Why we celebrate Christmas...

🍒Merry Christmas🍒! Hope you all had a great celebration and a jolly good time. We all celebrate Christmas and sing carols but do you know why we celebrate Christmas? Well if you don't this is the perfect blog for you as today we will be covering why do we celebrate Christmas and the significance of singing carols, and if you know why we celebrate it you can read on to find extra interesting facts! 

Now let's begin, this dates back around 2000 years ago. Christmas is celebrated to remember the birth of Jesus Christ, who Christians believe is the Son of God. The name 'Christmas' comes from the Mass of Christ (or Jesus). A Mass service (which is sometimes called Communion or Eucharist) is where Christians remember that Jesus died for us and then came back to life. The 'Christ-Mass' service was the only one that was allowed to take place after sunset (and before sunrise the next day), so people had it at Midnight! So we get the name Christ-Mass, shortened to Christmas.

You must have heard some people say Xmas before, here is why. In the Greek language and alphabet, the letter that looks like an X is the Greek letter chi / Χ (pronounced 'kye' - it rhymes with 'eye') which is the first letter of the Greek word for Christ, Christos. So Xmas can also mean Christmas, but it should also be pronounced 'Christmas' rather than 'ex-mas'!

Now let's talk about the significance of carols:

Carols were first sung in Europe thousands of years ago, but these were not Christmas Carols. They were pagan songs, sung at the Winter Solstice celebrations as people danced round stone circles. The Winter Solstice is the shortest day of the year, usually taking place around 22nd December. The word Carol actually means dance or a song of praise and joy! Carols used to be written and sung during all four seasons, but only the tradition of singing them at Christmas has really survived.

That's basically it... stay tuned for more informational and fun knowledge!

Citations- WhyChristmas.com: The Most Christmas Information on the Web

Visit our Mundial Group page