Christmas Celebration

One of my childhood recollections, growing up in rural Masvingo, Zimbabwe, where Christian teaching and establishment had taken root, is Christmas celebration. As children, on Christmas day we received gifts or presents from our parents in the form of new clothes and/or a pair of new shoes. After gift presentation, the family would have breakfast together- lots of tea with bread and jam. This was the only day in the whole year that our family could afford having tea with bread for breakfast. After tea the family would make their way to church. As a child, I could not wait to be seen in my new attire with other people at church. After the Christmas church service we would head home for a big lunch meal.  My father used to slaughter one of his goats for the family at Christmas. Christmas day, not my birthday, was the day that I grew up looking forward to each year throughout my childhood. 
Early Christians, as Roman subjects in the Roman-Hellenistic society, were expected to celebrate the pagan Roman celebration of Saturnalia, an orgiastic festival in honour of the god Saturn. In ancient Roman religion and myth, Saturn (Latin: Saturnus) was a god of agriculture, liberation, and time. His reign was depicted as a Golden Age of abundance and peace. Both Planet Saturn and the day Saturday are named after Saturn. In December, Saturn was celebrated by feasting, role reversals, free speech, gift-giving and revelry. It was not only a wild gathering involving excessive drinking and promiscuity, but it was also a period of unrestrained license and merriment for all classes, extending even to the slaves. And there was no punishment for anyone for breaking any laws, according to Roman law. The festival originally was a one day event, but it later became a seven-day-celebration, December 17-25. 
When the Roman authorities required Christians to observe and celebrate Saturnalia as Roman subjects, Christians began to designate the celebration of Saturnalia as the birth date of Jesus (Christmas). Instead of honouring the pagan god Saturn, Christians began to celebrate the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, the true liberator of mankind from sin. At the announcement of the Incarnation of God the Son, the angel Gabriel said to Mary, "You are to give Him the name Jesus (Saviour) because He will save or liberate His people from sin." The birth of the eternal Son of God had been predicted by the Old Testament prophets more than 700 years earlier before the fully God actually became fully man. At the exact appointed time (Galatians 4:4), the eternal God the Son assumed a human body which was to become the all-sufficient sacrifice for the sins of mankind. Just as the celebration of Saturnalia was in honour of god Saturn, Christian celebration of the Incarnation was in honour of the eternal God the Son who had become fully man. God the Son, who has always existed from eternity past said to the Jewish leaders of his day: Before Abraham was I AM. So, the early Christians began to honour the birth of their Saviour, Jesus Christ, and the liberator of all mankind, instead of celebrating the Saturnalia in honour of Saturn.
However, it was natural for Christians to adopt and of course modify some of the Saturnalia celebration ways in their attempts to celebrate the Incarnation of God the Son. In any human undertaking or endeavour, people always move into the unknown from the known.  No form or expression of worship can exist in a cultural vacuum. So, it took Christians some time to come up with acceptable ways of celebrating Christmas. Christians wanted to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ in God-honouring expressions and ways. The word Christmas is derived from the Old English word Cristemasse, which was first recorded in 1038. Because of its known pagan origin, Christmas was temporarily banned by the Puritans (a significant grouping of English Protestants in the sixteenth century) most of them fled to America in fear of persecution. Between 1659 and 1681, the Puritans in Massachusetts, USA, made any Christmas observance illegal. However, Christmas is still celebrated by most Christians today worldwide. 
In celebrating Christmas today, it is true we have adopted some but not all pre-Christian practices. Just as in pre-Christian Rome when the emperors compelled their most despised citizens to bring offerings and gifts during the Saturnalia, later, this ritual expanded to include gift-giving among the general populace, today  most people celebrate Christmas by the giving of presents or gifts, and by excessive drinking, and by big family meals. The Catholic Church gave this custom a Christian flavour by re-rooting it in the supposed gift-giving of Saint Nicholas, a fourth century bishop, who when his bones were moved from Turkey to Rome in 1087 was believed to have supplanted a female boon-giving deity called the Grandmother or Pasqua Epiphania who used to fill the children's stockings with gifts and distribute them on 25 December.  If we put Christmas celebration in its historical perspective, we can draw at least this conclusion. Christmas celebration was an alternative Christian response to the celebration of Saturnalia in honour of a pagan god Saturn. Just as worshippers of Saturn celebrated Saturnalia with feasting and joy, there is nothing wrong for people today in celebrating the Incarnation of the Saviour of the world, Jesus Christ, in God-honouring joyful ways. However, it would be unbecoming to celebrate the birth of the God Son with excessive drinking and promiscuity as pagans did in honour of the god Saturn. It is interesting to read that after the shepherds had seen the new born Jesus "they returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen." You and I have every good reason to glorify and praise God at Christmas for birth of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world. 
So, as we celebrate Christmas this year, let us not only be pre-occupied with the how to but also with the why of Christmas celebration! Merry Christmas!