The Music of Christmas:

Each year, on the 25th of December, millions of people around the world celebrate the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. For Christians, Jesus is the “Messiah” or “Christ” (from the Greek word christos), the liberator of humankind. The coming of the Messiah was foretold in the Hebrew Bible, which is known to Christians today as the Old Testament. The accompanying panels explore the history and meaning of Christmas traditions as told through popular carols.

Christmas, or “Christ’s Mass”, was one of the major feast days in the early Christian Church. Then, as now, the festival celebrated the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. The first official Christmas was celebrated in Rome in the year 336, during the reign of Emperor Constantine, the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity. The date, December 25, coincided with the ancient pagan holiday of Saturnalia, which included the decoration of homes with evergreens, giving alms to the poor and gifts to children. These traditions quickly became part of the new Christian holiday.

As Christianity spread throughout Europe in the first millennium, many pagan traditions became part of Christmas. Yuletide, for example, was a twelve-day festival observed by ancient Germanic peoples. It coincided with the winter solstice. The harvesting and burning of a Yule Log were an important part of the celebration. The second verse of the popular carol “Deck the Halls” begins with, “See the blazing yule before us,” a reference to the ancient tradition.