【篇1】

The original Santa Claus, St. Nicholas, was born in the ancient southeastern Turkish town of Lycia early in the fourth century. His generosity was legend, and he was particularly fond of children. We know this primarily through Roman accounts of his patronage of youth, which eventually led to his becoming the patron saint of children. Throughout the Middle Ages, and well beyond, he was referred to by many names none of them Santa Claus.

Children today would not at all recognize the St. Nick who brought gifts to European children hundreds of years ago except perhaps for his cascading white beard. He made his rounds in full red-and-white bishop’s robes, complete with twin peaked miter and crooked crozier. He was pulled by no fleet footed reindeer, but coaxed in indolent donkey. And he arrived not late on Christmas Eve, but on his Christian feast day, December 6. The gifts he left beside the hearth were usually small: fruit, nuts, hard candies, wood and clay figurines.

During the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, St. Nicholas was banished from most European countries. Replacing him were more secular figures, who in general were not at center stage at that point in history..The Dutch kept the St. Nicholas tradition alive. As the “protector of sailors,” St. Nicholas graced the prow of the first Dutch ship that arrived in America. And the first church built in New York City was named after him. The Dutch brought with them to the New World two Christmas items that were quickly Americanized.

In sixteenth century Holland, children placed wooden shoes by the hearth the night of St. Nicholas’s arrival. The shoes were filled with straw, a meal for the saint’s gift laden donkey. In return, Nicholas would insert a small treat into each clog. In America, the shoe was replaced with the stocking, hung by the chimney.

The Dutch spelled St. Nicholas “Saint Nikolass,” which in the New World became “Sinterklass”. later changed to “Santa Claus”.

Much of modern day Santa Claus lore, including the reindeer drawn sleigh, originated in America. Dr. Clement Clarke Moore composed “The Night Before Christmas” in 1822, to read to his children on Christmas Eve. The poem might have remained privately in the Moore family if a friend had not mailed a copy of it (without authorial attribution) to a newspaper and became part of the Santa legend.

It was in America that Santa put on weight. The rosy-cheeked, roly-poly Santa is credited to the influential nineteenth-century cartoonist Thomas Nast. From 1863 until 1886, Nast created a series of Christmas drawings for Harper’s Weekly. These drawings, executed over twenty years, exhibit a gradual evolution in Santa from the pudgy, diminutive, elf-like creature of Dr. Moore’s immortal poem to the bearded, potbellied, life-size bell ringer familiar on street corners across America today. Nast’s cartoons also showed the world how Santa spent his entire year constructing toys, checking on children’s behavior, reading their requests for special gifts. His images were incorporated into the Santa lore.

Santa is known throughout the world in many different names, such as:

Saint Nikolaas (Sinter Klaas), from the Dutch Father Christmas, from the English Kris Kringle, from the Germans Befana, from the Italians Bobouschka, from the Russians (a grand motherly figure instead of a male)

【篇2】

Christmas is a Christian holiday held on December 25 which celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ. Eastern Orthodox Churches, which use the Julian Calendar to determine feast days, celebrate on January 7 by the Gregorian Calendar. Both dates are merely traditional and neither is thought to be the actual birthdate of Jesus. Christ’s birth, or nativity, is said to fulfill Old Testament prophecies concerning the coming of a messiah, or savior.

The word Christmas is derived Middle English Christemasse and from Old English Cristes m?sse.[1] It is a contraction meaning “Christ’s mass”. The name of the holiday is often shortened to Xmas because Roman letter “X” resembles the Greek letter Χ (chi), an abbreviation for Christ (Χριστ).

In Western countries, Christmas has become the most economically significant holiday of the year. The popularity of Christmas can be traced in part to its status as a winter festival. Many cultures have their most important holiday in winter because there is less agricultural work to do at this time. Examples of winter festivals that are believed by some to have influenced Christmas include the pre-Christian festivals of Yule and Saturnalia.

In Western culture, the holiday is characterized by the exchange of gifts among friends and family members, some of the gifts being attributed to Santa Claus (also known as Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, and Father Frost). However, various local and regional Christmas traditions are still practiced, despite the widespread influence of American, British and Australian Christmas motifs disseminated by film, popular literature, television, and other media.

【篇3】

Christmas is a time for miracles.It is also a time when the dull things of daily life and the forecast of human hature gives way to a spiritual awakening.Allow me to share with you one truly wonder of Christmas.

Our miracle story comes from an incident that occurred in Flanders, Belgium, at the dawn of World War I. On December 24th ,1914, German and English troops faced each other from the relative safety of their ditches across which no man’s land lying between them. Suddenly, the silence was broken, not by gunfire, but by the strains of Silent Night arising from the German position. It wasn’t long before the English troops responded with a Yuletide hymn of their own. Then an amazing sight surprised the eyes of the English soldiers. A German soldier holding a small tree arranged with lighted candles began to walk across the land toward the English lines. This miraculous scene occasioned the declaration of a truce followed by English and German troops greeting one another, exchanging small gifts and singing songs of Christmas. Word of this incredible phenomenon reached the High Command of both sides.

On Christmas Day, both armies moved from their positions to engage in the killing of war at other battlefields. However, on Christmas Eve 1914 on a field in Flanders, there was Peace on Earth.

Christmas is a truly amazing phenomenon. The day and season perpetuate a miraculous, historical event as an annual presence that challenges an often rough, cruel, and egotistical creature — the human being — to become open and amenable to their Creator’s vision. The great miracle of Christmas continues in the performance of humane acts, moral honesty, and in the spiritual awareness of millions struggling to lead a life of grace.