ANSWERS: 4
  • Used to be called Christ Mass. The Mass of Christ. Christmas (the holiday) used to be Yule, Saturnalia and several other winter fests held by pagan (non-christian) peoples. When the Church started absorbing the pagan peoples, converting them, the Church discovered that folk continued these seasonal feasts or holidays, for winter, summer, spring and fall. Thus the Church set about setting up masses or 'holy days' that reflect Christian ideology. Easter took the place of the Rites of Spring. Christ Mass took care of the Winter Holidays. As time progressed Christ's Mass was condensed to Christmas. Of course Christmas was not just the Mass of Christ, it was also a bawdy celebration, lustful and 'sinful'. Puritan American's banned Christmas except for the mass part. It wasn't until the Industrial Revolution that Modern Christmas with its 'traditions' was installed. That I fear was done for commercial purposes (not religious) mostly by store owners (Like Macy's) in order to get a 'good reason' for people to go out and consume. They of course dressed it up and added 'reasons for the season' (Family, reunions, joy, blah) but they also developed Saint Nickolaus into Satan, er I mean, Santa Clause and a few other things. The Christmas Tree was a German Pagan Ritual holdover, it wasn't until queen Victoria that the English and then the Americans started putting up trees. This was around the same time that the commercialization of Christ's Mass took place.
  • Wikipedia not working today? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas
  • Doesn't 'mas' in the Spanish mean 'more'?
  • Mass is the name used to describe the Catholic Church ceremony of worship. Anglicans and Episcopalians use that word too. Pagans didn't own the calendar. Just because they had winter celebrations too doesn't mean the feast of the Nativity belongs to them.

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