by Julia Slater in Basel, swissinfo.ch
Dec 24, 2012 – 11:00

Feasting and gift-giving, lighting candles and general revelry: celebrations in late December were described by the Latin poet Catullus as “the best of days”. But he didn’t mean Christmas: he was talking of the Roman festival of Saturnalia.

The Christian church soon hijacked the mid-winter custom, and declared it the time to mark the birth of Christ. For many grandparents and parents nowadays it is also a chance to pass on to their children the pleasures they experienced when they were small.

But in actual fact, how traditional is the way we celebrate Christmas today?

Johann “Father Christmas” Wanner, whose shop in Basel sells Christmas decorations all over the world, has a neat definition: “Tradition is always what you had when you were a child.”

So swissinfo.ch asked over 70-year-olds visiting the Basel Christmas market whether the holiday had changed since they were children.

“We didn’t have so much money. At Christmas we usually got useful presents – and something sweet as well,” said one man from the central Swiss village of Altdorf. “Socks, shirts, perhaps gloves.”

A woman on her way to a concert commented that 80 years ago it was quite different: “We knitted lots of things and embroidered things, and we learnt poems and recited them.”

A visitor from Chur, in the south east, was philosophical. “The Christmas markets are very nice, the atmosphere is lovely, but what I don’t like is seeing Christmas things in the shops at the end of September. It makes me feel a bit sad. But times have changed. And I don’t have to go.”

read more here:

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/culture/Christmas_past_bows_to_Christmas_present.html?cid=34553850

December 25 – A traditional date?

Christmas commemorates the birth of Jesus, and an important feast in the Christian calendar. However, it is not even known in which precise year Jesus was born, let alone the date.

By the 4th century the date of December 25 had been adopted by the western Christian church.

This is very close to the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere – the shortest day of the year – which had long been a pagan festival. The church was in general keen to and divert pagan festivals to Christian ends.

The eastern churches originally celebrated Christmas on January 6, but later moved to conform to the western date. Only the Armenian Apostolic church retained January 6.

Many eastern Orthodox churches kept the old Julian calendar when western Europe gradually adopted the more accurate Gregorian calendar from the 16th century onwards.

Over the centuries, the difference between the two has increased: the Julian calendar is now 13 days behind. As a result, most Orthodox churches are out of step with western Christendom: Christmas 2012 falls on what the secular world regards as January 7, 2013.

The Greek Orthodox church is an exception: it celebrates on the same day as the western churches: December 25.

The Jerusalem patriarchate of the Armenian church has retained not only January 6 but also the Julian calendar: it will celebrate Christmas 2012 on January 19, 2013.