Christmas Season

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About Christmas

‘The Nativity of the Lord, or the Birthday of Christ commonly called Christmas Day’ is the all-embracing title in the Book of Common Prayer for the solemnity which is second in importance to Easter. Like Easter it is one of the two days in the year which has an octave, eight days during which the festival continues to be observed. Unlike Easter, the date of which falls on the same date within the traditional Twelve Days of Christmas, a time of celebration which begins at the first evening prayer on Christmas Eve, 24 December, and includes Twelfth Night, the evening preceding 6 January, the Epiphany of the Lord.

Metford, J. C. J. The Christian Year. Crossroad, 1991, p. 35.

Christmas is a feast of light. It is commonly said that the celebration of the Lord’s birth was established in late December to give a Christian meaning to the pagan feast of Sol invictus. This may or may not be so, as already in the first part of the third century Tertullian writes that Christ was conceived on March 25th, which, in some calendars, marked the first day of the year. Thus it may be that the Christmas feast was calculated from that date. In any case, beginning in the fourth century many Fathers recognized the symbolic value of the fact that for them the days grew longer after the feast of the Nativity. Pagan feasts of light in the dark of winter were not uncommon, and winter festivals of light are still sometimes celebrated by nonbelievers today. In contrast to all these, the readings and prayers for the various Christmas liturgies underscore the theme of the true Light who comes to us in Jesus Christ.

Homiletic Directory, 2015, para. 111

Theology of the Season

God told Moses that he would send the starving Israelites ‘bread from heaven’, interpreted as foreshadowing the eucharistic body of Christ, ‘the bread of life’ (Jn 6:35). St Jerome (c. 342-420), the Venerable Bede and many others have perceived divine providence in the fact that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, a place-name of uncertain etymology but assumed by them to mean ‘house of bread’. Moses promised the Israelites that in the morning they would see ‘the glory of the Lord’ (Ex 16:17), the splendour of God’s presence, a phrase echoed in the communion antiphon, ‘the glory of the Lord will be revealed’ (Is 40:5), a fitting prelude to the great day which is about to dawn.

Metford, J. C. J. The Christian Year. Crossroad, 1991, p. 35.

Celebrating the Season

General

Our earliest explicit mention of the new feast, Christmas, occurs in a Roman document, the “Chronograph of 354” (also known as the “Philocalian Calendar”) that reflects usage of the feast by about 336 C.E. It lists December 25 as “natus Christus in Betleem Iudeae.” This date competed with a relatively new pagan festival of the Unconquered Sun as the sun begins to wax again at the winter solstice. (By the fourth century C.E., the Julian calendar in use in that period was off by four days.) Gradually, the new festival of Christmas took over part of the commemorations of the Epiphany. John Chrysostom told a congregation in Antioch on Christmas Day, 386 C.E.: “This day … [which] has now been brought to us, not many years ago, has developed so quickly and borne such fruit.”

White, James F… Introduction to Christian Worship: Fourth Edition Revised and Updated, edited by L. Edward Phillips, Abingdon Press, 2023, p. 61.

The feasts of Christmas and epiphany developed as a means to oppose or Christianize pagan festivals related to the winter solstice. The birthday of the Unconquerable Sun (Saturn), the dies natalis Solis Invicti, was celebrated at Rome beginning about December 21 and lasting for something more than a week. Probably by A.D. 336 Christians had appropriated December 25 as the day to celebrate the incarnation. In Egypt, January 6 was celebrated as the winter solstice when the sun god made his appearance (epiphany) and was honored with light, water, and wine. The Christians chose this time as the feast of the incarnation and connected it with three Gospel stories: the coming of the Magi, the baptism of Jesus, and the wedding at Cana. Of these the baptism was the primary event. Eventually both Christmas and Epiphany were celebrated throughout the Christian world.

Hatchett, Marion J. Commentary on the American Prayer Book. Seabury Press, 1981, p. 39.

Historical

On Christmas Day and on vacant days in Octave, the Office Hymn at Even­song and also at Mattins is, Jesu, Redemptor omnium, (Hymnal Noted, 33; H. A. M., 57; as the proper Hymn is not in People’s Hymnal, No. 25 may be sub­stituted). At Mattins, A solis ortûs cavdine, (Hymnal Noted, 34; H.A.M., 483; People’s Hymnal, 26), may be used instead.

Ritual Notes, “Of Christmas-tide”

Christmas Eve. The eves of the great feasts are generally given up to decorating the church. Solemn Evensong is a fitting preparation for the next day, and a convenient way of imposing a term to the work of decoration. For this service the violet of the vigil will be changed for the festival white. …

Dearmer, Percy. The Parson’s Handbook, 1st ed., p. 203-205.

Sundays and Holy Days

  • The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ: Christmas Day, December 25
  • The First Sunday after Christmas Day
  • The Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, January 1
  • The Second Sunday after Christmas Day

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