The brightness of the day

Printed on 25 December 2007

THE EARLY Christians did not know when Jesus was born. The infancy narratives in the gospels of Luke and Matthew, the only biblical reference to the nativity, contain no clues to the season of his birth. It could have been high summer, for all anyone knows. But without the contrast between the brightness of the holiday and the darkness of winter, it wouldn't be Christmas.

A few decades after Jesus' death, Christianity moved north, across the Mediterranean, and followers of the new church speculated about the date of his birth. They sensed that it might be late December. The Romans had their Saturnalia, a riotous festival to mark the winter solstice in late December, when daylight lasts barely nine hours in the middle of Italy. As each new year dawned, they also celebrated the Kalends, when they lit their houses with candles. Followers of Mithras, the sun god, a competitor to Christianity in the third and fourth centuries, also had their big feast then. So why not fix the date of Jesus' birth thereabouts? In the middle of the fourth century, Popes Julius and Liberius in Rome convinced the eastern church to agree to a Dec. 25 date, and Christmas as the world knows it today was born.

Jewish people had their own December celebration as well to commemorate the victory over the Syrian king, a descendant of one of Alexander the Great's lieutenants, who wanted to force Greek customs on Judea in the second century BC. Candles are lit on the eight days of Hanukkah to commemorate the reconsecration of the temple after the victory. It's an important festival in the Jewish religious year but not one of the major holy days. In Jerusalem daylight lasts for more than 10 hours in December, and a festival of lights would not be quite so important as it would be farther north.

After the Roman Empire disintegrated in western Europe, Christianity spread farther north to Germany and, after a 200-year hiatus, to England, where the December days were shorter than along the Mediterranean - less than eight hours of daylight in London - and the need for Christmas increased.

Pre-Christian people in northern Europe often set bonfires to celebrate the slow lengthening of daylight after the winter solstice. That was easily adapted to Christian beliefs and encouraged the lighting of candles and the burning of Yule logs to celebrate the season - accompanied, perhaps, by a special seasonal beverage. By the 17th century, the poet Robert Herrick was putting a familiar custom to rhyme:

The Christmas Log to the firing;

While my good Dame, she

Bids ye all be free;

And drink to your heart's desiring.

That was all too frivolous for the Puritans, who took a literalist approach to the Bible: no mention of Christmas on Dec. 25, ergo no celebration. "The old heathen's feasting day . . . the Papists' Massing day, the profane man's Ranting Day," one preacher put it. When the Puritans took over England in the mid-17th century they tried to get rid of Christmas. But they couldn't abolish December, and when the monarchy was restored in 1660, Christmas came with it, lights and all.

In Ireland, the traditional candles in the window had a special significance at that time, when Catholicism was proscribed. Legend has it that believers placed candles in the windows to signal that a priest would be welcome to say Mass in the home. An ancient custom became a protector of religious and national identity.

Christmas trees may date back to some pre-Christian custom as well, but their first historical reference comes in 1561 in Germany. And they soon became twinned with candles, which were hung on the trees.

Massachusetts, with its Puritan heritage, resisted Christmas for 200 years, but the days are short in Boston - nine hours or so in late December - and the climate colder than in England. Here, Christmas is a necessity.

Immigrants brought their customs with them, and in 1832 Charles Follen, a German émigré, set up what may have been the first Christmas tree in New England. Harriet Martineau, a friend from England, was there when it was first unveiled to his children: "It really looked beautiful," she wrote. "The room seemed in a blaze, and the ornaments so well hung on that no accident happened, except that one doll's petticoat caught fire. There was a sponge tied to the end of a stick to put out any supernumerary blaze, and no harm ensued." Christmas fire had come to Massachusetts. Fortunately, strings of electric lights eventually eliminated the danger of accidental conflagration.

And today Christmas lights are everywhere, on Boston Common, in shopping malls, on private homes - in more places, and in greater number, than some prefer. But suppose the lights went out? Wouldn't many of us sink into a seasonal funk?

Short days and long, dark nights continue well past Jan. 1 in Boston. For the last decade an informal group of Back Bay residents have been keeping the lights ablaze on Commonwealth Avenue mall until the end of March. The Friends of Christopher Columbus Park on the waterfront followed suit there five years ago. It's worth a visit to both places on a dreary mid-winter day to rekindle the glow of Christmas, when the lights of belief and custom hold back the darkness and the cold.