Holly Jolly Christmas

By Meagan Ozuna

“Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!”

It’s about that time of the year when everyone begins to stress themselves out with buying their family members the perfect gift. We have lost sight of what Christmas is really all about. Go back in time before we all existed, before Christmas existed.

Saturnalia was to honor Saturn, the god of agriculture and the time that food and drink was plentiful. Supposedly what lead the Christian church to choose December 25 as Christmas was that they believed it to absorb the traditions of the Saturnalia Festival.

Christmas didn’t become an actual holiday until June 26, 1870. Christmas went through reinvention during the nineteenth century, evolving from a carnival holiday to a family centered day filled with peace and nostalgia. Over the next 100 years holiday traditions were built to include many different customs.

Today the holidays are celebrated in very diverse ways all over the world. From the Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches who celebrate Three Kings Day; to Jewish people celebrating Hanukkah with an eight day observance; to Muslims who celebrate Ramadan, a time where eating and drinking during the day is not allowed; and even to the people who celebrate the Winter Solstice, a day of the year where daytime is the shortest and the nighttime is the longest, usually falling on a day between December 20 and 23.

“My family always bakes German cookies from scratch. And we have a German event calendar that starts from the first to the 25 and has a chocolate behind each flap. Other than that we do the typical Christmas things,” senior Naomi Cano said.

Typical traditions include Christmas music and movies, decorating the tree, and of course the gift giving. The beginning of the holiday season begins when the Christmas music starts playing everywhere you go. Decorating the tree is another way to spend time with your family. You can’t forget watching all the Christmas classics: A Charlie Brown Christmas, It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story, Elf, and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Another tradition is the gift giving even though some people believe this has taken over Christmas and become commercialized and the meaning is gone.

“Christmas is only about spending time with your family,” senior Naomi Cano said.

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