a comment in the edit field! Please create appropriate subpages, and give detailed info about them on this page, before deleting material. And before that, please give the people who've worked on the article a chance to respond to your original proposal. Being bold is one thing, halving an article that was just voted a Featured article (were you aware of this?) is another. I'm confident you have good intentions, but I'm going to revert to the version before yours now (see how I say so on the Talk page before I actually do it?), and look forward to more discussion on this page, of your apparently quite drastic plans for Christmas.--Bishonen | (Talk) 14:47, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Many apologies, and thanks to everyone who did it properly after my attempt. There seemed to be lots of sections which were distinct enough in their style and content to warrant a wikipedia entry of their own, although you're quite correct that my edit was the wrong way to do it. Regards, etc. Ojw 21:53, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

====Thank You, Bish====. At least, before the newcomers chopped it up, they asked for opinions anyway. They might go back a couple of months and see how far this article has come to date. In the aftermath of this ongoing Holiday frenzy cooler heads will hopefully prevail.Sfahey 18:28, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Crimble?/Crimbo?

I'm from the American South, and I've never heard the term "crimble." Probably, we should explain who is it that affectionately refers to Christmas as crimble, and why. --Carl 20:10, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Same here, I'm nuking it. Google gets 950-10000 results, depending on if you include Christmas in the search. Xmas gets 13 million results; I'd say that's a pretty good threshhold. =p Either way, it seems either a slang or a very localized term. If someone can explain just where we might hear Crimble, then there might be a case for readdition (but not bolded). --Golbez 10:18, Dec 27, 2004 (UTC)

As a non-native English speaker, who once met some-one from Liverpool - I think the expression is "Crimbo" and crimble is a topping for an apple pie. I humbly suggest this, I could be wrong Giano 11:24, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm from England and I have never heard the expression "Crimble" until reading this article. "Crimbo" is used a lot, but "Crimble" is about as common as a hurricane hitting Kent. Which, for those of you who don't know much, isn't very common. Anyway, I reckon we axe it.

I'm also from England. "Crimbo" is Scouse. To describe it as British English would have most Limeys scratching their heads. I have just edited the main page accordingly. I would guess usage of "Crimbo" outside Liverpool was popularised by Brookside - it was certainly used a lot in that soap (very memorable Christmas episode involving a turkey, a microwave and a priceless LP). Stroika 18:37 20 December 2005.

Philosophical perspective

Removed somewhat diffuse exchange on contribution by Gabriel Kent, please see History. The upshot of it is described by Sfahey thus:

I have difficulty following the above series of exchanges/events/misunderstandings, but it still remains that the segment in question is not properly part of an encyclopedia article on Christmas. At best it is POV. Perhaps, since one COULD describe it as sort of a compendium of various abstract POV's, it might have its own page, but I plan to move it from its current location.Sfahey 00:33, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Gabriel's text has now been moved by Sfahey to Philosophical Perspective on the Spirit of Christmas. A happy new year to all!--Bishonen | Talk 08:43, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Christmas articles

Here are a couple of articles on Christmas (and Easter). The Origins of Christmas and Easter Article on Christmas and Easter Please read and post your comments. daf

I'm no expert, but this information seems to jibe with the current Christmas article's references to saturnalia and other pagan customs having been incorporated into the traditions of Christian holidays.I wouldn't say however, as the lead sentence of this web site recklessly states, that "Christmas" and "Easter" are therefore "not at all Christian ". sfahey, 1/3/05

Christmas points

I noticed with interest the general application of the word 'christian'. It is important to note that there are fundamentaly different views regarding practices and doctrines amongst christianity and christians. It is important to note in comments e.g. Christmas, whether this is a biblical scriptural event, practice or custom, or doctrinal with regards to one or more sections of christianity.

With the entry of Christmas, it is of note that no reference to christmas, or command/custom to celebrate the birth of Christ can be found in the bible. Refer to many encyclopedia references with regards to the origin of christmas.

Probably a good way is to structure a section specifically on the origin of Christmas, showing the multiple influences and the proclamation of Constantine, after which the celebration became popular.

Hard to quarrel with most of this, except that the article clearly delineates the differences between "biblical" events, secular customs, and the pagan roots of the current celebrations. In any event, the recent additions to the LEAD PARAGRAPH are clearly "over the top" for this section, and will be (at least) moved.Sfahey 22:45, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

NB Christian definition

Given the latest number of adds and deletes, I notice what is surfacing here is a difference with reference to the term 'Christian', and who may or may not encompass this group.

The article states that Christmas is a holiday in the christian calendar. As the term 'Christian' denotes being a follower of Christ, it is incorrect to state this as a 'Christian' holiday, as this is a denominational holiday, or rather, a holiday instituted not by biblical directive or command, but rather by tradition and other events, and celebrated by certain church or denominational groups. At least clearly define Christmas as not having a biblical origin in the heading, and not being celebrated by all who profess to follow christ, then all else are ok.

Let me illustrate. If people in my cultural region or country decide to implement a new holiday, non biblical, - lets say 'Christian fishing day' that is partly political, partly tradition etc, I would be incorrect to categorically say that this is a holiday in the 'Christian calendar', celebrated by 'Christians'. Of course I can say it has precedent in the bible as 'fishing' played an important part in the apostles lives. (For those that do not get the point, use another example e.g. a new day called 'Christ healing day'?) It would apply to our group and circumstances only, not to the greater whole. The same with Christmas. Just because some denominations, eg the Catholic and Protestant churches 'decided' to celebrate an added holiday, does not mean all followers of Christ do.

I am sure there are many that find the origin and practice of christmas offensive. Contributors have agreed to the pagan origins and non christian practices involved, and yes it has become a 'de facto' holiday celebrated by the masses, but is definitely not 'de jure', from the source of christian beliefs. Please note that it is not my intention to be controversial in this regard, and I do not disrespect a day that carries importance to others. However, from a 'knowledge correctness' point of view, in favour of precise knowledge, this should be adapted to reflect correctly.

hmmmm. I've thought about this at length. "Christmas" I think "began" in the early years of Christianity, when there was but one Christian church. Things first splintered after Constantine, and I think most if not all "Christians" continued to celebrate Christmas, albeit settling on different dates. What are the exceptions to Christians recognizing Christmas? Unless I'm missing something big here, as long as the article goes (deeply) into the pagan roots and secular present-day aspects of the holiday, I don't see a problem with introducing it as a "Christian" holiday. Sfahey 16:24, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Who is a Christian?

There has been some discussion on whether Christmas is Christian or not, because it is non-Biblical. It seems to me it mostly rests on what definition is used for Christian. It seems that the article is written int the sense of as christianity = 'what the majority of those who profess themselves to be christians do'. This is not necessarily unfair, but is necessarily innacurate. A major example of a christian group which does not celebrate christmas is the Jehovah's Witnesses. They are christian in the sense that they profess to follow Christ, believe the Bible, and would likely label themselves christians. However, the mainstream christian groups define christianity as groups which follow a particular set of doctrines. Generally this set of doctrines includes the trinity (interestingly a term also not found in the Bible) which the Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe. Thus the complication of the issue starts to come to light. JW's would likely call themselves christians, and reject christmas, but mainstream christianity would say they are not christian. Some members of mainstream christianty are more fundamenatalists in their outlook and also reject celebrating christmas, and hence somewhat resent the implication in the article that christmas is christian.

So what I'm saying (after all this ramble) is that those christians which don't celebrate christmas need to reconcile themselves with the fact that not all christian groups follow the Bible, or do so in the same way or to the same extent (else they would all agree). When you label yourself a christian without delving into the nitty-gritty details you are accepting a very wide and loose definition of the term.

Perhaps it could all be addressed by adding a sentence to the effect that some religious groups reject the celebration of christmas due to its non-Biblical orgins?

(I see note 3 has a reference to past rejection of christmas, perhaps add a note there that some groups to this day object to christmas?)

"Merge"?

I don't understand the intent of the recently added "merge" comments atop the "Secular customs" section of "Christmas". This is a featured article, and large changes should be made only after careful deliberation. Clearly the two subsidiary articles are repetitious and should be disambiguated/merged however. Sfahey 22:54, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

• It was me who added the tag after accidentally discovering that more or less the same content is triplicated, with little differences in length and depth. Thus, either the content from the two other pages should be integrated here, or this page should have a short version with a reference to another article discussing the issue in more detail. In any case, whoever edits this article should attempt to preserve featured article quality. Martg76 23:32, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Someone has just arbitrarily moved the entire "Christmas around the world" section. Again, this section ... largely as is ... was part of the article when it became a "featured article." I think whoever did this should either return the section ... and the other section he/she moved ... to the main Christmas page, or compose an abbreviated version of the section rather than just dumping it onto another page. Other opinions, please? Sfahey 19:27, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Origins of Christmas

I think this recent addition should be moved out of its prominent spot, to become a paragraph in the section on dates of celebration. Thoughts? Sfahey 28 June 2005 04:23 (UTC)

Noel

Noel redirects to this article, yet there is no mention of Noel within the article itself...someone care to fix this? (either by removing the redirect so it can have its own article, or providing the appropriate info in this one) -- jiy 05:23, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

Doesn't Noel just mean Christmas? DirkvdM 08:20, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

I didn't know that...it should probably be mentioned in the article so those as ignorant as me can be relieved -- jiy 09:31, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

Nöel is French for Christmas, and may also refer more specifically to a Christmas song. I don't think it needs to be defined here any more than "Navidad" or "Weinachten", etc. I suggest the link be removed, unless some clever wikipedian can link it to the French article on "Nöel." Sfahey 16:30, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Ehm, ... that link can be found in the sidebar on the left ... Or do you mean remove the redirect? Why bother? DirkvdM 18:16, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

I was mainly reacting to the original suggestion, where whoever follows "Noel" to "Christmas" won't find out what the word means.Sfahey 01:04, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Though it is French in origin, it is also an English word. It's listed in both http://www.m-w.com/ and http://www.dictionary.com/, and some traditional English carols have "Noel" in the words http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/f/r/frstnoel.htm. Those other words for Christmas aren't in the English dictionary. Furthermore, Noel is sometimes used as a first name, and since many names come from the Bible (Aaron, James, etc) I, in my ignorance, thought maybe Noel was some figure from the Bible. I think the word is widely enough known to English speakers, but some people (like myself) may not know what it is. The article should clear that up. --jiy 02:53, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

You figured it out, you clear it up :) . DirkvdM 09:23, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Noel, as a name, is pronounced as one syllable. Noel, as Christmas, is pronounced as two, probably owing to the umlaut thing over the o. I assumed they were differeny words. I don't really know what the point of this is now. I'm rambling. Skittle 21:42, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Jiy, I just had the same experience as you and was just as annoyed. I had to read the French article to find out what the origins of Noël were. You are right -- the word is also an English word and is notable so I agree it should have it's own Wikipedia article or its own section within this article. It is analagous to Yule in that it is an English word used for Christmas which is used as the main word for Christmas in a different Indo-European language. So "noël" probably deserves the same attention as "yule". Donama 03:00, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Why not just alter the opening statement to "Christmas (literally, Mass of Christ), also known as Noel) . . ." CrazyInSane 21:07, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Done. And if it looks a bit clumsy, please fix it so it looks nice. I updated both the Noël and Noel articles too. Noel now redirects to Noël and Noël is a disambig page pointing to both the Christmas and Christmas carol articles. I also included the word origin there, since it doesn't seem to fit anywhere else. Donama 23:26, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Suicide rates myth

I'm concerned about the mention of a "spike" of suicides during the Christmas season. That's a myth that has been long debunked (e.g., http://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/07_adolescent_risk/suicide/dec14%20suicide%20report.htm and http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20040105-000026.html). I suggest replacing it with accurate information. John DeBerry

A smart Christmas

Garzo deleted this external link: [link removed here also] nice present, great idea!

I put it here, I think it's a very smart link!

You got an system spam message for adding the link. It might not be strictly commercial, but it is canvassing for support for a campaign. This is an encyclopaedia article about Christmas. This link is not encyclopaedic. --Gareth Hughes 18:07, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

And note that I removed it from this talk page as just another way to try to get free publicity. Spam is as spam does. DreamGuy 04:23, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

This is your opinion, in my opinion Christmas nowadays is the symbol of money and consumism [consumerism], of expansive [expensive] and useless presents, is the day of rich people in a world of people that are diyng [dying] because nobody helps them. My smart link is about an important topic: smart Christmas, smart presents, smart ideas... not your boring expansive words of nothing: a smart concrete action to help other people in the most important day of the year. Your christmas page seems not like an encyclopedia, but the contrary: a beatiful [beautiful] picture of Christmas, in a beatiful [beautiful] church of beatiful [beautiful] rich and ignorant people. Excuse me, My best regards. Happy Christmas.

Thank you for your corrections... I'm Italian and I don't write English very well. If you find some other mistakes please, correct them. Here my association have a big website: [link removed here also] if you find some other mistakes please tell me. Non only grammar mistakes, mistakes of every kind. I like to help and to be helped. Garzo, do you like to help or you are very rich and don 't need a help for christmas and so you think nobody need and so delete my little smart ideas for a smart christmas?

Empty section

If this is going to appear on the main page at some point- its be nice if the empty section Regional customs and celebrations had some content. Fair use rationales should be added for the fair use images in the article too.--nixie 09:37, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

December 24th and Christmas in Germany

In some parts of Germany Christmas is traditionally celebrated on Christmas Eve (Dec 24) rather than Christmas Day (Dec 25). The (catholic) Christmas masses are held on Christmas Eve's afternoon (for children -- oftenly with a nativity play performed by children) and evening (for adults) with the presents being opened afterwards at home, with the family gathered around the christmas tree.

Additionally, unlike the American tradition with the presents being opened on Christmas Day, no stockings are put up, but the children polish their boots and put them in front of their doors on Saint Nicolaus's (Saint Claus, Santa Claus, whatever you want to call him -- looks pretty much like the good ol' red-and-white Santa Claus just with a Bishop's hat) day, which is several weeks before Christmas (Dec 5th I think).

The presents are traditionally delivered by the Christ Child (not to be confused with Baby Jesus -- it's essentially a young angel that also picks up the children's wishlists), although Father Christmas is equally well, or, thanks to Americanization, even better, established as the giftbringer and wishlist-reader (essentially he's the same guy as the American Santa Claus minus the reindeers, North Pole and elves, although Americanization seems to establish that stuff as well -- he's closer to the Eastern European original).

The day Christmas is celebrated (24th/25th) as well as the giftbringer (angel/Santa) has always been a regional thing in Germany as far as I know. I think the more catholic communities tended to have a preference for the Christ Child, but I'm not sure about any place other than Cologne/North-Rhine Westphalia and even here it varies between the families.

I think the tradition of the presents being delivered and opened on Dec 24th (rather than the morning of Dec 25th) as well as the Christ Child is common in more places than just some random parts of Germany, but I don't know enough about other regions with that tradition as that I could add anything to the article.

I was just wondering because the article doesn't seem to make any mention of the 24th serving as most important day of Christmas at all. I'm aware of this tradition (like many others) fading through Americanization (like it or not, but American media, and tv in particular, has a strong influence on such traditions in other countries) and the odd shift from generation to generation, but I do think it deserves a mention. -- Ashmodai 22:00, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

// I also feel it deserves to mentioned that Dec 24 is what is considered xmas in sweden. Everyone here that I meet are 100% sure that xmas is celebrated on the 24th all over the world. 25th is certainly a holiday, but it is assumed that one needs a day of rest after all the food, is all. DD//

Use of the term Modernist to describe the beliefs of the origin of Christmas

The introduction of this article uses the term Modernist to describe the origins of christmas:

"Modernists contend that 25 December was only adopted in the 4th century as a Christian holiday by the Roman Emperor Constantine, to encourage a common religious festival for both the Christians and the Pagans."

Whereas the body of the article refers to Scholars when describing the origins of christmas:

"most scholars believe that Christmas originated in the 4th century as a Christian substitute for the pagan Festival of Saturn celebrations of the winter solstice."

I think the introduction should use the word Scholar. According to the article, if "most scholars believe that Christmas originated in the 4th century", then Modernists must be "most scholars". So to make the article clearer I suggest replacing Modernist with Scholar. Any objections? Jamie 16:43, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good to me... Modernists almost sounds like a put down. DreamGuy 21:40, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

FA on the 25th

Surely not. I mean, it's twee. Are we going to feature all the Hallmark^TM holidays when they occur now? And what happened to the straw poll that showed large-scale opposition to this? Blech.
brenneman^(t)(c) 22:36, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

It is not uncommon to main page articles of relevance to a particular date, and this would certainly be one. Last year I don't think it quite made "feature" status in time. Sfahey 04:58, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Errors in article - Viewpoints

First, keep in mind that the bible has denounced divination or looking to the stars for advice, mentioned at Deuterononmy 18:10-12.

Second, the star FIRST led the wise men to Herod (Matt 2:9) whose intent was to kill Jesus. Surely God wanted Jesus dead. Why would God do this since he hates divination? Through a dream in verse 12, they were warned to not return to Herod and leave there way. The intention of Herod becomes clear when he decreed all children under the age of 2 to be killed. Also, per the custom, the wise men gave gifts to Jesus and his family, but notice they received nothing from them. The celebration of Saturnalia, however, gifts were exchanged.

Third, angels told the of Jesus to the shepards, as opposed to a star later.

Fourth, there is no command given to celebrate Jesus' birth. That is why his birthdate is not in the bible,because it is not necessary. However, we can trace the start of his ministry via Daniel's prophecy in chapter 9. Furthermore, only 2 birthdays are mentioned in the bible, Pharoh's and Herod's. Pharoh at his party killed the chief baker (Genesis 40:20-22), while John the Baptizer was beheaded for Herod (Matt 14:6-10). Both examples are not in a good light.

Fifth, the day itself is Christ Mass, or Mass of Christ. But Mass is the Catholic way of celebrating the Last Supper. That is celebrated though for them in the March-April months. Mass has nothing to do with Christ's birth, yet that is what we call it.

Sixth, the last day of Jesus life was Nissan 14, the day Jews celebrated the passover (Luke 22:7). We do not have to guess at the date of his death. His ministry was also 3.5 years long, which would put the date of his birth more towards October than December.

Seventh, what do people think about this time of year? Buying gifts to exchange? Jesus in a manger? Santa Claus, where does he come from and fit in? Doesn't the fact that the Saturnaila and how people did the same practices now but for so called Christian reasons mean anything? I might as well add, what does the easter bunny have to do with Jesus dying?

So, what do you think should be changed? I can't quite follow your critique to understand what problems you think exist with the article. For example, how does the Bible's condemnation of divination cause the article to be incorrect? Jpers36 14:10, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree, i think your missing the point mate. Regardless of you believe in Christmas or not, the article portrays the current belief of Christmas. Wikipedia isn't a portal to debate whether a religious belief is right or wrong, rather it is a knowledge base. Jamie 12:55, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Response to "Errors in Article" - Apologetic Response

Firstly, I'm not a "licensed" apologist. I'll give my best response to this.

1. Following an abnormally bright star is not the same thing as looking into the stars for a message.

The verses in Deutronomy 18:10-12 speak against magicians in general:

• Let there not be found among you anyone who immolates his son or daughter in the fire, nor a fortune-teller, soothsayer, charmer, diviner, or caster of spells, nor one who consults ghosts and spirits or seeks oracles from the dead."

  The Wikipedia states "Divination is the practice of ascertaining information from supernatural sources." This could even refer to Angels! Obviously he is referring to diviners who heap the title of diviners on themselves and practice divination contrary to God's Religion. (tea leaves, looking into sheep guts for messages, etc.) In a modern context, this is speaking against people who stir their alphabet soup and think they see a message telling them something, when it says "NQEBA GOR PUGLO" If God spoke through alphabet soup, He would make it very obvious. It is not specifically looking to the stars. Taking one word out context does not justify your reasoning.

According to a footnote in the New American Bible for Matthew 2:2

• We saw his star: it was a common ancient belief that a new star appeared at the time of a ruler's birth. Matthew also draws upon the Old Testament story of Balaam, who had prophesied that "A star shall advance from Jacob" (Nm 24, 17), though there the star means not an astral phenomenon but the king himself.

2. Your interpretation of Matthew 2:9 is wrong. When Herod saw the star, he called his magi together to figure out when the star appeared. He then sent out his magi to "search diligently for the child. When you have found him, bring me word, that I too may go and do him homage." They then followed the star, which had not moved since its initial rising, and led to Jesus. Read the chapter, not the sentence. God did not intend Jesus to die at that time, as evidenced by the fact that Jesus didn't die at that time. God never makes mistakes.

3. The sheperds and the wise men are not the same. The sheperds also visited Jesus and payed homage.

4. Not being commanded to celebrate is not the same thing as being commanded not to celebrate. When your Messiah is born, then celebration of his birthday is fitting thing to do, no? That's why Christians celebrate His birth. It doesn't have to be the exact day. It's the same celebration, regardless of the date it is.

5. Wow. Do you have any idea what the Mass is? Mass is the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Body of Christ. It is celebrated every Church service. It is celebrated for forgiveness of sins, as in ancient Jewish tradition. This is the most Pure Sacrifice given by God. By trans-substantiation, bread and wine become Body and Blood through the Holy Spirit. Thanksgiving is done, and the Eucharistic hosts are recieved by the people. There is only one sacrifice, though celebrated many times. This is done by the fact that time is irrelevant to God and the Holy Spirit. Research a little bit more before you utter one of the most horrible blasphemies against the Catholic Church possible. The Eucharist is one of the most Sacred, most core beliefs to the Catholic Church. The sacrifice is still offered on Christmas.

6. Yes. As I said... It doesn't have to be the exact day. It's the same celebration, regardless of the date it is. It is celebrated by tradition on December 25th, the end of the Advent season. During the Advent season, Catholics prepare themselves for the coming of the Lord (the second coming, that is) while reflecting on the first coming's prophecies, stories, prophecies for the second coming, and the season is also a time of intense self examination and penance. It's a time of fasting, like a mini-lent. Christmas is after advent by tradition. It's just the way it is.

7. Christians don't reflect the ideas of commercialism in this season. That's secular. Instead, the idea of giving is for promotion of goodwill and stewardship. Santa Claus evolved from ideas of Saint Nicholas, a preacher who gave to the poor by sneaking into their houses (versions of this story vary). The idea of Santa Claus exploded from there. Mainly it's a good way for kids to learn to be good for rewards that may not be immediately discernable.

Many pagan traditions were warped by preachers converting the pagans until they reflected Christian ideas and had no reference to pagan gods or beliefs anymore. This helped the pagans understand Christianity better. It's a common thing in history that you give examples in someone's own experience in explaining something. It breaks down barriers and communicates the idea better.

The Easter bunny is not a core Christian belief. In fact it's not a Christian belief. It's just a way to allow Children to wake up bright-eyed and joyful. Kids like having fun, you know. Easter is a day of celebration. Jesus died on Good Friday anyway, not Easter. He rose from the dead on Easter, the third day of his death. (Friday, Saturday, Sunday)

If anyone is Ordained and Catholic out there and wants to correct me, go ahead.

24.183.61.204 00:00, 9 December 2005 (UTC)Anonymous Apologist

Messiah POV issue

"Christians believe that Jesus's birth, or nativity, fulfills the prophecies of Judaism that a messiah would come, from the house of David, to redeem the world from sin and bridge the separation between God and mankind." seems problematic. The traditional Jewish view on the Messiah specifies that the Messiah will do particular things which Jesus did not do. Christians either adopt a different view of what the Messiah is suppossed to do, or say that Jesus will come back and do those things later. As it stands now, this sentence takes a POV position on who is right about what the requirements are.

The Christmas article seems like a poor place to explain the differences between Judaism and Christianity, but it also seems necessary to mention that Christians believe that Jesus is the Messiah, so I don't think this article should be deleted. For now I've removed "from Judaism", but I'm not sure that's a good fix.

Woty 18:42, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Getting filled with crap

As we get closer to December 25th, this article will be filled with more and more random crap. Since it is supposed to be featured on the main page on December 25th, I would suggest that someone on December 24th compare the current version to the version when the article first became Featured, and only include the most vital changes (spelling, POV). Most of the random holidaycruft that people are adding can go. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2005-12-19 21:38

• Here's the latest diff comparing the content when it became Featured (a year ago), to now. Barely any of the content is still the same. Is this even worthy of Featured Article status still?? The original supporters of the FAC might not support this version. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2005-12-19 21:46

See Wikipedia:Featured article removal candidates/Christmas for more problems I've found. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2005-12-19 23:05

Christmas Deserves Its Own Article

I, for one, am glad that this article is not merged with "holiday spirit" as when I came to this site it was "Christmas" in particular for which I was looking. I really didn't want an article on "Holiday Spirit" but an article on "Christmas" and that is what I found. Thank you.

You might be interested in War on Christmas. User:Zoe|^(talk) 04:14, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Please note that the suggestion was to merge Holiday spirit (which despite its name is very much biased toward a Western, Christian outlook) into the Christmas article. Holiday spirit should actually probably be replaced with a redirect to Holiday, or if renamed to Christmas Spirit be replaced with a redirect here. Theshibboleth 06:42, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Lock article

I'm going to try to bring this article back into its featured article quality state, but until then I recommend that it be locked to editing. Theshibboleth 06:55, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

• The only way we could be sure that it is Featured quality still is to nominate it for FAC again. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2005-12-20 12:59
• I disagree - the nomination to depricate to non-featured status is sufficient to ratify its featured status, assuming the changes made persuade enough people to oppose the deprication. Trödel•talk 13:42, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

jesus wasnt born in winter.

Its clear from the scripture that jesus wasnt born in winter... When the shepperds saw the angels come down to announce jesus's birth they wouldnt have been in the fields in december, The Palestinian winters are to cold.

• According to the article chronology of Jesus, mediterratean climates allow shepherds of that area to be in the fields during December Pictureuploader 15:21, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Christmas and cultural diversity

If this section remains a list it will rapidly become unmanageable. Presumably, the (IMO ridiculous) "War on Christmas" cultural debate/propaganda campaign merits its own article and this subsection (or a subsection of this subsection) should summarize the major points rather than starting a new list of "evidence" of something or other. --Dystopos 23:49, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Specific problems with the article

Whether or not this article is featured in time for Christmas, we should at least aim toward getting it to featured status at some point. So, let's item-by-item fix the problems with this artilce. I'll start.

1. What does "hight-tone" drama mean in the "Economics of Christmas" section?
2. What does "rich production values" mean in the "Economics of Christmas section? Theshibboleth 08:39, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
3. More: To whom is the use of Holiday instead of Christmas condescending? Christians or non-Christians. Presumably non-Christians, although perhaps what is meant here is that Christians find it disrespectful of Christmas's sanctity. Theshibboleth 09:14, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
4. From the "Theories regarding the origin of the date of Christmas" section, "[...] which must have been the date of the Nativity there." Why? Is there some sort of Christian theological understanding I am missing? If so, this needs to be explained.
5. The section "Theories regarding the origin of the date Of Christmas" suggests that the main reason there is any support for the idea that the festival of Sol Invictus and Saturnalia were actually meant to displace Christmas and not the other way around is that there is evidence that Christmas was practiced before the other two holidays. However, it is a leap of faith to go from Christmas came before Saturnalia/Sol Invictus festival to Saturnalia/Sol Invictus festival was meant to displace Christmas. This sounds like an argument from ignorance and should thus probably be deemphasized in the article. Theshibboleth 09:55, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Christmas on January 4th

With December 25th in the Old Style Julian calendar now referring to January 4th in the Gregorian calendar, shouldn't Christmas now be celebrated on January 4th? Dates for other events, such as Isaac Newton's date of birth have been shifted to reflect this so I'm curious why Christmas wasn't also shifted.

December 25, 4 BC on the Julian calendar corresponds to December 23 on the Gregorian calendar. I did the conversion here. For 2006, Julian Christmas would be January 7 on the Gregorian calendar. Where did you get January 4 from?

Writers on Russian history use the expression "October Revolution" for the Communist takeover in 1917. This is an unconverted Julian date. American dates are converted (notably Washington's birthday), but this is not otherwise customary.Kauffner 09:55, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

so-called "alternative holidays"

I find the section entitled "Alternative Holidays" to be very offensive. As a highly religious Jew, I feel that Chanukhah is in no way an ALTERNATIVE to Christmas. It is separate and in no way should be compared. Doing so only leads to conflict. In addition, I know several Christians who celebrate Chanukhah.

Also, Eid ul-Fitr and Kawanza are not "alternatives." It comes off as highly offensive to term holidays of other cultures and religions as "alternatives" to what is Christian and so-called "normative" American. It holds the implication that to not celebrate Christmas or to celebrate one of these "alternative" holidays is somehow going against the grain.

• I agree that it is not polite or respectful to consider them alternatives, but they are, in fact, considered that way by many people in the US across cultural lines. We should, as encyclopedists, make reference to these conflicting views. (See the third paragraph of Hanukkah "Hanukkah gained increased importance with many Jewish families in twentieth century America, including large numbers of secular Jews who do not celebrate other key holy days, such as Sukkot, who wanted a Jewish alternative to the intense Christmas celebrations that often overlap with Hanukkah." or the last sentence of Kwanzaa; "[Some] view Kwanzaa as an opportunity to incorporate elements which speak to their particular ethnic heritage into holiday observances and celebrations during the Christmas season.". The case of Eid ul-Fitr is much more of a stretch, but the creation of "Eid Greetings" stamps by the USPS and the appearance of "Happy Eid" on greeting cards along with Christmas greetings is reality, even if it (rightfully) offends purists of any faith or tradition. --Dystopos 15:18, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Upon reflection, I can see how making this article more global and less "Americentric" would tend to push these "alternatives" (which are largely forged under US commercial-cultural pressure) out of the mainstream of encyclopedic coverage. They might better belong in a "Christmas in the United States" article. --Dystopos 15:22, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I tend to agree. I am of both Jewish and Christian heritage and actually celebrate Hanuka in addition to Christmas, so for me it's not an "alternative". I was thinking about that language the first time I read the article, and how Christmas would probably be considered the alternative to Hanuka in Israel. Before that section had been titled "Alternative secular holidays" which itself had problems

1. because of the rather derogatory sense of "alternative", and
2. because it implied that Christmas is a secular holiday

The information about Hanuka was before in some other part of the article.

That said, I think perhaps there is something to the idea that the gift-giving traditions of Hanuka have been emphasized because of the impact of Christmas, at least in the US; the Christocentric and somewhat anti-Semitic idea that Hanuka is a fabricated holiday is patent nonsense though. Probably any Christmas influenced on Hanuka should be discussed at the Hanuka article, not here. Theshibboleth 03:07, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

   god.... marry christmaquanzahanaka or w/e go eat a beef hot dog. play a perfessional sport. spend money...do something out of the draddle. 
                                   -Defiant Jew eating pork rines..mmm mmm good.

Link

A link was reinserted to fisheaters, previously removed as part of a sustained campaign of linkspamming spanning over 100 articles. Please discuss why you think this link is justified in this article. - Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] AfD? 13:12, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I added the link back in because there is no other external link like it and because it is a pretty complete overview of traditional Catholic customs and devotions that not only traditional Catholics, but mainstream Catholics and people interested in historical Catholic traditions would benefit from. Malachias111 16:06, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

The link to the "New Advent" Catholic site already exists; that's a pretty good website, well known, much used, and admired bu web users worldwide. Why is another Catholic link needed? Thanks...KHM03 18:14, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Because the Fisheaters site explains the customs and devotions day by day, from the Advent calendars, Jesse Trees, mangers, Advent wreaths, the O Antiphons, the posadas, all up to Christmas itself, the Epiphany and Candlemas. It has all the prayers and rituals and downloads for readings... Malachias111 19:43, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

So does the article. I am not convinced. Fisheaters has a very distinct perspective. It's proper to link from sites discussing issues of Catholicism, but I can see no good reason to link it from a mainstream article on Christmas. - Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] AfD? 19:52, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Because of the past link spamming - I would suggest this be not included until the link can be verified that it is notable for this article. I reviewed it quickly and seem similar to the article itself, but more detail. Trödel•talk 19:55, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Yup. But I would heartily encourage Malachias to create new articles for anything for which (s)he considers Wikipedia provides inadequate coverage. Sans linkspam, of course. - Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] AfD? 19:59, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Besides, much of what the Fisheaters site has on it...the O Antiphons, Advents wreaths, etc....is not distinctly Catholic, but more general Christian, so it hardly seems necessary. KHM03 21:42, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Reference

I inserted the book The Mystical Interpretation of Christmas (1920, from 1910's writings of the author) since it contains a view of Christmas from the perspective of Occultism and Esoteric Christianity/Mystic Christianity, which examines aspects of Christmas generally unnoticed by traditional/mainstream denominations in Christianity or by historical research. --GalaazV 16:26, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Removed social impact section

I removed this section - it is unsourced and is suspected of NPOV - I don't think it contributes in its current state to the article being featured.

Social impact of Christmas
Because of the focus on celebration, friends, and family, people who are without these or who have recently suffered losses are more likely to suffer from depression during Christmas. This increases the demands for counseling services during the period.
It is widely believed that the number of suicides spikes during the holiday season, although the peak months for suicide are actually May and June. Because of holiday celebrations involving alcohol, drunk driving-related fatalities typically also increase.
Non-Christians in predominantly Christian countries may be left bereft of entertainment around Christmas when stores close and friends depart on vacations.. The stereotype of recreation for non-Christians during Christmas is "movies and Chinese food", as movie theaters remain open to bring in holiday dollars.
In North America the naming of various holiday terms has become controversial. There is use of non-religious names like holiday tree and winter break in place of Christmas tree and Christmas break. Reactions to these attempts to include non-Christians are mixed, with many responding that renaming the events does nothing to hide their meaning and is condescending.

I suggest that after editing this could return to the article. Trödel•talk 21:37, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Other religious holidays occuring near Christmas...

I removed the link to Kwanzaa as it is not a religious celebration, but a cultural one. Ramsquire 21:44, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Other holidays occuring near Christmas

I'm thinking of either deleting this section of the Christmas article (after all it is not germane to an understanding of Christmas) or simply deleting Eid. Eid usually occurs October or November, and isn't really celebrated around Christmas or in Winter. I would like some input from Wiki first, however? Ramsquire 00:21, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

• That seems like a good idea for practical POV reasons. See the discussion above at Talk:Christmas#so-called "alternative holidays". --Dystopos 00:27, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I've made a stab at contextualizing this section. I welcome other editorial opinions since I'm far from expert on these issues:

Other religious holidays that occur near Christmas have adopted, particularly in the United States, parallel or alternative traditions similar to Christmas traditions, such as the sending of greeting cards, singing of songs, exchange of gifts, and decorating of the home. The best known example is Hanukkah, which has developed into a "Jewish Christmas" in the minds of some. The modern observance of Kwanzaa among African Americans is also often considered a "black" alternative or supplement to Christmas. Less closely connected, but still notable, are the appearance of "Eid Greetings" for the feast of Eid ul-Fitr at the culmination of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. The conception of these holidays as "alternative" Christmasses" is controversial and far from universal. Each of these traditions has its own origins and observances absent of any connection to Christmas. This idea was parodied in the television sitcom Seinfeld with the invention of Festivus, "the festival for the rest of us."

--Dystopos 00:41, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Snipping extraneous links

The amount of linkage in this article is just plain ugly. It's obvious no editor has gone over it in awhile as sentences have been added over the weeks and more and more stuff was linked. I'm using Wikipedia:Make only links relevant to the context as my guideline here. In general,

• Link full dates only. Solitary years or days/months should not be linked.
• Link only the first occurrence of a term. I don't even want to tell you how many times Christians was linked in the article.

I cleaned up a section but there's quite a bit more work that needs to be done, so get cracking! --Cyde Weys _vote^talk 16:30, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

See, this is why this article is no longer going to be featured on the main page. Nobody bothered to correct any of the problems listed here on the discussion page. It would've had a chance if even one person had stepped in and done a good rewrite of the article, but nobody did. I guess nobody cares about Christmas.  :-( --Cyde Weys _vote^talk 20:51, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

• Month & day should be linked so preferences will work - see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Date formatting --JimWae 21:12, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Here, I'm copying my response from Raul's talk page:

I'm wondering why you relinked the dates on Christmas. This seems to go against the guidelines specified in Wikipedia:Make only links relevant to the context, which states that only full dates should be linked. Anyway, it's ridiculous for December 25 to be linked 20 different times on that page. It's unnecessary and it's ugly. And I'm not buying the argument about "date formatting preferences". People from Europe are not going to be confused by "December 25" and people from America are not going to be confused by "25 December". --Cyde Weys _vote^talk 21:13, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

But December 25 needs to be at least once - it is entirely relevant for an article about a fixed festival to link to the day involved. Same goes with other significant dates. Morwen - Talk 21:14, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

• I can live with it being linked once. But twenty times is just ridiculous. Also, this article suffers from the same phrase being linked to many, many too many times. You don't even want to know how many times Jesus Christ and Christians are linked. --Cyde Weys _vote^talk 21:21, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

• I did not make the guideline. In most articles, the ONLY reason to link dates is for date preferences to work - whatever else happened in that year or date is almost always irrelevant to the article, though sometimes "interesting" for other reasons. Actually perhaps wikipedia should fix it so date links only do the formatting & neither link nor appear as a link. December 25 now appears 12 times in the article. Several other dates also appear numerous times. I am sure that some editing could reduce the repetition of all dates. Enabling date preferences is a courtesy to the reader -- otherwise why even have them? --JimWae 21:21, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Make only links relevant to the context does not say "full dates with years". It says--JimWae 21:32, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

  Full dates; i.e., those that include the day and month. This allows the auto-formatting function for individual users' date preferences to work. Editors are not required to do this, but some readers prefer it

• This means, not December, not 25, and not 2005 --JimWae 21:35, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Because of the way that wikipedia's date preferences work, all the linked dates appear to me in the format '25 December' whereas the dates that have been unlinked appear in the format 'December 25'. How is this any less ugly than linking all month/day references? As an aside, please note that breaking these preferences (which is what unlinking month/day dates does) will encourage edit wars over date formatting. JeremyA 21:38, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Seems like we should lobby policy for there to be a way to specify "XXXXX is a date", but don't link it. --Cyde Weys _vote^talk 21:39, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

• • Anyone know where I should start to go about doing this? --Cyde Weys _vote^talk 21:47, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

That seems like a good idea. Perhaps one of Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) or Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) would be a good place to start a discussion about it. JeremyA 22:14, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

• The guide says:

  What should not be linked

  Months, years, decades or centuries, unless they will clearly help the reader to understand the topic. (This is in contrast to full dates—see below.) ...

  What should be linked

  Full dates; i.e., those that include the day and month. This allows the auto-formatting function for individual users' date preferences to work. Editors are not required to do this, but some readers prefer it.

• It says do NOT link solitary years (2005), nor solitary months (December), nor decades (1960s), nor centuries (1st Century). It says DO link dates that include day and month. --JimWae 01:02, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

The guide also points out, correctly, that there is a tension between the desire to link this way, and the need to not overlink. Our first and foremost responsibility is to make a readable encyclopedia. Most of our readers don't have preferences, and in fact don't even log in. Creating an article that is unreadably littered with hundreds of blue links just to satisfy some sort of theoretical concern with honoring date format preferences for a tiny minority of readers is the equivelent cutting down an entire forest to save a single tree. Nandesuka 01:59, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

• "Overlinking" is having too many links in the same paragraph, and having links for no particular reason at all (such as December 2005) - irrespective of what it links to. It is not about not enabling preferences. Seeing the blue links for say three instances of December 25 in one paragraph might encourage someone to edit out some of the repetitiveness. AND again, we are talking about 12 instances in this article - neither hundreds nor millions. Furthermore, preferences are theoretical only for those whose own are the same as those of article. Also the guide does not mention any tension about any "desire" to link "this way" - it mentions a tension between building the Web and overlinking. Dates are not linked to build a web -- they are linked, ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY, to enable preferences. Except perhpas for a few rare instances, there is NO other reason to link dates - whatever else happened on that date is usually irrelevant - or IF relevant should be in article itself --JimWae 02:13, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

• User:Nandesuka, an admin, seems not to have noticed my attempt at compromise - I did not link December 25 in every instance, though I did format every other date but it. Any thought that there is a rule about linking the first and only the first instance of a date is muddled - it would be better NEVER to link a date at all, than to have preferences enabled only once for each date and so be repeatedly changing the format used within the article. --JimWae 02:44, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Please see The Village Pump for more information on this issue. I'm trying to have something done about it and would appreciate your input there. --Cyde Weys _vote^talk 22:31, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Can be annoying

There are many criticisms of Christmas apart from commercialization and waste. For some Christmas can be an annoyance because preparations and celebrations so dominate life not long after Thanksgiving. Christmas decorations may be left up until late in the summer and may be prominently displayed by towns. Christmas songs can get old after a few times, but can be impossible to escape. People who do not celebrate can cause tension. Laborers are likely to work on Christmas for the extra pay while the Holiday is effectively reserved for those who can afford to take that time off. The sheer scale and pervasiveness of Christmas as celebrated in some places has created a kind of backlash. Something about this conflict apart from the economics should be mentioned. -- M0llusk 21:59, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

December 25th

Christmas was on December 25 in the Julian Calendar. then we switched calendars, but we still celebrate it on December 25th, even though the old date is now moved to January 7th. Why?

By "we" do you mean Roman Catholics & most Protestants? The Eastern Church and Coptic Christians celebrate it on the 7th. The Armenians celebrate it on the 6th (or the 18th). Rklawton 01:25, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

There is slippage between the Julian and Gregorian calendar, so the correspondence between dates was different in ancient times. When Caesar introduced the Julian Calendar, Dec. 25 was intended to be the date of the winter solstice. Now the solstice is Dec. 21. To celebrate in January would only increase the error.Kauffner 03:57, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Page split

IMO, this page is quite confusing due to completely different "Christmas" views in the same part of the page. I suggest that the secular customs, commercialization and economics of Christmas (not religious customs and the actual background of Christmas) be moved to Christmas (secular) or Christmas (holiday), while this main page be kept for the religious day and the religious season. CrazyC83 03:57, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Santa doesn't exist in many countries - Article is incomplete

This article reads as if Santa was the only one bringing gifts. If you look to many central and eastern european countries you find that christmas gifts are brought by the Christkind and Santa only exists in the form of Saint Nicholas who brings fruits and sweets on 6th December. So this article is only good if you are from an anglo-amercian country.

why do kids edit this?

"A classic image of jolly old Saint Nick."

What child wrote that?

• because it's the encylopedia that anyone with a high sped internet connection and little too much free time, can edit, just ask all the trolls and vandals—The preceding unsigned comment was added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]]) .

Hey all, I know the edit may sound silly, but please do not bite the newcomers. There are many good editors at Wikipedia that are (or seem to be) underage. Jpers36 05:52, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

I wrote that thank you very much. And I'm 28. If you don't like it, feel free to edit it yourself. Merry Christmas. jengod 07:42, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

The edit doesn't even sound silly. Maybe "jolly old Saint Nick" isn't appropriate for an encyclopedia but it's not indicative of childishness. Certainly not as much as name-calling which some of you seem to indulge in. Who's the real "child" here?

-- Hinotori^{(talk)|(ctrb)} 08:31, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Gregorian Calendar

I am removing the claim that the birthdate of Jesus was the basis of the Gregorian Calendar. The Gregorian Calendar does not have any tie to the birthdate of Jesus, and in fact the new year had already been moved from December 25 to January 1 years before the Gregorian Calendar was proposed. The Anno Domini system of year numbering does begin with what was (incorrectly) believed to be Jesus' birth year, but should not be confused with the Gregorian Calendar, which it predates by several centuries. — Walloon 10:22, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

The Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1583 and the AD system of numbering is a part of it, although the same numbering system was often used with the earlier Julian calender. Before the Gregorian calendar was introduced, the beginning of the new year was celebrated on different days in different places. March 25 and April 1 (hence April's Fools Day) were common dates. January 1 was the "consular new year" in ancient Rome, the day an elected official would assume his position.Kauffner 12:57, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Comment moved from article

Regarding that John the Baptist was conceived around the same time Jesus was: I read that when the Angel told Mary that she was with Child, that he told her that John the Baptist's mother was also with child even though she was barren, and she was 6 months pregnant - so doesn't that change the theory with the dates? (User:209.208.195.35).

Birth Place of Jesus...

I removed the link to Palestine, as at the time of Jesus's birth, Bethlehem was a city in the Roman province of Judea. Palestine is a later creation. I did add however, that Bethlehem is currently located in the West Bank. Ramsquire 18:08, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Commercialized?....

How did Christmas get to be so commercialized? Everyone celebrates it not knowing the origin... can someone please help explain that to me?

Winter holdays have been accompanied by giving gifts for all of recorded history, AFAIK.Ronabop 22:31, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

External links

The list of links looks to me to be excessive. And yes, I even include the one I added myself. I think it should be pruned, possibly to zero - we have articles for most of the subjects covered, blogs are not sources so are not appropriate per WP:EL, and half of these look like vanispamcruft (or at least trivia) anyway.

• Worldwide Christmas Countdown
• From Uruguay Christmas in Uruguay
• Christmas in Japan How the Western Santa and Asian customs fused to produce this unique holiday
• The custom of celebrating with Christmas Lights Videos and pictures of some extreme forms of holiday lighting
• The History of Christmas Exhaustive recap of Christmas history
• Christmas Traditions of UK
• Christmas in Asia (various countries)
• Christmas Traditions in Australia
• Catholic Encyclopedia
• Touchstone -- Calculating Christmas
• St. Nicholas site
• Saint Nicholas history
• The Great Dickens Christmas Faire the oldest San Francisco traditional holiday event.
• noradsanta.org - NORAD tracks Santa Claus on his route.

Input appreciated, - Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] AfD? 21:20, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Box

The box with the picture in it is horrific, terrible, obscene can someone PLEASE change it. It takes all the dignity away from this article, and is unwikipedic!!!!!! Chooserr 00:36, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Asimov quote

The article states "As Isaac Asimov comments in his Guide to the Bible, "[C]onverts could join Christianity without giving up their Saturnalian happiness. It was only necessary for them to joyfully greet the birth of the Son rather than the Sun."

Then it said, which I cut: "Note that in Latin, the words for "son" ('filius') and "sun" ('sol') do not in the least bit resemble each other, making such pseudo-linguistic comparisons patently absurd."

The reader reads the material about Asimov, then gets told that its absurd. Well, if its absurd, why was it there? Personally, I don't think Asimov's word-play is absurd. He never claimed that the words sound alike in Latin. He's writing in English and made an English-only pun.

I think the quote should be cut. First off, Asimov has confused Saturnalia with the Sol Invictus festival. Saturnalia was a popular Roman holiday while Sol Invictus an official cult Aurelian created to promote a feeling of empire-wide unity.

The Asimov quote also feeds into the idea that Christmas was a plot to Christianize Saturnalia, and I see no basis to believe such a thing. The two holidays have separate origins, celebrate different things, and there is a full eight-day difference between them.Kauffner 09:31, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Eastern Rite v. Eastern Orthodox

Eastern Rite churches are not the same as Eastern Orthodox churches. Most of the former consider the Pope of Rome to be their supreme pontiff, while the latter do not. — Walloon 16:18, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

==Magi/Wise men== The last edits claim that the usual translation/interpretations are incorrect, without any ref.; I plan to revert them unless these claims are somenow justified. Sfahey 14:13, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Winter Holiday?

Since when is Christmas referred to as "Winter Holiday" in the United States? I've heard "Holiday season," "Happy Holidays," etc., to refer to the time surrounding Christmas and New Year's Day, but I've never seen "Holiday" used to mean "Christmas" except in sarcastic opinion pieces. The fact that the words "Winter Holiday" are a link to Political Correctness make this look like vandalism, point of view, or both. If this is an actual usage, I'd like to see sources. See the style guidelines at Wikipedia:Citing sources. Elliotreed 06:43, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Not all Eastern Churches celebrate Christmas on January 7th

The text on the page (near the beginning) says: "The Eastern Orthodox church celebrates Christmas on January 7 which is December 25 in the Julian Calendar. The Greek Orthodox church does not recognize the Gregorian Calendar which was implemented by a Catholic Pope. Around the world, Christmas Day is celebrated on December 25. Christmas Eve is the preceding day, December 24."

However, should one go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Calendar and scroll down, one gets: "...the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, the Orthodox Churches of Greece, Cyprus, Romania, Poland, Bulgaria (the last in 1963), and the Orthodox Church in America (although some OCA parishes are permitted to use the Julian calendar). Thus these churches celebrate the Nativity on the same day that Western Christians do, 25 December Gregorian until 2800. The Orthodox Churches of Jerusalem, Russia, Macedonia, Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine, and the Greek Old Calendarists continue to use the Julian calendar for their fixed dates, thus they celebrate the Nativity on 25 December Julian (which is 7 January Gregorian until 2100)."

From what I know, and do correct me if I'm wrong, the second claim is correct: different Orthodox Churches celebrate Christmas on different days.

Someone please amend that on the front page of article "Christmas".

Thank you and happy holidays (if you're celebrating, if not all the best as well!)

that was corrected recently but a user has been editing it to the previous incorrect version today. I'll see what I can do. Enigmaman (talk) 05:27, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

You are missing the point - every-one celebrates Christmas on the same day - Dec 25. Only some churches use the OLD calendar (Julian) which maps to Jan 7. Please check your facts - you leave the impression that they have set Christmas on different days - the just use a different calendar. Bobanni (talk) 06:36, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, everyone celebrates Christmas on Dec 25, but, as my experience says, most of the people who celebrate it using the old Julian calendar DO NOT KNOW or do not care about it at all and really think that Christmas is on Jan 7. And even more (as I heard from Russian Orthodox authorities on TV) this is the main reason why Russian church do not change the calendar - it would be extremely hard to explain the change to old and uneducated believers.Illarionov (talk) 11:54, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

The last revision was poorly written and is of questionable accuracy, but I'll let Bobanni deal with it since he's so insistent. Enigmaman (talk) 19:53, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

@Bobanni: I am not missing the point. With respect to a particular calendar, different Orthodox Churches celebrate Christmas on different days. The information I saw (which I quoted first)is incorrect in many ways: First, "the eastern orthodox church" consists of members that are quite independent and that make their own decisions. Second, Greek church does use Gregorian calendar. Third, what does "around the world" mean - everywhere? almost everywhere?

I simply think one should be more specific, especially in cases where it's really not hard to be more specific. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.105.52.35 (talk) 23:13, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Cultural status in post-soviet states

In communist days the cultural status of Christmas was shifted to New Year's Day in Russia and other countries. The main cultural holiday in Russia was Christmas before 1917 and it is so in the West but now the main winter holiday in Russia is New Year's day. And Christmas here is mainly religious holiday and does not have the same cultural value as in the West. I think the article should say about it. My English is not so good to do it myself. Illarionov (talk) 12:07, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I should say more about this shift. The Christmas Tree is now New Year's Tree. Christmas presents are New Year's presents. Ded Moroz (Santa Claus analog) is New Year's mascot. Even English Christmas songs like Jingle Bells are New Year's songs here in Russia. All Economics of Christmas are present here but they are New Year's economics. Illarionov (talk) 12:16, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

References: http://russian-crafts.com/customs/christmas.html http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=20456&cid=187&p=19.12.2007 http://www.cityvision2000.com/millenium/feature.htm http://wscsd.org/ejournal/spip.php?article176 Illarionov (talk) 13:37, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Rubbish section removed

I've deleted (again) the section about Christmas in the time of Constantine. As has been remarked above, it's a mess. It's also complete nonsense, factually, as a look at any source will show. Christmas was not celebrated on that date in the time of Constantine. As other parts of the article make clear, it originates some time after Constantine died! Roger Pearse 16:45, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Revamp of intro. paragraphs

I've revamped the intro paragraphs, as well as cleaned up the forefront template, and I hope everyone likes it. If not, please let me know why. I can understand if you'd like to revert it, but first please consider that I haven't changed anything, just cleaned the former presentation and removed some unnecessary baggage that should have been in the body, not crowding the intro. Thank you all for your co-operation. Feel free to hack at it with any improvements, they're more than welcomed.—Steven Evens (talk) 16:47, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Redo of 1st Paragraph

I have returned the reference to Christmas as also being a season (aka Christmas Season / Christmastide) as it is known to millions of Christians worldwide…the singular word alone references this season. To define it as a singular ‘holiday’ only would be incorrect. Also, I have removed the unnecessary “spiritual leader” as that misrepresents what he was to millions who share the Christian faith. The information that follows and the link to 'Jesus of Nazareth' aptly identify who the subject is without shading the tone with opinion.--Operaguy (talk) 02:58, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the additions. I've just tweaked them a little bit to read easier. I've linked Christmastide in the very beginning sentence, and simply have linked the term "season" in "liturgical season". If you like, we can switch these linkings around to have it be [[Christmastide|liturgical season]] and just leave Christmastide bolded with no link. I just find the paragraph flows easier with mentioning Christmastide in the intro. Thanks.—Steven Evens (talk) 11:46, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Nothing you changed was horrendous, but this entire process is a reason I think Wikipedia is doomed to eventual failure. When people enter scholarly information, it's almost always dismissed for rhetoric laden with inaccuracies with which to relate personal biases. I'm done editing Wikipedia - it's too frustrating to work on something and have it dashed by people with agendas. I'm an atheist, but I quit reading the article on the first sentence when it clearly defines Christmas as a singular 'holiday' listing two possible dates. Mentioning Christmastide as an aside is not sufficient. To the majority of people celebrating Christmas (billions of Christians world-wide) it is a season / a liturgical season / 12 days / 4-6 weeks, but never 1 day. --Operaguy (talk) 13:33, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

US Federal Holidays Template

I've deleted the US Federal Holidays template at the bottom of the article. New Year's Day is the only other international holiday in the US, and that article doesn't contain the template, so why should this one? If the US template is allowed then why not put one for Ireland, Poland, Mexico, South Africa etc. Any objections giving reasons why only the US should have a template here or should we go ahead and create one for most of the countries in the world? Dennisc24 (talk) 17:58, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Billions of children

'Billions' of children seems just a bit extravagant. With only a few billion people on the planet, not all of them Christian and not all of them children, it seems a bit excessive. 'Millions' perhaps? 220.233.18.57 (talk) 21:43, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Fixed. Enigmaman (talk) 21:52, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Merge Crimbo into alternative names section

Personally I don't see the point in having a separate page for Crimbo. It's just a slang name and all that is on that page could be moved to this one. ۩ Dracion (Level 85 Rs Player) ۩ 18:53, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah I agree --60.231.17.231 (talk) 13:32, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

External links

I would like to add the following to the External links section:

• Complete text, Washington Irving's book "Old Christmas" 1886 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.96.217 (talk) 20:37, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

• The Nativity of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ Orthodox icon and synaxarion of the Feast

Does anyone have an objection? MishaPan (talk) 17:40, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

The Truth About Christmas

I am going to be hated forever but the truth must be told. Christmas is a pagan holiday that has nothing to do with Christ. Santa Clause was a false god who went by a differnt name and children were sacrificed to this god, sacrificed to Santa. The followers of the Nicolatians mentioned in Revelation are people who believe in Santa. Christmas was a day that Jewish people were tortured and killed. The CHRIST in Christmas was slapped on there by a Roman Empereor named Nero (I believe) so that the Pagans and Christians could get along. If you don't believe me research it for yourself. I'll be back to explain more later. The K.O. King (talk) 16:10, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

WP:NPOV, specifically Undue weight. Briefly, Wikipedia is not a soapbox. adriatikus | talk 18:03, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I will get the information I need and a source. The K.O. King (talk) 00:18, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

One of the most important things to remember when doing research is to check your sources for authenticity. So much of what you said is half-truth, or misinterpreted facts that one wonders how good a researcher you are. Lets deal with your points one by one, shall we?

Christmas, or rather, the feast of the Nativity of Christ has very little to do with the actual date of Christ’s birth. The date for celebrating the Feast was established by the Christian church sometime in the 4th century AD. The Christian calendar was designed so that the various major events in Christ’s life could be celebrated in chronological order (with the exception of Pascha (Easter) which follows a different system of calculation). This calendar was approved by a council of bishops who were called to order by the Emperor Constantine the Great. The dates for celebrating these various Feasts were not chosen at random, but because Christianity sought to supplant to older pagan customs, the Church chose days that corresponded to popular pagan holidays with the hope that eventually the people would forget the pagan customs and adopt Christian customs. Similarly it was often the case where old pagan temples were converted to Christian churches.

One of the prominent bishops of this first great council of the Christian church was Nicholas of Myra, in Lycia. Nicholas was famous for his acts of selfless charity, for feeding the hungry and rescuing those in financial distress. It is he who secretly left gifts to the poor. After his death he was declared a Saint by the church. His feastday falls on December 6th and it was on this day, not Christmas that early Christians exchanged gifts in honor of the saint. The saint became well known in many countries. And so, in German, Nicholas translates as Claus, Santa being Saint.

By modern times, in the western world especially, many quaint folk traditions have gotten wrapped around the story. Most of our modern traditions only date back a century or so. Somewhere along the line the two feasts were mixed up, but in truth, there was a Saint Nicholas, he was a Christian hero, and no one ever sacrificed children to him. Christmas was never a pagan holiday but rather it supplanted the pagan feast of Sol Invictus. Please, read a few actual historical texts, not just the tracks you find under your windshield wiper.

--Phiddipus (talk) 06:09, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Christmas was only a minor holiday in ancient times, not an effort to try to take over someone else's festival. The Romans considered Dec. 25 to be the date of the winter solstice. Jesus was the "sun of righteousness" (from Malachi 4) and therefore identified with solar days. In the East, the nativity was celebrated on Epiphany (Jan. 6), which was solstice according to the Egyptian calendar. Christmas did not become a major festival until the High Middle Ages (perhaps influenced by Yule). Kauffner (talk) 01:17, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Etymology

Etymology used to have its own section with an appropriate header, below the ToC. In the present version it appears in the middle of the introduction. I'm not sure how or when this happened, or if it was even intentional given the levels of vandalsim we see here. However, introductions are normally limited to general info and etymology is somehwhat technical. Other articles that include similar info normally seem to give it an independent section when it is as detailed as this is. For an example, see Stonehenge, another old word with complex origins. I would strongly prefer to arrange this article in a similar fashion and once again give the etymology of the term it's own section. As an added advantage, this would shorten and streamline the intro which is currently a bit cumbersome. Doc Tropics 06:53, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Xmas

It should be mentioned also that X-mas = Christ-mas, it is actually not derived from a practice of keeping 'Christ' out of the holiday. Greek anyone? 140.233.216.47 (talk) 19:08, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

That issue is brought up in the restored Etymology section. MightyAtom (talk) 19:48, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Presendential Proclaimations for Christmas

Thought this link could be a valuable addition to the nature of Wiki's content. It contains the proclaimations made by different presidents of USA, for the occasion of Christmas:

http://theholidayspot.com/christmas/proclamations.htm

Waiting for your opinion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.93.204.137 (talk) 07:36, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I see a problem in History section

"December 25 was considered the day upon which the winter solstice, which the Romans called bruma, fell. (When Julius Caesar introduced the Julian Calendar in 45 BC, December 25 was approximately the date of the solstice. In modern times, the solstice falls on December 21 or 22.)"

This is not correct. It has been 2053 years since the introduction of Julian Calender. At the rate of a year in 25,765 years, the festival which the Romans must have been celebrating in Caesar's time must have slid 29 days ahead rather than just 3 or 4 days as mentioned in the above quote. So it must not have been winter solstice (Bruma), but some other festival, which now should fall on November 25 or 26. So what was that festival? I see two possibilities, movement of sun into Ophiuchus or Saggitarius (but not sure). Aupmanyav (talk) 01:59, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Add: Saggitarius is ruled by Jupiter. Saggitarius is also the Archer (Orion). I am presenting various options so that some scholar will clear the problem. At one time, the Aryan year began with appearance of sun on the day of vernal equinox in the asterism of Orion. Was it a wrongly placed vernal equinox that the Romans were celebrating? Aupmanyav (talk) 06:06, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

The Julian calendar was revised by both by Emperor Augustus and much later by Pope Gregory. Even the Julian/Augustus calendar slipped by only one day in 400 years, so your numbers don't make any sense to me. Kauffner (talk) 07:03, 11 September 2008 (UTC) Oh, I get it now. You are confused with the precession of equinoxes, but that has nothing to do with calendar slippage or the date of the solstice. Kauffner (talk) 13:28, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I am not talking about slipping of days. I am talking ot slipping of zodiac. Some of the Roman festivals (Bruma) must have been held according to the zodiac. If today Christmas is held in the zodiac of Saggitarius, in early christian days in Europe, it must have been held in the zodiac of Scorpius, since zodiac slips by one sign in 2000 years. Aupmanyav (talk) 10:00, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Bruma was a celebration of the solstice held on Dec. 25. It was held according to the Roman/Julian calendar, not the zodiac. Dec. 25 was never exactly the right date astronomically because the calendar is a human creation subject to miscalculation and politicial manipulation. The precession of the solstices through the star signs is a natural phenomenon independent of what calendar one uses. Kauffner (talk) 14:13, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Kauffner, for taking interest in this discussion. If Caesar and the Romans were celebrating some festival (Bruma) on Dec. 25, 2000 years ago, then it was not winter solstice. Because at that time the winter solstice must have fallen on Jan. 26 by his calender (precession of equinoxes being independent of the calender that we follow). It must have been entry of sun in the zodiac of Scorpion.

Kindly check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_festivals. It was celebrated as "Dies Natalis Invicti Solis (Festival of the invincible sun God, Sol Invictus)". It was the beginning of the 30 day festival of winter solstice which fell on January 24 to January 26 – Sementivae (in Sanskrit - Samvatsara, beginning of Uttarayana and the six-month day of Gods, the beginning of the north-ward journey of sun. Bruma (Brumalia, in honor of Dionysus of the Greeks and Bacchus of the Romans) was the shortest day of the year and should not change from Dec. 21/22. The Roman festival page shows it on Nov. 24, which also IMHO must be wrong. So, the entry in the history section should be revised as follows:

"December 25 was celebrated as 'Dies Natalis Invicti Solis (Festival of the invincible sun God, Sol Invictus)'. It was the beginning of the 30 day festival of winter solstice which, in Caesar's time, fell on January 24 to January 26 and was called Sementivae (in the country called Paganalia)."

I suppose this corrects the wrong description. Aupmanyav (talk) 09:02, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

NO! January 26 is a date on the calendar and is therefore dependant on which calendar is used. Use this site to calculate the date of the solstice for yourself. It occurred on Dec. 21 in -44 by the Gregorian Calendar. Using this site to convert Gregorian to Julian yields Dec. 23 in -45. This is still a few days off because it doesn't take into account the calendar alteration made by Augustus, but I think it illustrates the point.

As for Brumalia, it began on Nov. 24 and ended on Dec. 25. Sol Invictus didn't exist in Caesar's time. It was an empire-wide national day that was promoted by Aurelian and other emperors. Kauffner (talk) 10:12, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

hey i was right thanks for making me know im right —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.237.198.86 (talk) 22:06, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Intro is an absolute disgrace

Hey, I propose that we change the current messy intro. to one that was once in place and that perfectly introduced Christmas, but got lost somewhere along the line:

“ Christmas, also referred to as Christmas Day or Christmastide, is an annual holiday usually falling on December 25 or January 7 that honors and celebrates the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. His birth, which is the basis for the transcultural Western calendar, has been determined by modern historians as having occurred between 8–4 BC, and is traditionally told to have taken place in a stable lwithin the city of Bethlehem. The specific date of celebration for Jesus' birth is traditional, and is generally believed to have been influenced by the dates of pre-Christian festivals—usually the Roman festival of Dies Natalis Solis Invicti—rather than having been based on historical data or reference.

Modern customs of the holiday include gift-giving, church celebrations, and the display of various decorations—including the Christmas tree, lights, mistletoe, nativity scenes and holly. The jolly mythological figure Santa Claus (or Father Christmas) is also a large part of Christmas, whereas he is traditionally believed by millions of children as being a bringer of gifts on or before Christmas Day. Santa is generally believed to be the result of the syncretization of Saint Nicholas with elements from pagan Nordic and Christian mythology, and owes his modern appearance mostly to 19th century media.

Christmas is celebrated throughout the Christian population, but it is also celebrated by many non-Christians, usually because of its cultural status and its non-sectarian winter-related traditions. The holiday is widely celebrated around the world, including in the United States, where it is celebrated by 96% of the population.

”

Questions? comments? Thanks. — ^{`</sup>CRAZY`(lN)`SANE<sup>`} 04:27, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree. While I am not thrilled with the above, it it surely better than the mess that is currently there --JimWae (talk) 04:58, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Great, thanks for the response. We could edit it, tweak it, as long as it gets put in there to replace the current disaster. Do you have any suggestions? I like how it incorporates other articles, like Christmas worldwide. — ^{`</sup>CRAZY`(lN)`SANE<sup>`} 06:04, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I say be bold. Go ahead and change it to whatever you think is better. My only concern is that the existing disastrous intro has some good information that should be preserved. So a switch is not just putting a better intro in, but making sure that the stuff in the current intro finds a better home in the article. Tb (talk) 19:56, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I was going to do that but I had done it in the past and it was eventually reverted. I think I'll take your advice now, as it seems that there's a general concensus. — ^{`</sup>CRAZY`(lN)`SANE<sup>`} 21:18, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

The Sol Invictus theory is just one older theory about the origin of the Christmas and it is not in my opinion the most likely explanation. Besides, it doesn't help readers much to tell them that Christmas might have evolved from some other holiday they are not likely to have heard of. The lead should just say that December 25 was winter solstice on the Roman calendar. This is most likely reason both Christmas and Sol Invictus were scheduled on this day.

The January 7 thing doesn't belong in the lead. Besides, the Orthodox also celebrate on Dec. 25, they just follow a different calendar. Kauffner (talk) 09:31, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

So, how about simply removing the bolded part? That should do the trick: "... pre-Christian festivals—usually the Roman festival of Dies Natalis Solis Invicti[2]—rather than having been based on historical data or reference". In addition, the "January 7" has already been removed. — ^{`</sup>CRAZY`(lN)`SANE<sup>`} 11:25, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Some of the claims in the introduction seem fuzzy, such as the statement that Christmas is celebrated by 96% of the US population, which doesn't seem to line up well with the fact that a considerably smaller percentage of the US population consider themselves Christian at all. [[2]] Without making it clear that a large proportion of this so-called observance is completely secular, the claim leaves a false impression. Lee-Anne (talk) 16:30, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

There is a reliable source for the 96% claim. I'm sure I could find more. You'll note that in the same sentence, it states "Christmas is also celebrated by non-Christians as a cultural festival". This is why we have such a high percentage of celebrants. I don't see why we need to specify that "a large proportion of this observance is secular", as the article already indicates that many do celebrate Christmas entirely secularly, and recent stats show Christianity at about 79% in the US, so only about 17% could be said to be celebrating secularly. Not a particularly significant amount considering. — ^{`</sup>CRAZY`(lN)`SANE<sup>`} 05:53, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Jesus born in winter time?

Luke 2:8 There were also in that same country shepherds living out of doors and keeping watches in the night over their flocks.

Their flocks would have been kept indoors, it wasn't the right season to be shepherding, it's supposed to be a winter festival.

--JoshuaMD (talk) 09:04, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes... we know. The date of celebration of Jesus' birth is not based in any historical data or reference. It is believed to have been based off the dates of ancient Roman holidays, as is mentioned in this article. — ^{`</sup>CRAZY`(lN)`SANE<sup>`} 10:47, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

December 25 chosen as based on Jewish tradition

I remember a college professor years back who raised a point that December 25 was chosen to coincide with the idea of Christ's birth beginning the new age. That is, the start of the new calendar system would begin. With the Jewish practice of circumcision on the 8th day after birth, this would coincide with January 1. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.48.5.47 (talk) 23:37, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Modern historians agree that the most likely reason for the Church choosing December 25 for Jesus' birthdate was to easily convert pagans into Christianity by placing the Feast of the Nativity on or near their winter solstice festivals. The same thing is believed to have happened with Halloween, where All Saints Day was moved by the Church from May 1 to November 1, and was also known as All Hallows Day. The day before, October 31, All Hallows Eve, or Hallowe'en, is now the well-known October 31 holiday. The Christmas theory is somewhat disputed, however, with some Biblical historians insisting that the Bible confirms that Jesus was conceived in March, thus born in December (9 months later), making the December 25 date plausible as being accurate. I have never ince heard your professor's theory, though. We'd need some reliable sources before considering adding this to the article. Oh, and by the way—8 days after December 25 is actually January 2. — ^{`</sup>CRAZY`(lN)`SANE<sup>`} 01:24, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Of course it couldn't be a source and I was hoping someone wlse had heard it and knew of one, only if to know the point was valid. And January 1st isn't 8 days after December 25th. It would be seven, and including December 25, that means the 8th day of life.

Christmas was not a major holiday for the early church, so the idea that it was scheduled to make it easier to convert pagans makes no sense. Because Christ was considered the "sun of righteous", he was associated with solar days. Based on this logic, Sextus Julius Africanus wrote that Jesus was incarnated on the vernal equinoix (March 25) and born nine months later on the winter solstice (Dec. 25). On the Egyptian calendar, solstice was January 6, which explains the date of Epiphany. Epiphany was a much more important holiday than Christmas in ancient times. The focus shifted to Christmas only after the Norse holiday Yule was Christianized and rescheduled to Dec. 25. Kauffner (talk) 10:14, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Stocking link

With the article locked, I can't fix the link in the Christmas decorations section that has stockings linked to stockings not Christmas stockings. Can someone aid here? Heiyuu (talk) 19:29, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Done! Thank you for pointing it out, Heiyuu. Maedin\^talk 19:34, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Small alteration?

Anyone disagree/care to comment about changing the opening from "an annual holiday celebrated on December 25" to "an annual Christian and cultural holiday celebrated on December 25"? I'm thinking it might be better to disambiguate that in the beginning? Thanks all for input. — ^{`</sup>CRAZY`(lN)`SANE<sup>`} 01:37, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Don't you mean, "Christian and secular"? Also, you can take out the word "annual." If the holiday is celebrate on December 25, it is obviously annual. Kauffner (talk) 01:58, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I don't think we can call it both "Christian" and "secular", these words contradict each other. If it's secular, it's free of religious connotations. Using "cultural" I think embraces the fact that it's celebrated by non-Christians for cultural reasons, not explicitly Christian ones. Put it this way: non-Jews don't celebrate Hanukkah just to get presents, because Hanukkah is not a cross-cultural holiday. — ^{`</sup>CRAZY`(lN)`SANE<sup>`} 13:41, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

"Secular Christmas" is a standard phrase, way more common than "cultural Christmas." "Free of religious connotations" is exactly the point, because otherwise the teacher's unions and the ACLU will object to the celebration. The U.S. postal service puts out separate religious and secular Christmas stamps every year. Kauffner (talk) 16:32, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

• The existing "an annual holiday celebrated on December 25[1] that marks and honors the birth of Jesus of Nazareth" seems to do the job fine - and does not involve culture wars --JimWae (talk) 16:47, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I guess non-logged in users cannot edit or something? I'd just like to point out a typo in "Christian Origins:" "Some modern theologians have used this arguments to state that Origen would have opposed the celebration of Christmas" should either be "have used this argument" or "have used these arguments"

Another problem, a grammatical error in Nativity: "Live Nativity scenes, and tableaux vivants are also performed, using actors and live animals to portray the event with more realism" it should be reformatted, possibly: "Live Nativity scenes, tableaux vivants are also performed using actors and live animals to portray the event with more realism"

Thanks for pointing out these errors. The page is semi-protected due to the high amount of vandalism this article regularly gets. I changed the first grammar error to "this argument", but was unsure about the second one. A live Nativity scene is not necessarily a tableau vivant, so I kept the "and" but removed the superfluous comma. Hope it's suitable! Maedin\^talk 19:47, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Consumerism

Should there be something on consumerism that is now the new christmas? I guess I'm talking about constant adds, banners, promotions to buy things for Christmas, or in the name of Christmas - Charlie 2602 —Preceding undated comment was added at 08:11, 3 November 2008 (UTC).

May I suggest an alteration, along the suggested guidelines to the phrase: "Many modern scholars view the two Gospel accounts as theological fictions.[39]" Naturally getting a percentage is next to impossible, but it is worth noting that "Many scholars" makes it sound like the majority consensus has decreed the story to be a ficiton, whereas of course scholarship is varied depending on the school (liberal-conservative) that they come from. A better phrase may be "Scholarship is divided on the historicity of the biblical accounts, from those who regard the gospel narratives as essentially historical fiction through to those of a more traditional and conservative nature who hold to a literal interpretation."

A reference for such a position might be commentaries on Matthew's gospel by either RT France or DA Carson.

Suggested external link

Gosh. Scary external link notice. Would the external link gnomes please consider the relevance for the reader interested in the origin and associations of Christmas:

• Christmas: Its Origin and Associations, by William Francis Dawson, 1902, from Project Gutenberg

and if declined, be kind enough to state the reason. Thanks. --Tagishsimon (talk) 19:06, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Re mosaic depicting Jesus as a "sun god"

Regarding the mosaic depicting Jesus as a sun god, that isn't a proper translation. The mosaic depicts Jesus as the SON OF god, the 'light' coming from his head which resembles rays coming from the sun is metaphoric, and means the light of god. Do some research on this please... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.186.115.111 (talk) 12:25, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Christo sole, the caption, does indicate "Christ the sun". If you have any presentable evidence on the matter, that would be useful. --Doktorspin (talk) 03:38, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Julius Africanus

I've replaced the following:

Sextus Julius Africanus popularized the idea that Christ was born on December 25 in his Chronographiai, a reference book for Christians written in AD 221.

There seems to be nothing in the Chronography to support this. I've replaced it with an indirect indication from Africanus. Please feel free to check the Africanus fragments. See here [3].

--Doktorspin (talk) 23:32, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

As someone who didn't read this discussion reverted the above correction, I've restored my original change, adding that the date of 21 March as the vernal equinox "may have been seen as later due to inaccuracies in the calendar at the time".

--Doktorspin (talk) 00:17, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

The previous version was sourced to Britannica. No copies of Chronographai have survived, so we have to rely on scholarly speculation as to what it contained. You haven't shown that Britannia is in error. Africanus could have mentioned the idea in both books. The March 21 stuff is just wrong. March 21 was picked as a standardized date for the equinox by the First Council of Nicaea in 325, about a century after Africanus. The astronomically correct date varies somewhat from year to year. At the time Africanus was writing, March 25 was considered the first day of spring. It was celebrated by the Romans as Hilaria, the festival of joy. Why is Annunciation on March 25? By your logic, it should be on March 21. Kauffner (talk) 13:02, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Britannica is not a source. We do not rely on speculation. We rely on evidence. If there are no copies of his chronography then there is no way for Britannica to have the evidence. However, we have fragments of the chronography preserved in other writings and there is nothing about Christmas in them. As to the vernal equinox, it doesn't vary more than a day: it is either 20th or 21st -- that's due to irregularities in the calendar not the event itself. Regular observable astronomical phenomena are funny in that they don't change much over the millennia.

Now where is your evidence for March 25th as the first day of spring? Neither the Roman Calendar nor the Fasti of Ovid mention the Hilaria Matris Deum. Our source for this Hilaria goes back to the Historia Augusta, a bogus history, which is apparently dated to the 4th century, but may be much later. This Hilaria was actually a feast over four days, the last and most important was the 8th day before the Kalends of April, ie 25th April, the first being 22nd.

If you read the Wiki article on the Annunciation you'll find: "The date is close to the vernal equinox". Note, that it isn't the vernal equinox. It is probably ultimately based on a particular date for the Jewish new year, which is the first new moon after the vernal equinox. There is no evidence for your claim: "At the time Africanus was writing, March 25 was considered the first day of spring."

Unless you can get some real evidence to the contrary, I suggest you leave the correction alone. Doktorspin (talk) 17:35, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Bruce Metzger, Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 73, No. 3 (Sep., 1954), p. 176, tells us of a work by Lazzarato, "in the same sentence he affirms that Julius says that Jesus was conceived on March 25, in the 5500th year of the world, and was born December 25, 5500 (p. 73) - oblivious that this last is nothing more than de Lagarde's opinion (Mittheilungen, IV, 317; cited by Lazzarato) of what Julius [Africanus] may have held and ought to have written!" --Doktorspin (talk) 20:33, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

As near as I can tell, your sources are a post on a message board on this fragment from Africanus: "Lady Pege, Spring-bearer, thou mother of the heavenly constellation." From this you conclude that Africanus was referring to March 21 as the first day of spring that this is the source of Christmas. You really don't see why Britannica beats this line of speculation?

• "The Julian Calendar was also set so that the vernal equinox would fall on March 25 in 46BCE, the traditional date at the time." Bradt, Hale, Astronomy Methods (2004), p. 69.
• "Dionysius also set March 25 as the date of Christ's conception and fixed this date as the beginning of the Christian year." Mayer, Robert A., "It's Time to KO Our Calendar Chaos", (1959). Kauffner (talk) 11:26, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

If you had checked out the source I gave in the last version you removed, you could have seen exactly where I got the reference to the "spring-bearer". It was from a fragment by Africanus. You might find this hard to understand but there is nothing in the Africanus fragments -- and please take the time to actually look at them before continuing --, nothing about December 25. Please look at them. The only reference that indicates anything is the one I pointed out. It actually is in Africanus, though you don't know because you haven't looked at the primary source. The reference to the chronography is worse than useless and I must now remove it again, because it has nothing to do with anything. i don't understand how you could continue to put back rubbish that has no basis whatsoever. --Doktorspin (talk) 12:11, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

I have added some information here. According to this source - and the Bradt quote appears also to support this - 25 March was the date of the spring equinox in the Julian calendar. I can see nothing that shows that Africanus made a specific suggestion that 25 December was the date of the birth of Jesus; this seems to have been a speculation of Paul de Lagarde, writing in 1897; it is certainly not universally accepted, and indeed the idea that the date was arrived at by calculation based on the supposed crucifixion date is one view, probably a minority one (according to Roll). --Rbreen (talk) 13:32, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Why a minority view? Roll cites Talley as the leading authority on this issue and Talley favors the "calculation hypothesis," as she calls it. It can't be coincidence that Annunciation and Christmas are exactly nine months apart. I think the origin part of the article should be be rewritten so the two serious theories are side by side and can be compared. The way it is now, a series of pet theories are presented. Kauffner (talk) 16:34, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I've looked at this more closely: Specifically, Roll describes the calculation hypothesis as "historically the minority opinion concerning the origins of Christmas" (page 87-88) - possibly by 'historically' she means in the past only; she goes on to state that the most recent secondary sources in English treat the two hypotheses as equal, but the French and German sources remain reserved about the calculation hypothesis (page 96). That sounds as if the History of Religions approach is still ahead, if only by a neck. I agree that ideally both should be clearly stated in the same place for the reader to judge; at the moment it is not clear that two distinct theories exist. --Rbreen (talk) 17:20, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Please show me where in Africanus's chronography one can find a reference to the crucifixion of Jesus being related to his birth. I have removed the following hopefully until someone will actually find in Africanus the basis for what seems completely unrelated to Africanus.

Early Christians believed that Christ was crucified on March 25, the date of the vernal equinox on the Roman calendar. In Chronographai, a reference work for Christians published in AD 221, Sextus Julius Africanus argued that Jesus was also conceived on this date, an event now marked as Annunciation. The idea that Jesus was conceived on the same date that he died is consistent with a Jewish belief that a prophet lived an integral number of years. Dec. 25 is nine months after Annunciation and also the date of the winter solstice on the Roman calendar.

The celebration of Christmas as a feast did not arise for some time after Chronographai was published.

If you intend to change it, please cite primary sources, otherwise I will remove it again as spurious. The reason why I mentioned the reference to Pege was because it was an indirect means from Africanus at arriving at a date from the conception. This is not in his chronography. And the claim that early christians believed that Christ was crucified on March 25 may be interesting but so far is only a conjectural relationship with the birth. We need evidence, not the rehashing of conjectures repeated so often they become a substitute for facts. --Doktorspin (talk) 12:11, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Please have a look at the Wikipedia policy on verifiable sources and original research. It clearly states that "Wikipedia articles should rely mainly on published reliable secondary sources". It also states that "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation." The original statement that Africanus popularised 25 December as the birthdate of Jesus is not supported by the cited scholarly work, but this source does clearly state that he suggested 25 March as the date of the conception. The connection between the dating of the conception and of the birth is still conjectural (even if it seems obvious today) and we need to make that clear. But removing information from reliable secondary sources in favour of your intepretation of primary sources is original research, if it seems obvious to you. By all means find an alternative secondary source or try to reword the text while retaining the point the cited source is making. --Rbreen (talk) 17:22, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

There is nothing reliable about stuff that has no primary source for it. I've already cited Metzger who clearly says it's baseless conjecture. As there is clearly no evidence for this misuse of Africanus's chronography, the conjecture needs to go. Do you want to help debase the quality of Wiki content? --Doktorspin (talk) 13:20, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

That Christmas is Annuciation plus nine months and that both March 25 and Decemeber 25 were solar dates on the Roman calendar -- This much is not in dispute, so removal of this information cannot be justified. It is the view of modern scholars that this scheme originated with Africanus, although no surviving fragment of his writing states this, at least not in a straightforward way. Your source is where you got the information from. There is no way a non-specialist can figure all this out from reading Africanus fragments -- and it's dishonest to cite him directly as if you could. Kauffner (talk) 05:17, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I tried to bring your attention to the relevance of the First Nicean council, which, to both our own sufferings, you didn't notice. Please read the Wiki entry here to understand that before Nicea there was no standard date for Easter and that Easter was always previously related to the Jewish Passover and thus the Jewish lunar-based year, meaning that it changed yearly. Perhaps you might like to change that entry as well. You might like to read Schaff's analysis of the issue here [4]. Easter wasn't celebrated on March 25. The vernal equinox used at Nicea was March 21. This was due to the slow drift from an inaccurate calendar. As to Africanus, and as you will neither listen to me nor look at the source text, I indicated above that one of the Greek biblical scholars, Bruce Metzger, pointed out that there was no basis to the claims that Africanus's chronography deals with Christmas. --Doktorspin (talk) 13:20, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I never claimed that Easter was ever on March 25, so I don't what you're going on about. The date has always varied from year to year. For Wiki, the best source is up-to-date scholarship, such as Susan Roll's book. This book is referenced in the text you keep removing. To put your own spin on the primary sources is WP:Original research. I can at least understand your objection to Chronographai, but why do you remove the entire paragraph? Even if the idea originated with some other author, the explanation given is still valid. Not that it matters, but the reason the date of the equinox moved from March 25 to March 21 isn't because of calendar drift, but because of political manipulation of the calendar by Caesar and Augustus. The Romans continued to mark the March 25 as the first day of spring and only specialists knew or cared that the calendar was a few days off. For example, Pliny (HN 18.221) wrote that the solstice was on Dec. 25, unaware that the astronomically correct date is Dec. 21. Kauffner (talk) 16:01, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

The accusation that I am putting "my own spin" to primary sources because the information isn't in the primary sources seems a little forced as an excuse. Here is a blow-by-blow reason for removing the whole section. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

• Early Christians believed that Christ was crucified on March 25,[21]

The text that the footnote includes has this: "It probably originated shortly before or after the council of Ephesus (c. 431). At the time of the Synod of Laodicea (372) it was not known". Early Christians here refers to circa 431 and is therefore too late for our purposes of dating Christmas.

What about this text: The opinion that the Incarnation also took place on that date [March 25] is found in the pseudo-Cyprianic work "De Pascha Computus", c. 240.[5] Kauffner (talk) 07:56, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

A pseudo-Cyrianic text which believed that Jesus died on March 28th? Three days too late for your speculation. --Doktorspin (talk) 08:42, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

New Advent says March 25. I don't know where you got March 28 from. Kauffner (talk) 11:47, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

March 28 comes from "De Pascha Computus", if you had noted your sources, and that date is for the birth of Christ. I'll have to cite this text in the main article on Christmas as one of the theories flying round. --Doktorspin (talk) 01:53, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

That's obviously not that same as either the date Jesus was incarnated or the date he died. Many dates for the nativity were suggested by early church writers. The issue is why did they settle on December 25. As far as when Jesus was really born, there is no basis to even make an educated guess. It's not like anyone ever celebrated on March 28. Kauffner (talk) 03:11, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

• In Chronographai, a reference work for Christians published in AD 221, Sextus Julius Africanus argued that Jesus was also conceived on this date, an event now marked as Annunciation.

This is simply erroneous. Africanus's chronography doesn't say anything like this. (And here, check it yourself [6]. Use the index on the left.)

How many times do I have to explain this to you? The book itself hasn't survived. But scholars have made reasonable conjectures as to what it contained. See the Britannica entry on "Christmas" or Susan Roll's book, p. 87.[7] Kauffner (talk) 08:03, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

If it hasn't survived then comments about what hasn't survived are simply conjectural rubbish. Please read again what Metzger said. --Doktorspin (talk) 08:42, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

• The idea that Jesus was conceived on the same date that he died is consistent with a Jewish belief that a prophet lived an integral number of years.[21]

This may be true, but of little consequence without all the erroneous argumentation.

• December 25 is nine months after Annunciation and also the date of the winter solstice on the Roman calendar.[24]

Our job is to work out when Christmas was first celebrated. The claim that the Julian calendar had the winter solstice on Dec 25 based on Ovid is very interesting, because what remains of his Fasti only arrives at June.

Pliny wrote, The winter solstice begins at the eighth degree of Capricorn, the eighth day before the calends of January.[8] This corresponds to Dec. 25. The actual Julian calendar date of the solstice was Dec. 22 in 70AD, so Pliny is giving a conventional date rather than the astronomically correct date. Kauffner (talk) 08:03, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

You didn't respond to my comment. When was Christmas first celebrated????? You might be interested in conjectures about Ovid or the fact that Pliny says the winter solstice began at the eighth degree of Capricorn, but it is irrelevant to you giving indications of when Christmas was celebrated. The best thing you have is that De Pascha Computa tells you that Jesus died on March 28th. You have nothing else. --Doktorspin (talk) 08:42, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

When was Christmas first celebrated??? Talley says in North Africa by 300. But this is getting way off the subject. Why don't you look this stuff up yourself and contribute something useful instead of just deleting my work? "Eighth day before the calends of January" is the Roman way to say, "December 25," according to a footnote in the text I linked to. Kauffner (talk) 09:20, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

• The celebration of Christmas as a feast did not arise for some time after Chronographai was published.

This may be true but as the Chronographai doesn't mention what was claimed it is irrelevant.

What can be kept of the material? The only reason why I mentioned the "spring-bearer" was to give some semblance of justification for mentioning Africanus. That wasn't liked, for one preferred to remain in error. What followed was post hoc justification. --Doktorspin (talk) 21:35, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't know why you are continuing this Kauffner: you've made no inroads to explaining anything that you need to explain. You are still using a text that you can't know anything about regarding Christmas. You haven't supplied anything other than one of apparently numerous indications of when Jesus died, for as you should know if you read about the 1st Nicene Council, neither Alexandria nor Rome worked from the sorts of indications found in De Pascha Computa, but used the Hebrew pesach. It's time for you to admit that you haven't got a clue when Christmas started and that you are prepared to put up rubbish rather than admit the fact. --Doktorspin (talk) 08:42, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Niceae didn't set any date for Christmas, but only for Easter. Up-to-date scholarship like Roll and Britannica is not "rubbish". You demanded primary sources, but when I gave them to you couldn't read them because you don't even know basic stuff like what a calend is. Kauffner (talk) 11:47, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

You don't seem to read Roll closely. She refers to Paul de Lagarde in a footnote on p.79 that you cited and yet you do not deal with Metzger's comment on de Lagarde. Dependence on Britannica is a form of Russian roulette. You still haven't given me primary sources, just relatively modern conjectures. Your attempts to confuse the issue with the Julian calendar do not help you, for we are looking for the date as to when Christ's birth first came to be recognized as Dec 25. If you've read the literature you cite you've seen how "De Pascha Computus" in 243 dates the birth to March 28 (see Roll p.81f), so obviously Dec 25 birth hadn't been established by then. --Doktorspin (talk) 01:53, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Third opinion

I'm only going to comment on whether material that is not directly mentioned in an historical text (be it Chronographai or a dead sea scroll or text deciphered from a Mohenjodaro seal) is inadmissible in the article. The straightforward answer to that is no, such material is not inadmissible. There are several reasons for why this is acceptable in scholarly work, the main one being that reasonably accurate conjectures about what is missing can be made from other contemporary or later works and scholars are quite good at doing this. However, a better way to look at ancient texts as a source is to see whether text from a surviving fragment can be used as a source and the long answer to that is no. Only material that is published in peer reviewed scholarly journals should be used to support statements about historical events. Anything else, including direct quotes from that ancient text (which, naturally and inconveniently, was not written in 21st century English!) should first be written up in an article for submission to a peer review journal and then, once accepted, be reported here on wikipedia. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a vehicle for research. Now, I am in no position to comment about the details of the various sources described above but my suggestion is that any direct reference to any ancient text be dropped as an argument for including, excluding, or reorganizing the contents of this article. --Regents Park (bail out your boat) 19:26, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Reorganization of dating information

In Jerusalem, they were still celebrating the nativity on Epiphany (January 6) in 385, according to Egeria. So, yes, it took a long time for the December 25 date to gain general acceptance. The Armenians still celebrate on January 6 even today. Lagarde's opinion that Africanus gave December 25 as the date of the nativity has already been taken out, although IMO it is a reasonable view expressed by a major bible scholar. Kauffner (talk) 03:53, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

The statement about early Christians is not correct when early for your citation is circa 431 CE. You need a more relevant citation. I've moved the reference to the chronography to the footnote, though kept the data. Speculations as to how 25 Dec was arrived at cannot be verified. Replaced the hypothesis with a chronicle of thoughts. I've just noticed the large reorganization of the dating issue, inserting a paragraph regarding theories of how the date was derived. It doesn't belong where you've put it and your reshaping of the material is in my eyes unsettling and only indirectly related to the history. Frankly I don't know what to do with the paragraph. And I understand the structure you attempted to impose on the material based on the opinions in this paragraph. I've put it in italics to set it off from the actual historical indications. --Doktorspin (talk) 02:21, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

You just keep building more and more tendentious material into the article as you touch more of it. Please step back and give facts rather than so much shaping. And stop putting material about the developing traditions after the heading "Feast established" -- it doesn't make sense. --Doktorspin (talk) 04:50, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

If I've left out anything, it's probably unintentional. The historical interpretation re Newton et al. from the modern period is now before both the non-Christian traditions and the historical Christian indications. --Doktorspin (talk) 05:40, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

"Early Christians" means Tertullian, who wrote around 200.

And you note, once you supplied decent references, I didn't change it. --Doktorspin (talk) 12:46, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

When I cite specialist scholarship, you call it "opinion" or "tendentious," as if everything should be sourced to primary documents.

When you misrepresent what you cite and intersperse tendentious commentary with history, what else can it be called? --Doktorspin (talk) 12:46, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

You need to look at the WP:RS: Wikipedia articles should be based around reliable secondary sources. This means that while primary or tertiary sources can be used to support specific statements, the bulk of the article should rely on secondary sources.[9] "History" is what historians have to say. Its illogical to shunt the historians off into a section separate from history. Kauffner (talk) 11:31, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

You are confusing your mangling of what you read and your desires to push your tendentious interpretations for use of reliable sources. You are forcing Newton and 19th century stuff into a chronicle of the history of the development of ideas regarding the date of the birth. I haven't attempted to remove the material, but to take it out of where it does not belong.

"Patristic commentary" is a misnomer for the developments on the idea. Your desire to interweave your 19th c. opinions with both christian development and the birth day of the unconquered sun becomes a mishmash of diverse types of information. I have tried to keep things clean, putting the non-Christian materials back together and separate from the Christian materials.

We don't know the relationship between them and so far it is only conjecture. Your desire to inject Newton et al. should simply be removed, but I leave it, like you should leave the material you keep leaving out. And if you don't know what the difference between a text scholar and a historian is, you should leave the whole matter alone. And WTF is Newton being dragged into this at all for? He's welcome to an opinion, but is totally irrelevant. Unless I've missed something small, I can see no saving grace for your last attempt, so I'm reverting. --Doktorspin (talk) 12:46, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

As the material stands, we have the following section order:

1. Etymology
2. Theories of the origins of Christmas
3. Non-Christian traditions
   1. The birthday of the Undefeated Sun
   2. Yule (why omit this?)
4. History
   1. Origins
      1. Towards the feast (or find a more relevant name)
      2. Feast established
   2. Middle Ages
   3. Reformation into the 19th century

Please explain your problems with this. --Doktorspin (talk) 13:17, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

What am I "misrepresenting"? You routinely take the extreme "assume bad faith" position: Everything you don't understand must be a lie.

The world isn't just black and white. What you put up must be based on evidence. If what you put up has none behind it them it doesn't stand until it does. In a court of law you don't accept just anybody to give testimony. You have to vet the witness, just as you have to vet the information. I'm sorry if you see lies (reflection of black and white thinking), but no basis means no value. --Doktorspin (talk) 21:25, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Your most recent version uses the same material as mine, but you're dividing the sources into arbitary categories and creating an article structure based on those categories.

I try to preserve as much of what is already in an article, whether I like it or not. The reference to the name Chronographai, which is simply conjecture on your sources' part should be moved to a footnote. BU the only thing I would throw out is inoffensive when removed from its interference in the history. --Doktorspin (talk) 21:25, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

A large percentage of readers probably want an answer to the question, "Why is Christmas on Dec. 25?" So the material on date selection should be in one place and the subdivided according to the two major scholarly theories (by Duchesne and Usener). This is based on the presentation in Roll's book. Newton's theory is significant as a precursor to Duchesne's. After all, the material about the date is only three paragraphs.

And it's all conjecture on their part as to why Christmas is on Dec. 25. Dead space. There is no way to falsify either theory. But, instead of trashing it, I move it out of the historical development and put it before, so that it will have the effect of being relevant of sorts to the material that follows it without sullying historical and traditional data. --Doktorspin (talk) 21:25, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

The idea that using scholarly sources sullies the purity of writing that uses primary sources only is a valid point of view, but it goes against Wikipedia policy, as I have explained more than once already. Kauffner (talk) 04:39, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

You're not dealing with the issue. You are mixing relatively modern opinions with a chronicle history and thus making the history unclear. Your appeal to scholarly sources includes Newton and opinions of a century ago.

As for Yule, it doesn't belong at the beginning because it has nothing to do with the origin of Christmas. It became a significant in the development of Christmas only after northern Europe Christianized. Besides, Yule has its own article. Kauffner (talk) 15:25, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Yet Yule is inextricably linked to Christmas and shouldn't be swept under the carpet with a sentence.

You haven't responded to the question about the structure which should show a clearer approach to the data. Why doesn't it do what you want (without mixing modern conjectures with the data)? --Doktorspin (talk) 21:25, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

You're splitting stuff you like from stuff you don't like, presumably in preparation for removal. The article should be organized by subject matter. Kauffner (talk) 04:39, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

You're right I don't like it. It's got nothing to do with where you want to put it. The History section has developments from the beginnings up to the modern times. Your chosen opinions don't belong with that. --Doktorspin (talk) 11:09, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

If we look at what he's editing, it's obvious that "Doktorspin" is an atheist who is sad enough to spend his time corrupting all the articles about Christmas to peddle his nasty religious views. We don't need his comments. Just revert his changes; he doesn't give a damn what the facts are, doesn't understand the policies, and is engaged in intentional dishonesty. The evidence is that the reason he presumes bad faith is that he is editing on that basis. Demonteddybear (talk) 16:30, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Insults from an angry sockpuppet are welcome. --Doktorspin (talk) 21:25, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Christmas presents

Why is there not an article or section referring to the common custom of giving and receiving presents on Christmas? ClaudeReigns (talk) 05:13, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Why not write a paragraph on presents? Someone will check it out and probably rewrite it, then someone else, but you will have started the subject rolling! --Doktorspin (talk) 15:36, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Apologetic crucifixion dating

The use of March 25 as when early christians celebrated the crucifixion is seeming more and more an apologetic device. It's clearly unknown to Eusebius E.H. 5.23ff and to Anatolius who is responsible for establishing the cyclical calculations still in use today. Before those times the general approach to celebrating the crucifixion was reflective of the Jewish lunar calendar. It was Anatolius who augmented it so that the celebration always fell after the vernal equinox. What should be clear is that the position on March 25 contradicts the Wiki information on the dating of Easter. Tertullian's date of the crucifixion, despite being on March 25, was in error for his day didn't work out to be as he claimed. Besides it doesn't represent a manifestation of celebration: it was a scholarly calculation. --Doktorspin (talk) 06:37, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Calculating a date to celebrate Easter and giving a Julian calendar date for crucification are two different things. The fact that March 25 can't possibly be the real date of crucifixion is not relevant. Africanus could still have gotten the March 25 from Tertullian. March 25 was Christian New Year's Day for hundreds of years. The "Early Christian" stuff is the from Catholic Encyclopedia. If readers want to know how Easter was calculated, they can look at the Easter article. Kauffner (talk) 16:10, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Sadly Tertullian wrote in Latin and Africanus in Greek. There was little direct interchange between the languages, especially when one considers that Tertullian was seen as a Montanist heretic. You should be cautioned as to the lack of credibility for March 25 as the date of celebration of the crucifixion by the unwillingness to celebrate it. The Julian date was guesswork by Tertullian and there is no sign that it was considered. Which ancient writers ever cite Tertullian? My copy of Eusebius E.H. says Eusebius knew very little about Tertullian. This modern stuff about March 25 is fairly plainly apologetic. --Doktorspin (talk) 17:35, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Roll, pp.79-81 basically eliminates Hippolytus, so we are left with Tertullian's one-off reference with its accompanying error. --Doktorspin (talk) 18:08, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

"All Christian antiquity (against all astronomical possibility) recognized the 25th of March as the actual day of Our Lord's death," according to Catholic Encyclopedia.[10] It cites "De Pascha Computus." Roll also gives Epiphanius as a source. (p. 74) The secondary sources should be more than adequate. You're reexamining the primary sources in a way that I find inappropriate. Kauffner (talk) 18:40, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Epiphanius is irrelevant being too late. "De Pascha Computus" is a fat lot of help, giving Jesus birth as March 28. You've still got just Tertullian and then apologetics. If you want to rehearse apologetics, then it doesn't matter what the sources say. If you're interested in what we can know, then all sources are important to consider. --Doktorspin (talk) 19:23, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Bruma

I've removed the internet conjecture regarding the bruma being on the solstice. Ausonius in his 14th eclogue explains that there were nineteen days from the bruma to January, ie the bruma was on December 11. --Doktorspin (talk) 02:41, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

You're reading Ausonius in Latin? Roll says bruma is winter solstice (p. 127). So does this dictionary. Pliny wrote, bruma capricorni a. d. VIII kal. Ian. fere,[11]. Roughly, "bruma, sun in capricorn, eight days before the kalends of January (Dec. 25)." In any case, I didn't put it back in. Kauffner (talk) 11:11, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Here's what Ausonius says:

"Ter senis unoque die genialia festa

porrigit ut Ianum arcessat nova bruma morantem."

For thrice-six and one days feasts and cheer

prolongs the new winter before he summon lingering Janus.

That's 19 days before January. Ausonius was writing in the mid 4th c. so he's the same distance after Aurelian that Pliny is before. The calendar was already out of sync by the time of Aurelian. --Doktorspin (talk) 06:37, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Festival of Janus was January 9.[12] By your own translation, nova bruma is the first day of winter. The Julian calendar drifts by one day in 400 years, so it wouldn't have drifted significantly over this period of time. The Julian calendar went out-of-sync soon after it was first introduced because of political manipulation. (They wanted January 1 to be a market day, which was considered lucky.) Kauffner (talk) 16:34, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

The Romans counted inclusively. Nineteen-minus-one days before Jan. 9 is Dec. 22. This is the date for the solstice set by the Council of Nicea. Kauffner (talk) 04:39, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Christmas the 24th

In Sweden and (all?) other nordic countries Christmas is celebrated the 24th, is there a reason it haven't been mentioned.78.70.130.199 (talk) 21:34, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I was unaware of that. If you can get a source we can put that into the article. NJMauthor (talk) 22:48, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Christmas is by definition on December 25. But, yes, Scandinavia celebrates on Christmas Eve. Germany is the same. Years ago, Christmas Day was considered too religious for Santa Claus and the secular aspects of the holiday. Now religious observance has declined and it is just Christmas Eve that gets celebrated. Kauffner (talk) 02:10, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

http://www.luth.se/luth/present/sweden/history/folklore/christmas.html http://www.iceland.org/us/the-embassy/curiosities/nr/757 http://www2.norway.or.jp/culture/jul/xmasinnorway.htm This text mentions Denmark but also Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Austria and Hungary: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Does_every_country_celebrate_Christmas 78.70.130.199 (talk) 23:14, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Merry article name, everybody!

Hehehe! I'll put one of these into the Miscellaneous section of the village pump, because I'm guessing this is technically the wrong place for this.Yellow Mage (talk) 13:47, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Orthodox, Armenians

I notice there is no longer an explanation of why the Orthodox celebrate on January 7, (i.e. because they still follow the Julian Calendar.) As for the Armenians, they are not really celebrating Christmas on January 6. The name for the holiday in Armenian corresponds to Epiphany, a holiday recognized by other churches as well. Kauffner (talk) 14:11, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Excess images

This article has an excess amount of images that should be reduced. Zithan (talk) 18:10, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

What's the Wikipedia rule on images? At what point do they become "in excess"? NJMauthor (talk) 01:57, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I removed one image. (Origin-- it's not an interesting image visually.) I also reduced the size of other images to "thumb." This means the size is set by the user's browser. I also staggered the photos, so I think this problem has been addressed. The only relevant wiki standard I know of is to avoid "stackup" -- one image directly above another. Kauffner (talk) 04:09, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Images are supposed to lend a critical understanding of the text. Excess images would be if the images affect the layout, pushing the sectional headings to the right, stacking and so on. Zithan (talk) 15:20, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Little Confused

My family has celebrated Christmas December 25th, since well, not sure. However even though we're Eastern Orthodox it says Christmas is January 7th. Is it because we use the Gregorian calendar and then the Orthodox Calendar's January which is the Gregorian December 25th? But then why is Easter celebrated on a different day? Kostantino888Z (talk) 16:57, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

This article need to be changed

The article starts with the incorrect claim that "Christmas, also referred to as Christmas Day or Christmastide, is an annual holiday celebrated on December 25 that marks and honors the birth of Jesus of Nazareth." There are many countries which are celebrating christmas on another day than 25 December.

The problem here is that the article is called "Christmas". It should rather be called "Christmas Day" or "Christmastide", because Christmas in a single word is the day when the celebrating actually takes place, which is far from always on 25 December. There is already an article about Christmas Eve. This should be an article about Christmas Day, and an article about Christmas should be about the celebrating of Christmas in general, no matter what date it is. No offence, but the whole article seems to be made by Americans, which takes it for granted that Christmas and Christmas Day is the same. Christmas Day is 25 December, Christmas is the day when the Christmas is celebrated. 80.202.40.85 (talk) 00:50, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

It's not just America. The English-speaking countries all celebrate on December 25 -- and this is English Wikipedia. Kauffner (talk) 05:06, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, but Christmas is celebrated by most or the whole western world, so just because we are talking about the English Wikipedia, it doesn't mean Christmas celebration and Christmas Day should mean the same. At least not without clarify it more in the first part of the article first. 80.202.40.85 (talk) 05:48, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

There are separate articles for Christmas Eve, Christmastide and Christmas season. This article is about Christmas Day, known synonymously as simply "Christmas". We could theoretically rename this article to "Christmas Day", but the more popular term is "Christmas" when referring to the Dec. 25 holiday. — ^{`</sup>CRAZY`(lN)`SANE<sup>`} 06:34, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I know, but not everybody who visits this article knows it. The term "Christmas" is the most popular term not only for those who celebrates Crhistmas Day, but also for those who celebrates Christmas Eve (and other days, for all I know). This is not just the English Wikipedia, it is also the main Wikipedia, used by persons all over the world, English speaking or not. Which is something that should be taken into consideration when writing articles. 80.202.40.85 (talk) 23:35, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

WP:article name should help this discussion. I think that the article is properly named based on this wikipolicy. English Wikipedia should use the name that most Readers would identify with which is not necessarily the most correct name for the article subject. NancyHeise ^talk 17:17, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Like I said, no matter what the article is called, there should be added some info in the beginning of the article to clarify stuff (not halfway through). And I feel it is not the Wikipedia way to ignore other users and readers who doesn't have English as a mother language in cases like this. Because this is more than just language, it also reflects cultural differences. 80.202.40.85 (talk) 00:16, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Alternatively, we could leave the date out of the first paragraph. The infobox already lists dates observed. There's no need for just one of them to appear in the first paragraph. Including them all in the first paragraph would make it too wordy. Rklawton (talk) 18:52, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Jews, muslims and others

The article should maybe discuss on how christmas is received in other cultures and religions. I have noticed that the majority of jews and moslems do NOT celebrate christmas in any formal way, and in fact they usually refuse to purchase christmas trees. (cf [13], [14], [15], [16]) This could contribute to the perception that Christmas is not very multi-religious and therefore is maybe much less adaptable to secularism and related consumerism. 69.157.229.14 (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 03:39, 20 December 2008 (UTC).

I have noticed the exact opposite. It may just be your community; are you in the US? NJMauthor (talk) 00:04, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

YULE (circa December 21) (Winter Solstice, December 20-23 (varies according to the particular date on the standard calendar according to when the Solstice will occur astronomically)). Longest night of the year, the turning point when the days shall afterwards grow longer as winter begins its passage into the coming spring. It is, in the Goddess worship, the time when she gives forth again to the birth of the Divine Sun child who shall be both child and eventually lover and father of the next child in the cycle. Winter Solstice for pagans is a time of feasting and the exchanging of gifts and is the original Holiday that the Christian religions modified into their own Christmas, even up to the birth of the child (Most theologians who have spent time studying the birth of Jesus admit he was born in either March or April, not the celebrated Christmas date we all know from the standard calendar - it was moved to this date to help induce Pagans to give up their old ways yet allow them their holidays during the spread of Christianity through Europe and the British Isles). Traditional adornments are a Yule Log, usually of oak, and a combination of mistletoe and holly (also all later plagiarized into Christian ways). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.48.33.110 (talk) 02:22, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

k? NJMauthor (talk) 04:54, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

According to Bede, "Yule" was the name of a month on the Anglo-Saxon calendar. So Yule as a feast must have developed after Bede's time. Perhaps Nordic pagans created the holiday to join in the fun of Christmas. According to Snorri, pagan Yule was on "the night of mid-winter," possibly the full or new moon in January, and the holiday was moved to December 25 when Scandinavia was Christianized. Kauffner (talk) 16:01, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Mithras, Sol Invictus, Saturnalia and the Roman Winter Solstice

I believe there's a bit of a mix-up. Although some sources (don't know how credible) place Mithras's birthday on 25 December, the Romans were celebrating the solstice (probably since the days of the early Republic) and the birthday of "Sol Invictus" up until the point that Sol Invictus was made a state deity.

So write an article on it. Leave it out of Christmas. You are simply trying to discredit Christianity. There is already WAY TOO MUCH written in this article about every Pagan angle to the holiday. The article is on CHRISTMAS, a CHRISTIAN HOLIDAY celebrating the birth of CHRIST. This makes some people teeth-grindingly angry, I know. Get over it. Go research the "other religions impact" on Islamic tradition. Oooops forgot. That would be intolerant. But attacking Christianity is THE sign of intellectual superiority. 24.21.105.252 (talk) 07:44, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how the apparently honest query by NJMauthor merits this kind of anonymous abuse. While seeking to obscure or falsify historical facts in reference works with the agenda of discrediting Christianity is despicable, so is doing likewise to try to bolster that faith. I see no reason to assume that NJMauthor's comments indicate some secret anti-Christian agenda. On the other hand, your over-the-top assault does raise red-flags about your own ability to put personal ideologies in check and contribute to unbiased reference works. If you have some reason to doubt the good faith of people inquiring into possible syncretism between Christianity and other faiths around the date of December 25th and the Winter Solsitice, why not step forward with your evidence and a signature. It only takes four tildes. Let me demonstrate: TheCormac (talk) 17:27, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Obviously this date was used for the celebration of Christmas for the reconciliation of the Romans' desire to continue the tradition/incorporate past traditions. But to say that it was deliberately derived from the celebration of Mithras's birthday seems misleading. I'm inviting all you guys to give your input on this topic. NJMauthor (talk) 00:34, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

December 25 was Bruma (solstice) first. Christmas, Sol Invictus and Mithas all came later -- presumably placed on Dec. 25 because this was already recognized as a solar day. Mithras was an official religion the emperors sponsored as a reply to Christianity, which is why some elements are similar. Some editors seem to be confusing the Da Vinci Code with real history. Kauffner (talk) 16:34, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Kauffner; that sequence of events is how I thought the adaptations occured. Thanks for confirming that. We should also re-write the intro paragraph as someone has randomly thrown in material from the origins section; that belongs in the origin section and not the intro. NJMauthor (talk) 18:11, 12 December 2008 (UTC) Edit: I see you already revised that. Good work! NJMauthor (talk) 18:15, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Well! according to encyclopedia Britannica: The ecclesiastical calendar retains numerous remnants of pre-Christian festivals—notably Christmas, which blends elements including both the feast of the Saturnalia and the birthday of Mithra.

so do you mean that the article in britannica derived from Davinci Code? -- Transparagon (talk) 15:07, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

and the winter solstice is not on December 25, check the britannica here or Encarta. it's on Dec 21 or 22 and in Iran an important ancient celebration named Yalda is on that day and actually that's the birthday of Mithra persian god of light or sun, the birth day of Mithras in roman mithraism changed to Dec 25, close to that date and it was adopted by christians. -- Transparagon (talk) 18:15, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Your source doesn't say anything about why December 25 chosen as the date of Christmas. The Romans had a holiday called Bruma on December 25 to celebrate the solstice.[17] The astronomically correct date of the solstice is a separate issue and is complicated by the fact that that Roman calendar was subject to political manipulation. December 25 was the actual date of the solstice when the Julian calendar was introduced in 45BC. The real date soon drifted, but the Romans generally still used the old date up until the Council of Nicaea. As for Mithras, Roman Mithratic literature was produced about century after the Gospels.[18] Kauffner (talk) 02:19, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

The Source doesn't say anything about why December 25 chosen as the date of Christmas?! If you read the text I copied above again it says: The ecclesiastical calendar retains numerous remnants of pre-Christian festivals—notably Christmas, which blends elements including both the feast of the Saturnalia and the birthday of Mithra. and if you beleive that the cristmas is on 25th of December then you see that the text is talking about the adoption of this day by christians in the ecclesiastical calendar. as you mentioned, December 25 was the actual date of the solstice in Rome when the Julian calendar was introduced in 45BC. so the Winter Solstice and the birth of Mithra were both at the same time and celebrated on DEC 25 and both should be mentioned in the header. according to Christmas article in Encyclopedia Encarta:

Many Romans also celebrated the lengthening of daylight following the winter solstice by participating in rituals to glorify Mithra, the ancient Persian god of light (see Mithraism). These and other winter festivities continued through January 1, the festival of Kalends, when Romans marked the day of the new moon and the first day of the month and year.

I should say that, talking about which of the Roman Mithratic literature or the Bilble (I hope that you mean just the new testament) precedes one another won't help and is not related to our discusion about christmas because no date is mentioned in the new testament for the birthday of the so called Christ: if you read the article in Encarta it says:

Although the Gospels describe Jesus’ birth in detail, they never mention the date, so historians do not know on what date he was born. The Roman Catholic Church chose December 25 as the day for the Feast of the Nativity in order to give Christian meaning to existing pagan rituals. For example, the Church replaced festivities honoring the birth of Mithra, the god of light, with festivities to commemorate the birth of Jesus, whom the Bible calls the light of the world.

so the date have been chosen by the Roman Catholic church in the 4th century at the time of Constantine I and here there's another source as a prove in favour of the adoption of birthday of Mithra.

the second source you mentioned about the influence of mithraism on christianity is not neutral and just presenting the veiwpoint of christians. you said that the Roman Mithratic literature was produced about century after the Gospels. I should mention not the today's gospels. in the Bible article in Encarta we read:

"The 27 books of the New Testament are only a fraction of the literary production of the Christian communities in their first three centuries. The principal types of New Testament documents (gospel, epistle, apocalypse) were widely imitated, and the names of apostles or other leading figures were attached to writings designed to fill in the silence of the New Testament (for example, on the childhood and youth of Jesus), to satisfy the appetite for more miracles, and to argue for new and fuller revelations..."

"Extant Greek manuscripts of the New Testament—complete, partial, or fragmentary—now number about 5000. None of these, however, is an autograph, an original from the writer. Probably the oldest is a fragment of the Gospel of John dated about AD 120-40."

also according to Britannica in the article: mithraism:

"There is little notice of the Persian god in the Roman world until the beginning of the 2nd century, but, from the year ad 136 onward, there are hundreds of dedicatory inscriptions to Mithra. This renewal of interest is not easily explained. The most plausible hypothesis seems to be that Roman Mithraism was practically a new creation, wrought by a religious genius who may have lived as late as c. ad 100 and who gave the old traditional Persian ceremonies a new Platonic interpretation that enabled Mithraism to become acceptable to the Roman world"

so until today this matter (which one precedes the other), has been a subject of dispute and both the Precanonical Writings and Mithraic dedicatory inscriptions started simultaneously. Transparagon (talk) 15:30, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

similarities and dissimilarities of Iranian Mithra and Roman Mithras is also the subject of debate and I suggest you read the article about Mithraism here in Encyclopedia Iranica, specially the section : "Continuity versus re-invention" instead of just christian viewpoint. anyway today's New testament and christian doctrine is not the real teachings and thoughts of Jesus in the 1st Century and borrowed numerous things form paganism. as Britannica says in this article:

"the mainstream of Western Christianity owed ancient Rome the firm discipline that gave it stability and shape, combining insistence on established forms with the possibility of recognizing that novelties need not be excluded, since they were implicit from the start".. -- Transparagon (talk) 16:51, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

The Romans did not have a holiday called "Mithras' birthday". I assume you mean Dies Natalis Solis Invicti. The article already has a subsection of this title devoted to the theory that Christmas was derived from this holiday. As far as Britannica goes, what about this line from the "Christmas" article: "December 25 was first identified as the date of Jesus' birth by Sextus Julius Africanus in 221 and later became the universally accepted date." If the date was already chosen by 221, that would precede the Sol Invictus festival. Kauffner (talk) 16:43, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I mentioned seveal articles in Encarta and Britannica about the festivity of honoring the birthday of Mithra in Rome and you still are ignoring them! you have even turn the discussion to whether Jesus Birthday precedes Sol Invictus or not. if you read the next sentence in the article of Britannica that you yourself mentioned here. it says:

"One widespread explanation of the origin of this date is that December 25 was the Christianizing of the dies solis invicti nati (“day of the birth of the unconquered sun”), a popular holiday in the Roman Empire that celebrated the winter solstice as a symbol of the resurgence of the sun,...."

the article is saying: despite that The early Christian community opposed recognizing birthdays of martyrs and Jesus and offered sarcastic comments about the pagan custom of celebrating birthdays, Dec 25 a pagan festival was identified by Sextus Julius Africanus in 221 and later in the 4th century by the force of Constantine became the universally accepted date.

the adoption of that day by Sextus Julius Africanus does not precede the Sol Invictus festival. If you read this article in Britannica it says:

"The height of Syrian influence was in the 3rd century ad when Sol, the Syrian sun god, was on the verge of becoming the chief god of the Roman Empire. He was introduced into Rome by the emperor Elagabalus (Heliogabalus) in about ad 220,"

SOL was an ancient god of Sun in Syria which was adopted by emperor Elagabalus. Transparagon (talk) 17:44, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

So now Elagabalus is responsible for Christmas???? This version of the theory gets us pretty far away from Mithras. You don't think I can read Britannica for myself, or you just didn't notice this part?: One of the difficulties with this view is that it suggests a nonchalant willingness on the part of the Christian church to appropriate a pagan festival when the early church was so intent on distinguishing itself categorically from pagan beliefs and practices. Kauffner (talk) 18:28, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

This source should help clarify things. [19]. I hope this helps. NancyHeise ^talk 17:30, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

" most plausible hypothesis seems to be that Roman Mithraism was practically a new creation, wrought by a religious genius who may have lived as late as c. ad 100 and who gave the old traditional Persian ceremonies a new Platonic interpretation that enabled Mithraism to become acceptable to the Roman world"

Gotta love Brittanica. I don't even consider it a valid source anymore. Also, Mithra =/= Mithras. It seems that you, sir (Transparagon), are going for the fringe. NJMauthor (talk) 02:03, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I mentioned before in this talk page that proving the theories of both the new creation or continutity, won't help and is not related to our discussion. even if there was no connection between the Roman Mithras and Persian Mithras, the first attempt to stablish a canon for christianity was made about AD 150.(according to Encarta) the first time that 25th of December was chosen for christmas was by Sextus Julius Africanus in AD 221. but according to Britannica, from the year AD 136 onward, there are hundreds of dedicatory inscriptions to Mithra. so the day Dec 25 celeberated by the followers of Mithra a hundred year before the adoption of it by Julius Africanus. I also refered to Encarta in Christmas artcile which says the Roman celebrated the winter solstice by participating in rituals to glorify Mithra before the adoption of the day by christians. this important event should be mentioned in the body of article and its header and removing it means vandilizing the page. Transparagon (talk) 19:41, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I will copy the text in the Christmas article in Encarta here again:

Although the Gospels describe Jesus’ birth in detail, they never mention the date, so historians do not know on what date he was born. The Roman Catholic Church chose December 25 as the day for the Feast of the Nativity in order to give Christian meaning to existing pagan rituals. For example, the Church replaced festivities honoring the birth of Mithra, the god of light, with festivities to commemorate the birth of Jesus, whom the Bible calls the light of the world

Now who's going for the fringe? -- Transparagon (talk) 19:51, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Can you prove that it was Mithras's birthday before Sol Invictus's day? NJMauthor (talk) 23:57, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

The first theory Encarta presents is the solstice theory. Then they theorize that Christmas might have come from Saturnalia and only after that is Mithras discussed. So Transparagon's own favorite source doesn't justify his efforts to give Mithras pride of place. As far as Africanus goes, he wrote that Jesus was conceived on the spring equinox, which at that time was considered to be March 25 (now Annunciation). The fact that December 25 is nine months after March 25 is probably not coincidence, although very little of what Africanus wrote survives. Britannica is conjecturing when it claims that Africanus himself made this calculation. In any case, if you accept the theory that the date of Christmas is from Africanus, whether as a calculation by Africanus himself or by his readers, that would exclude a Mithras/Sol Invictus origin for the date. Finally, Christmas was only a minor holiday in ancient times, so how could it have 'appropriated' a major pagan holiday? Kauffner (talk) 15:54, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Kauffner, I think you reach a bit far when you flatly say: "Mithras was an official religion the emperors sponsored as a reply to Christianity, which is why some elements are similar." Although Sol Inviticus was instituted at least as early as AD 274, (I see here some have found earlier dates) the earliest date I have ever seen mentioned for Mithras appearing in an imperial dedication is c307 when he is styled "Sol Invictus Mithra," suggesting (at least to me) some syncretism between Mithraism and the Sol Inviticus cult. My point being that evidence of the Mitraic cult in Rome predated Imperial approval of it by about 200 years. It seems, then, a reach to describe it as a state sponsored reply to Christianity.

In terms of December the 25th, it seems to me that all we know for sure is that there was a lot of syncretism around that date in the Roman empire period. For years, conventional scholarly implication (represented in many books and articles) was that this was an example of the church leaders Christianizing pre-existing holidays (a documented strategy). In the last few years, Christian scholars (including the Pope) have challenged this assumption and argued that the borrowing went the other way, with Mithraism specifically adopting Christian elements, perhaps including the date of December 25th. Some of these scholars have also theorized that this co-optation may have been a strategy by the Mithraic leaders carried out at the behest of Imperial patrons. Maybe. But this remains a theory that is far from universally accepted among scholars of the period. It seems to me that what would be proper would be for Wikipedia to mention the sycretism and cite the theories of leading scholars and not take sides among them. Thanks for all your effort on this entry, by the way. TheCormac (talk) 18:00, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Commodus (180-192) was the first emperor initiated into the Mithras cult. Worship and state sponsorship was greatest under Valarian (253-260).[20] The traditional theory was that the date of Christmas came from Sol Invictus feast, but Mithras was only a small part of that feast. What your proposing has already been done in the first paragraph of the "History" section, with the Mithras and Sol Invictus angles elaborated on in the next section. My opinion is that both religions independently picked December 25 because the Romans already recognized this date as the winter solstice. Kauffner (talk) 05:19, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Um...

At the top of the article it now reads, "M*E*R*R*Y C*H*R*I*S*T*M*A*S* to one and all !!!" and while that's a nice gesture and all, I don't think it belongs here. Can someone please do something about that? 76.17.53.205 (talk) 02:32, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Removed. Majorly ^talk 02:34, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Opening sentence

I propose a few changes to the opening sentence of the article: "Christmas (IPA: /krɪsməs/), occasionally referred to as Christmas Day or Christmastide, is an annual Christian holiday celebrated on 25 December or 7 January[2] that marks and honors the birth of Jesus of Nazareth.[3][4]"

Christmastide should be removed; Christmastide refers to the whole season, not the particular day. It seems this article's subject is the day of Christmas itself. Alternatively, if this article refers to the season surrounding Christmas, we should make that more clear in the opening sentence. The others are minor. Currently, "Christian holiday" is linked to "liturgical year". This doesn't seem quite appropriate. I would remove the liturgical year link, and just like Christianity from "Christian". I would changed the "Jesus of Nazareth" to "Jesus", as this is what the wikilink actually is. Carl.bunderson (talk) 01:42, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

It appears that the Christmastime issue has been cleared up, and I've removed the "Christian" from "Christian holiday" in the intro as was previously decided upon here at the talk page. Since the holiday is both Christian and cultural, we decided to simply use "holiday". Lastly, I think "Jesus of Nazareth" is more appropriate so as to disambiguate as clearly as possible. — ^{`</sup>CRAZY`(lN)`SANE<sup>`} 07:32, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Ok. Carl.bunderson (talk) 19:11, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Could we please put the 't' into the IPA pronunciation? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.146.151.60 (talk) 00:27, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Overlinking

There is a lot of overlinking in this article. Could someone remove it with a program? See: WP:OVERLINK ~ Thanks. ~ All Is One ~ (talk) 14:07, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Addition to opening sentence of "Christmas". I am requested to come to this page and discuss.

I wanted to add words (probably in parentheses) to the effect that, "in Russia, uniquely, christmas is celebrated on 7 January." The date 25 December is meaningless in old and modern Russia. I am a westerner married to a Russian woman and I am currently in Moscow. Because of the constraints on editing the main page, I will just leave this note and let an authorized person make the addition. Anyone wants to reach me, <loloveweb@hotmail.com> And a merry christmas to those reading. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Postlewaight (talk • contribs) 17:01, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

That date is known as "Epiphany" and is already celebrated by many christian denominations, some choosing to celebrate "Christmas" on that day (or a similar celebration). In any case this does not belong in the opening sentence. NJMauthor (talk)

Epiphany is January 6, not January 7. The reason that Russia observes Christmas on January 7 is that the Eastern Orthodox Church uses the Julian calendar rather than the Gregorian calendar used by the Western Church. This is mentioned in the Infobox and should be mentioned somewhere in the article as well. BradV 22:22, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Careful, not all Orthodox Churches use the Julian. Kostantino888Z (talk) 07:48, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Christmas is Dec. 25 by definition. The Russians celebrate on Dec. 25, but they calculate the date according to a different calendar. Jan. 6 is sometimes called "Armenian Christmas." But if you translate the Armenian name for the holiday, what they are celebrating is Epiphany. Kauffner (talk) 10:36, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Protected Status

It would be nice to see a justification for the protected status on this talk page. Had a couple grammar edits to make this morning, but couldn't... Dracocat (talk) 14:20, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

The page is semi-protected, which means only that editors need an account to edit it. As you are registered, you should have been able to make the edits. It is semi-protected as it has historically been a vandalism magnet.

The protection was done by User:Acalamari on October 8, 2008. You may want to ask him about removing the tag if you feel it is no longer required.

If you can't edit the page, let me know what the grammar edits are and I'll put them in for you. - Eron^Talk 15:14, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Christmas Day article

Why does "Christmas Day" now redirect here? Christmas Day is a concept that certainly requires its own article, separate from the general festival of Christmas. If Christmas Eve has its own article, Christmas Day certainly demands this. There is much material specific to Christmas Day that cannot be properly dealt with in a general article about the religious and commercial season. Xandar 01:32, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

In most contexts "Christmas Day" is synonymous with "Christmas". The separate but related "Christmastide" has its own article, but a "Christmas Day" article separate from "Christmas" wouldn't stand on its own. — ^{`</sup>CRAZY`(lN)`SANE<sup>`} 07:09, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Hey

This is my first talk I love christmas put the music on when you set up the tree is what i do —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nascar09 (talk • contribs) 02:45, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Concerned about synchronicity

There must have been a tradition of Dec. 25th as the rebirth of the unconquered son prior to Aurelian's decree because Cyprian -- quoted here on the topic -- died 19 years prior to said decree. Pauldebits (talk) 20:58, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

What about a controversy section?

For example lawsuits against municipal bodies for displaying christmas lights. Or, the small scale religious boycott a few years back in America, it was against stores that had "happy holidays" or "Merry Xmas" in their advertisments instead of Merry Christmas. I think I recall Walmart being backed in a Corner about it. Also, Seinfeld had a whole episode about, this unease which some people had about Christmas. A.k.a. the episode about Festivis(sp?) Etc. CaribDigita (talk) 00:18, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

The existence of this article should please you: Christmas controversy. — CIS ^(talk | stalk) 08:52, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

wrong reference

A Google search returns Christmas; or, The Good Fairy as the location of the character lamenting the gift buying required of her, not The First Christmas in New England. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.57.20.50 (talk) 10:33, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Collage image replacement

I think the image could be better. File:Julkrubba.jpg should be sufficient replacement until a better collage is made. -Stevertigo (w | t | e) 23:15, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Date

The date in the main infobox is 25th Dec. This is not the case everywhere, notably Russia. Should the info box not also include 7th January (perhaps in brackets as it is much less common).

Several hundred million people celebrate Christmas in January and the article currently leaves one with the impression that there is only one Christmas Day. I am sure there is a wikipedia guideline somewhere about not making articles too Western-centric.

Just my thoughts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nik1777 (talk • contribs) 14:56, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Two articles?

Shouldn't the articles on Christmas and Christmas Day be separate? Christmas is a season, of varying length in different countries, not just a day. And Christmas Eve has its own article, as well as Boxing Day and Twelfth Night. Why is "Christmas Day" demoted? Having two articles would also give room for more discussion on things like secular influences and differing celebrations of the day in different countries. Helsingann (talk) 16:11, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

This has already been brought up. The solution was to embolden and wikilink "Christmastide", the extended Christmas season, in the first paragraph. — CIS ^(talk | stalk) 21:50, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Pagan Connections to Christmas

There are many encyclopediac references which indicate that many of the customs associated with Christmas have pagan connections to the celebration of the Winter Solstice. The date December 25 is thought to have been associated with the victory of the unconquered sun, which is around the time of the winter solstice when daylight hours start to lengthen. This might also be a part of an article on Christmas, without being dogmatic about any connections from various sources. http://www.origin-of-christmas.com/ http://www.essortment.com/all/christmaspagan_rece.htm Also, some religious groups, many evangelicals, some Pentecostals, Jehovah's Witnesses, don't celebrate Christmas, so this might also be mentioned.209.212.20.5 (talk) 19:10, 12 November 2009 (UTC)Natural