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Before the year 1000, the word "she" did not exist in the English language. The singular female reference was the word "heo" which also was the plural of all genders. The word "she" appeared only in the 12th century, about 400 years after English began to take form. "She" probably derived from the Old English feminine "seo", the Viking word for feminine reference. |
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Christmas Origins
Posted on Thursday, December 01, 2005 (CST) by Thoth
 It is December and Christmas is almost here. Already decorations can be seen in homes and businesses. If you turn on the radio you can hear a variety of Christmas songs. And people are rushing to get their Christmas shopping done.
Children are looking forward to that one morning when they wake up to find presents left for them by Santa Claus and families are looking forward to getting together for the holidays. But how did the Christmas holidays come about?
According to the website, www.mrrena.com, Christmas is a Christian holiday, intended to celebrate the birth of Christ. But many parts of the current holiday originated from many non-Christian traditions.
The origins
of Christmas can be traced back to the festival of Saturnalia, a Roman
celebration honoring Saturn, god of agriculture. This was a seven day
celebration that began on Dec. 15 and ended on Dec. 21. On the Julian
calendar, the winter solstice often fell on Dec. 25, at which time many
Romans enacted rituals in honor of Mithra, the Persian god of light.
Eventually, the Roman
Catholic Church absorbed the traditions into the church and converted
the holiday into Christ Mass, honoring the birth of the Son of God. But
the holiday still contained much paganism. According to the website,
English commoners would go around as a miniature mob to the lords of
the manors and demand to be let in and provided with treats. In the
17th century, Oliver Cromwell, a devout puritan and Lord Protector of
England outlawed the Christmas holiday, which was forced underground
until around 1656 in Canterbury.
By 1659, Christmas was
outlawed in many of the early North American colonies. Violators were
fined five shillings, which made Christmas virtually obsolete in the
New World. After the American Revolution, Christmas was reinstated in
America, but still contained much of its pagan revelries. Once again,
people would go from door to door asking for food and drink. Eventually
this tradition would come to be known as Christmas caroling, where
groups of individuals would go around to houses singing songs in
exchange for eggnog and drinks of wassail (a mixture of ale, roasted
apples, eggs, sugar, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger and served hot).
There were very few
holidays on the New World Calendar at this time. Christmas was just
another workday. Celebrations were not a family affair and most
gift-giving involved the rich giving money or small gifts to the poor,
but families rarely participated in the exchanging gifts.
In 1843, Charles Dickens “A
Christmas Carol” made a tremendous impact on Christmas. It showed
Christmas as a holiday of giving and spending time with family and
friends. Families began to see Christmas as a good time to devote
attention to their children and give them gifts.
This change marked the end of the former out of control traditions and turned Christmas into a domestic holiday.
Article Source
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