What’s the real meaning of Christmas? Is it the gifts you get? The joy you feel? The food you eat? Celebrating Jesus’s life? The spreading time with family? Let’s start with some history.

Christmas is not only a worldwide holiday but it celebrates a culture. Most people don’t celebrate the season for the same reasons anymore. The advertisement companies now use it to promote the stuff that they want to sell. Most families don’t even think about it. They just think about the giving and getting of gifts.

Christmas has been a holiday in the United States since the 1870’s, but it has been around for multiple centuries. Christmas was around even before Jesus was born. They used to celebrate light and birth during the dark wintery days. Most of the time they would celebrate once they worst of winter was behind them. The Scandinavians celebrated the holiday from December 21 all the way through January.   They celebrated in the sun. The men would go out and get huge logs and then set them on fire. The people would eat until the fire burned out. They also believed that for every spark that the fire created was a pig or a calf that would born.

In the 1645, Oliver Cromwell cancelled Christmas. When Charles the Second came back to power, he brought back Christmas. In 1620, the English separatists that came to America also believed in what Cromwell did. Therefore, Christmas was not a holiday in the early times of America. In Boston, the celebration of Christmas was banned from 1659 to 1681. In Jamestown, John Smith believed that Christmas should be celebrated, so it was. After the American Revolution, English customs fell out from favor, Christmas included. Christmas wasn’t considered a federal holiday until June 26 of 1870.

So, what’s the many reason why you celebrate Christmas? Is it for the gifts? Is it for the joy of the season? Is it for the food? Is it for the family?