We do things in life because they have become a tradition or custom. They become so much a part of our cultural existence that we do them without questioning or understanding why. We just do them because it has always been done. We need to be careful about that because we can do something wrong for so long that we begin to believe that it is right.
We have Christmas traditions and customs that we follow, and very few of us know why, the meaning, or where the ideas came from. We just do it.
Our story goes back at least 4,000 years ago. It begins in Mesopotamia, called the cradle of civi- lization. Here, Christmas really began as the festival that renewed the world for another year. Here began the Twelve Days of Christmas, the festivals, the bright fires, the giving of gifts, the carnivals, merrymaking, and clowning, the mummers who sang and played from house to house, the church processions with their lights and songs.
All these and more began centuries before Christ was born, and they celebrated the arrival of a New Year. People all over the world learned from Mesopotamia. Everything happening there over the course of time was imitated by its neighbors – imitated, yet never copied exactly. Thus, it changed its face as it went.
The Northland people knew that winter followed summer, spring followed winter, and that winter was the time when all nature’s green life died except in the evergreen. All the Northland cherished the evergreen that did not die. Thus, long before the Christian era, Evergreens were used as an emblem of eternal life.
Holly was symbolic of joy and peace, and primitive people would hang it over their doors–in the form of wreaths to entice spirits to bring good luck. Why a circle? Because a circle is the symbol of timelessness, and the green leaves of life everlasting. According to some sources, Christ’s crown of thorns had been fashioned from holly leaves. At first, its berries were white, but when the crown was pressed down on his brow, blood drops turned the berries bright red. Because holly was originally regarded as magic, it was believed that if a house were hung at Christmas with thorny holly, the husband would rule throughout the year; if hung with smooth holly, the woman would be master.
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