Christmas Unwrapped - The History of Christmas

I have just watched a very informative documentary about the history of Christmas, and learnt a lot of interesting stuff about the origins of the many traditions in modern Christmas celebrations:

• the spherical ornaments on the Christmas tree is supposed to represent the Apple from the Tree of Knowledge from the Garden of Eden

• Christmas was not celebrated by Protestant Christian Church until the 1800's, and was in fact not even an official holiday in the USA until 1870. 

• The tradition of giving gifts and having a family feast was actually started by Charles Dickens' story "A Christmas Carol" first published in 1843.

• The Christmas tree was introduced into England when Queen Victoria married Prince Albert, who was a German, and the Germans celebrate their Christmases with the Christmas tree. Prior to that, Christmas celebrations in England and USA do not include a Christmas tree.

• Santa Claus was invented by the American bishop Clement Clark Moore in 1823 when he wrote a children's poem called "A Visit from Saint Nicholas", nowadays more famously known as "Twas the night before Christmas", where he first introduced the character of "St Nicholas". This is the poem that starts:
  
  'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house 
  Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
  The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, 
  In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
  
  The success of the poem made "Saint Nicholas" - soon corrupted to Santa Claus - a Christmas character that is now even bigger than the baby Christ.
  
  Interestingly, if you read the whole poem ( http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19286 ), you will see that in the 8 reindeers, mentioned, the name Rudolf does not come up:
  
  Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen! 
  On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!
  
  
  
  

• Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer was a character invented by Robert L May for the Montgomery Ward departmental store in 1939 to be Santa Claus main sidekick. The promotion of this departmental store character is so successful that nowadays, most people only remember the Rudolf reindeer and not the other 8.
  
  Interestingly, the character of Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer is not a public domain character and is subject to copyright, so if you publish a work involving Rudolph, theoretically you need to pay royalties to the company "Character Arts LLC" and "The Rudolph Company LP", which owns the rights to the character.
  

Christmas UnWrapped - The History of Christmas

#1 :  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5T5ibb2E9I

#2 :  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAZDGKSveD8

#3 :  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ3BvK1R6hI

#4 :  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvopeBfS89w

#5 :  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqjQpu3cctk


Regards,
NJ

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P.S. The character of Saint Nicholas/Santa Claus is of course based from the Catholic Christianity's patron saint of children, "Nicholas of Myra" ( http://saints.sqpn.com/saint-nicholas-of-myra/ ).

However, I was quite surprised that the Catholic Church has created an entire catalogue of patron saints for each and every conceivable occupation and activity you can think of. I was absolutely astonished to see this list:

http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/patron00.htm

In fact, they even have a patron saint for the Internet (Isidore of Seville) and Roller Skating (Lydwina of Schiedam)!

In Catholic tradition, a person can only be recognised as a saint When at least 2 miracles are verified by the Vatican to have been performed by the person POSTHUMOUSLY (ie. the 2 miracles have to be performed after the person had died).

http://people.howstuffworks.com/question6191.htm