Season’s greetings, Debunkers! It’s cold outside, the snow is settling and it’s time
to tuck into a tasty turkey to celebrate the birth of a middle-eastern messiah… Or is it?
Let’s burst those BS baubles with the tinsel of truth.
I’m Stu, and here are 12 Myths Of Christmas Debunked.
12. Santa is Red because of Coca-Cola
It’s common knowledge that Santa Claus’ iconic red jacket with white trim was invented by Coca-Cola
to get people to buy a chilled soft drink at the coldest, booziest time of the year.
Except they didn’t.
It is true that Santa wasn’t always red. The chortling chimney raider
is an amalgamation of the very real Saint Nicholas and mostly European folk figures.
Hence the flying sleigh and magical animal assistants.
The various influences led to various appearances - brown, green and even yellow.
In the 1800s, he went from saint (1810) to Santa (1863) largely thanks to American artist Thomas
Nast. He popularised red Santa in an 1881 issue of Harper’s Weekly. By World War One,
red and white had become Santa’s definitive colours in the USA (1902), Canada (1906) and
even Japan (1914). But the Victorians had already used him to promote products (1890).
This colour combo proved a perfect fit for Coca-Cola’s red and white branding,
but they didn’t start advertising with Santa until the Great Depression (1931).
11. Advent Begins On 1st December
Every advent calendar counts down from
1st December, so that’s when Advent begins, right? Wrong.
Advent begins on the nearest Sunday to St Andrew’s Day, on November 30th. So, in 2020, Advent began
on November 29th - but it can start as early as November 27th or as late as December 3rd .
The first commercially printed calendars came from Germany in 1908. The idea caught on, and
it became big business worldwide. Manufacturers then pretended that Advent always starts on
1st December so that they could use the same design each year and sell off old stock.
10. Christmas Trees Were Introduced By Prince Albert
It doesn’t feel like Christmas until you’ve
trimmed the tree with bright baubles and lovely lights.
Like Advent Calendars, this topiary tradition comes from Germany,
and everyone knows Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg Gotha brought it to his wife,
Queen Victoria, and made the tinselled tree a must-have accessory in 1848.
Except, the first British monarch to put up a Christmas tree was Queen Charlotte in 1800,
four decades before Albert entered Victoria’s throne room. By that time,
British high society was already in love with the Christmas tree
and spreading it through the Empire. Victoria herself had one as a child.
Meanwhile, German settlers in America were putting up Christmas trees as early as 1747,
and it’s believed to have begun back in the 16th century, when the founder of Protestantism,
Martin Luther, is rumoured to have put the first candle on a tree to celebrate Christmas.
9. Christmas Is Really The Pagan Festival Saturnalia
Why does Christmas take place on December 25th?
Some people say it’s because the Church stole the date of the Pagan festival of Saturnalia.
Named after the Roman god of agriculture, Saturn, this crazy festival involved lots
of drinking, gift-giving and slaves being served by their masters.
However, it happened on December 17th, and though it could last up to a week,
it didn’t go beyond December 23rd.
Some historians therefore think the real precursor to Christmas is the festival of Sol Invictus,
which was a public holiday on December 24th and 25th.
But this festival started in AD 274, and 31 years earlier the Christian bishop Cyprian wrote,
"O, HOW WONDERFULLY ACTED PROVIDENCE THAT ON THAT
DAY ON WHICH THE SUN WAS BORN . . . CHRIST SHOULD BE BORN (ALSO)."
In other words, Christians were already celebrating Jesus’ birth on December 25th
before the Romans made it an official holiday.
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8. Decorations Should Come Down On Twelfth Night
Everyone knows that all the giant Santa lights and every sprig of
holly and ivy should come down at the end of the twelve days of Christmas.
But, this superstition was started by the Victorians. Yes, them again.
Before the 19th century, Christmas decorations weren’t typically taken down until Candlemas,
which is on February 2nd.
The Victorians started the tradition of de-decorating sooner to encourage people
back into a hardy work ethic with no festive distractions. Scrooges.
7. May All Your Christmases Be White
Just as Bing sings in the best-selling single of all time, we all dream of a white Christmas.
But for anyone living south of the 49th parallel,
the chances of building a snowman on Christmas day are less than 10%.
The myth of a white Christmas is credited to Charles Dickens, who described serene snowscapes
in his seasonal stories. This is because he grew up in one of the coldest decades in history,
the 1810s. When he was two years old, Christmas was so cold that the River
Thames froze solid enough for people to light fires on the ice without fear of falling in.
Since then, of course, the world has gotten warmer. But you still
get to enjoy an official White Christmas.
In the USA, it only counts if there is more than 1 centimetre of snow by 7am on Christmas morning.
In the U.K., we get a White Christmas if any snow is observed falling on December 25th,
even if it melts before it hits the ground.
6. Christmas Is The Most Important Christian Holiday
Christmas is the biggest time of the year for hardworking families in need of a holiday,
and companies whose sales need a boost.
The US alone spends over $1 trillion on Christmas shopping…
- and shoppers spend more time buying presents than they do at Christmas parties.
But Christmas is not the most important holy day for Christians. To them,
when Jesus was born is less important than when he died - and came back from the dead.
As Saint Paul wrote in AD 53:
"If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith."
That’s right, Easter Sunday is the most important Christian holiday. To them, the resurrection
of Jesus proves beyond doubt that he was the Son of God and death is not the absolute end.
In fact, the birth of Christ was so irrelevant to early Christians that they couldn’t even agree
on a date until Pope Julius I made December 25th official in AD 350.
5. Turkey Is The Traditional Christmas Dinner
Christmas dinner is all about stuffed roast turkey served
with potatoes and steaming vegetables with rich gravy or cranberry sauce.
Well, only since World War Two. And even then, only in the USA and Britain.
As you’d expect, different countries have different traditions. It’s fish in Sweden,
Portugal and eastern Europe; roast piglet in Puerto Rico; and whale blubber
in Greenland. In Japan, it’s fried chicken, largely because of successful KFC advertising.
Turkeys weren't widely affordable until the 1950s. Before then,
it was the dish of the rich. The traditional British dinner was more likely to be a goose.
There’s a reason that the impoverished Mrs Cratchet cooks a goose in A Christmas Carol,
while wealthy Ebenezer Scrooge buys the turkey.
The big bird became the American seasonal staple thanks to Thanksgiving.
But even that turkey feast has only been
traditional since it became a national holiday in 1863.
4. Jingle Bells Is A Christmas Song
Speaking of Thanksgiving,
everyone loves gathering at the table to toast the harvest and sing Jingle Bells.
Wait, you thought it was a Christmas song?
The lyrics may mention snow and a sleigh but it’s got nothing to do with Christmas or Santa.
‘One Horse Open Sleigh’ as it was originally titled is actually thought to be about Horse
Sleigh Races that took place in Massachusetts and was written for a Thanksgiving service
in the 1850s by Confederate composer James Lord Pierpont.
He never made much money out of it, but since his death it’s become a holiday favourite.
It is even the first song to be performed live in outer space,
by astronaut Wally Schirra in 1965, on a harmonica.
3. We Three Kings Of Orient Are
Everyone knows the Nativity story: the stable in Bethlehem,
the baby in a manger, and the three kings with gold, frankincense and myrrh.
Except anyone who’s read the Bible will know that it never mentions kings at Christ’s birth.
They are only mentioned in one of the four gospels, the Book of Matthew. He calls them
magi (may-jeye). The best translation is “wise men” or “astrologers” but it has a
specifically religious connotation - in other words, they were more like priests than kings.
And Western Christianity only decided there
were three of them because of the three kinds of gifts they brought.
2. No Room At The Inn.
The reference to three kings however is one of the smaller nativity misconceptions
when it comes to the finer details of what is actually written in the bible.
From renaissance paintings and hymns, to school nativities and
movies we are all familiar with Mary travelling to Bethlehem on a donkey,
only to be told there is no room at the inn and
be subsequently housed in a stable where she gives birth…
surrounded by animals. Now you may want to sit down for this…
pretty much none of that is in the bible.
In fact the Nativity story is only covered by two gospels,
and in Matthew’s version Mary and Joseph seem to already live in a house in bethlehem.
While in Luke’s gospel this part of the Nativity is explained in
just four verses which can be summarized as...
There was a census, Joseph and Mary travelled to Bethlehem, whilst they were there Mary
delivered her firstborn son. No mention of a ‘Little Donkey, Carrying Mary’ I’m afraid.
Now, the latter part of this passage is where many
scholars believe the confusion of the inn and the stable have come into play.
The word ‘inn’ has actually been misinterpreted from the word used in the original version of
Luke’s gospel, written in Greek. Luke uses the word ‘kataluma’ which actually refers
to a ‘place to stay or rest’ - and not the equivalent of a Holiday Inn or Best Western.
You see, at the time most houses in the area were made up of two rooms;
The main Family Room and the Guest Room, referred to as a Kataluma.
In fact this word is also used by Luke to describe the room
Jesus and his disciples ate their Last Supper in.
Many scholars suggest that it was this Guest Room of Joseph’s extended family that had no
space for the imminent delivery of God’s son, so they instead stayed in the main family room.
The main room of a house would have also been a mixed use setting
for cooking, eating, sleeping and living,
but lower down at the far end, it would also accommodate the household’s domestic
animals at night, protecting them from predators and providing extra heat on a
winter’s evening. As such feeding troughs, or ‘mangers’ were also found in this room,
which is what is said to have been used as a makeshift crib for the newborn,
but there’s no mention of farm animals being present or cooing over the infant.
1. Christmas Is Jesus' Birthday
First of all, whether you're a devout christian or a staunch atheist,
there’s one thing we can all agree on, “Jesus” never existed.
You see the man we call Jesus, wouldn’t have answered to this name. He spoke Aramaic,
and would therefore have said his name “Yeshu” (Yay-shoo). “Jesus” is the modern pronunciation
of the Latin version of the Hebrew rendition of his name - which we still use today, “Joshua”.
Anyway, whether you believe he existed or not, Joshua definitely wasn’t born in December.
The Gospels mention shepherds watching flocks in the fields on the day he was born,
and a Roman census dragging Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem.
Both these things are more likely to have happened in spring.
Consequently, the early Church proposed dates like May 20th, April 21st, and March 28th.
Although they couldn’t agree on Christ’s birthday,
early Christians could agree on the date to celebrate the Annunciation,
when an angel told Mary she was going to have a child.
Since they celebrated that on March 25th, they simply added nine months
and arrived at December 25th as the official date to celebrate Christ’s birth.
If you’ve enjoyed this topic and would like to learn about the origins of Santa,
then check out Magellan TV’s festive documentary The Legends Of Santa!
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