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Show Christmas, , The major religious feats of . the year and principal holiday of the western world, commemorating com-memorating the birth of Jesus, is celebrated on Dec. 25. IT'S NOT REALLY certain this is the date on which Jesus was born. Various scholars have fixed the date in April, May, January and in other months. Christmas was first observed in the second and third centuries and our name for the day dates from the eleventh century in England and "Cristes Maesse." THE GIVING of presents, which is a solidly entrenched custom in the United States, was taken from the Roman custom of exchanging gifts on Jan. 1. German Christmas carols are traced back to the eleventh century and British and French songs to the thirteenth. THE CUSTOM of decorating decorat-ing the house in green stems from an early English belief that certain flowers blossomed at Christmas. The use of mistletoe mis-tletoe stems from the Druids, who long revered the plant. The Christmas tree was first used in Germany. Some scholars scho-lars believe the first occasion , was in Strasbourg in 1605, though legend has it that Martin Mar-tin Luther decorated a green branch in his home in the preceding pre-ceding century. THE TREE was not used in England until 1840, and appeared in the United States at about the same time. The belief in Santa Claus, as ' a jolly man who brought gifts, also comes to us from the Germans, Ger-mans, derived from the legend of St. Nicholas (Santa Claus is . a corruption of the Dutch San Nicholass). FIREWORKS ARE sometimes some-times used in the south at Christmas, and this stems from Italy, Spain and France, which enjoy the custom. It's thought the practice was introduced intro-duced by French settlers in the Louisiana area. Christmas was, interestingly, observed earlier in the south than in the north. The greatest challenge of Christmas, in our churches and among all Americans, is to spread love of one's fellow man and peace on earth, in our country and abroad. |