Claim Now Christmas: Its Origin And AssociationsScholars Choice Edition Crafted By William Francis Dawson Made Available In Readable Copy

Dah!

Here is a book that discovers "Merry Old England's Christmas", It deals EXCLUSIVELY with British custom, It draws from many sources: everything from the Inns of Courts, Colleges, Royalty, you name it, Highly detailed with original text, If you can't read renaissance English, in some spots, you are out of luck! It details the origins of everything from cards to crackers, It does end with someth Century English Empire superiority, but that's typical for the period, This book was published inand is available for free at Gutenberg, org and other sources. I downloaded it hoping to learn the origins of various Christmas traditions and the book was a huge disappointment in that area,

This is basically a book about English history through the lens of Christmas, The author has endeavored to gather every historical occurance on Christmas, how each English monarch celebrated it, and various wars and controversies around that date each year, He throws in poems, songs, and scripts of plays performed on the Christmas holiday in England too much superfluous information and far too broad, The book concludes with a look at how Christmas is celebrated in various countries, circa the lates, according to newspaper accounts and correspondence with British people all over the world.


Dawson begins with the biblical origins of Christmas, and then how its date was debated by the early church in the first centuries, He gives a brief explanation of how Dionysius miscounted the number of years when designing the Christian calendar adopted by the Western Church so, Christ was likely born inB.
C. . There is evidence that even prior to Constantine, Christians were commemorating the birth of Christ perhaps even in the month of December, which coincided with the winter solstice and common pagan celebrations of this time.
It seems every ancient culture celebrated the winter solstice in some form, Emperor Diocletian reportedly massacred Christians during a Christmas celebration inAD, The Romans had Bacchanalia and Saturnalia, which were similar to the Scandinavian celebrations adopted by the natives of Britain, "Bacchanalian illustrations have been found among the decorations in the early Christian Churches" p,. Focusing on England, ancient Saxons and other northern nations kept a Yule festival, honoring the Norse God Thor, The Yule celebration was not explained by Dawson, but I learned from another book that the burning of a yule log packed with incense and mingled with the remains of the prior year's yule log was expected to bring good luck to the household and favor to the start of a new year.
Later, Christians continuing the practice said that the log represented the cross, and its sweet incense the new life that Christ gives believers,

According to Dawson "Towards the end of the winter solstice feast, when the sun was on its return, and the world was considered to be renovated, a king or ruler was chosen, with power granted to him during his ephemeral reign" p.
. This may explain why so many English coronations occurred on Christmas, along with many royal weddings, St. Alban, martyred during Diocletian's reign was purportedly the first Christian martyr in Britain p,.

PostConstantine, Christmas celebrations included elaborate feasts, giftgiving, stage plays, and card games, a tradition that would continue in England to the time of the author's writing, Early church records show there was some concern from the clergy about the excessive nature and dancing of these festivals, As early as Alfred the Greatth century, twelve days from Nativity to Epiphany were set aside in England expressly for the celebration of Christmas, Monarchs in England continued the tradition, spending great sums on festivities, masquerade dramas, weddings, and more, If you disdain how Christmas decorations show up in stores after Halloween in the U, S. , know that some monarchs also increased the length of festivities for months at a time, As often shops were forbidden to be open during the festival, this was not great for the local economy, During the various civil wars, hostilities interrupted Christmas celebrations,

On Decemberinyears ago as I write this, the Magna Charta was agreed upon by King John and the English barons who resented his abuse of power.
The Charta is hailed as an achievement of human rights and a step toward democracy, The summoning of the first representative national Parliament took place on Christmas inp,.

Christopher Columbus landed in Cuba on Christmas Day,p,. Henry VII forbid card playing except at Christmas p,. IN, James I imposed religious festivals like Christmas on the Scottish Church, which was denounced p,. This is a description of Christmas written in theth century p,

"Nicholas Breton,writing in merry mood, says: 'It is now Christmas, and not a cup of drink must pass without a carol the beasts, fowl, and fish come to a general execution, and the corn is ground to dust for the bakehouse and the pastry: youth show their agility in shoeing of the wild mare: now, good cheer, and welcome, and God be with you, and I thank you:and against the New Year provide for the presents:The Lord of Misrule is no mean man for his time, and the guests of the high table must lack no wine: the lusty bloods must look about them like men, and piping and dancing puts away much melancholy.
. . hearing. In sum it is a holy time, a duty in Christians for the remembrance of Christ and custom among friends for the maintenance of good fellowship, '"

However, as Puritans gained ascendency in thes, Christmas celebrations began to be denounced, When the Puritans gained control of Parliament, they outlawed the celebration of Christmas in, By law, Christmas was to be treated as an ordinary weekday with shops opened and pastors forbidden to preach on Christmas Day, Commoners, particularly Londoners, kept the celebration in defiance, By, riots broke out in response to decrees outlawing Christmas as England descended into civil war between Royalists and those who were opposed to monarchy, Charles II came to power under a restored monarchy inand reinstated the Christmas holiday, to the joy of the citizens p,:

"These holidays we'l briskly drink, all mirth we will devise, No Treason we will speak or think, then bring us brave minc'd pies Roast Beef and brave Plum porridge, our Loyal hearts to chear, Then prithee make no more ado, but bring us Christmas Beer.
"

Eventually, Christmas traditions also included ghost stories, wassailing crowds of peasants shooting apple trees, morning church services, and various English dramas,

Dawson's world tour of modern Christmas

celebrations includes a look at America, quoting Howard Paul inp,:
"Society generally seems to apportion the day thus: Church in the morning, dinner in the afternoon, and amusements in the evening, The Christmas dinners concentrate the scattered members of families, who meet together to break bread in social harmony, and exchange those home sentiments that cement the happiness of kindred, . . and a Christmas sleighride is one of those American delights that defy gravity, "

"A curious feature of an American Christmas is the egnogg and free lunch, distributed at all the hotels and cafes" p,. There is an excerpt about how President William Henry Harrison expected to celebrate Christmas in, and how Christmas was celebrated by AfricanAmericans in the South,

I found the description of traditional Christmas in preRevolution Russia to be interesting, On Christmas Eve, peasants traditionally sang "Kolyadki," referencing an ancient solar goddess p,. There is a description of how the Russian Orthodox Church traditionally celebrated Christmas,

If you want to know the origins of various traditions and symbols of Christmas, you will not find it in this book, As such, I give it,out of. If you want a look at English history and the various events that occurred on Christmas Day in England throughout the centuries, this is the book, This is a dope book I just bought an old copy at half price books and its super old and cool Its very, very dry, And very listing. And very English only. Very boring. This is an interesting and educational book on the ways Christmas was observed and celebrated in the ancient days to the nineteenth century, This book covers the history of Christmas from Christ's birth up to AD,

I found the info on the very beginnings to be the most interesting, such as the possibilities that Christ's birth may be four or five years out, Therefore, he could've been born as early asBC, . . that's like saying he was born five years before he was born! I guess we're too far on to change things now,

Events inare also interesting, as eleven days were cut out of September, thus outraging some people who believed they'd been robbed of eleven days of their lives.
These same people and others refused to celebrate Christmas onDecember that year, thinking thatJanuary must be the correct day,

The author spent a long time working on this tome and I admire him for his efforts, That said, I did find myself skipping a lot of pages, I'm not interested in reading reproductions of old plays, especially not the list of actors and the characters they portrayed,

The more interesting and obscure historical accounts that transpired in England were what interested me the most, I'm glad I wasn't alive during Cromwell's stint as lord protector the miserable sod banned Christmas, warts and all! This is an exhaustive collection of anecdotes and happenings about Christmas since the birth of Christ all the way toth century England.
Much of the book is about how kings and other leaders kept Christmas during their reigns, and often to exhausting detail, I can see if you are historical writer, this volume might be indispensable,

However it's so exhaustive and covers so much history that it's hard to read for pleasure, There's a ton of detail though, Did you know Blind Man's Bluff is over three hundred years old Or that one time in, Christmas became more like Halloween when the Lord of Misrule and his fools went around extorting five shillings per house or their "gunner" would lay into it with a huge sledgehammer Until they got into armed conflict with the mayor and learned that halberds were scissors to a sword's paper.
Or that a game during the's celebrated during Christmas was Snapdragon, in which you try to take as many raisins as you can and put them in your mouth.
. . out of a bowl of brandy, Set on fire.

There's plenty more details like that, but you have a long read to find them, It's too much for someone who wants a basic history of Christmas celebration, but you could easily use this as a source for collegelevel work, Not that it's particularly academic or jargonfilled, Just extensive. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it, This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible, Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world, and other notations in the work.
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations, Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity individual or corporate has a copyright on the body of the work, As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc, Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public, We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant, .