The Biggest Christmas Myths and Legends, Debunked
| Dec 25, 2017, 11:30 IST
We have been hearing a lot of Christmas stories since childhood. As it’s the holiday season and everyone gather together to celebrate the festive season. But it's time to find the real stories behind Christmas legends and holiday myths. the Christmas holiday comes with a host of myths, legends, lies, misconceptions, and commonly believed things that are just completely wrong. From the origin of the holiday itself, to the historical date and year of Christ's birth, to the modern marketing of iconic Christmas figures like Santa Claus, much of what is commonly believed about Christmas simply isn't true. These Christmas myths and legends are probably stories you've never even questioned, but will completely change how you see this Christian holiday. Before you hang the lights, trim the tree, and put out Santa's milk and cookies, be sure to read up on the Christmas facts you didn't know weren't even true.
Coca-Cola designed the modern Santa Claus as part of an advertising campaign
Jingle Bells is the essence of Christmas
Jingle Bells was written by James Pierpont in 1857. Pierpont was American and the song (originally called One Horse Open Sleigh) is about Thanksgiving and about winter enjoyment and frolics more generally. How un-Christmassy it is can be gleaned from the other verses, which never make it into a British carol concert. Verse two goes like this:
A day or two ago
I tho’t I’d take a ride
And soon Miss Fannie Bright
Was seated by my side.
The horse was lean and lank
Misfortune seemed his lot
He got into a drifted bank
And we – we got upsot.
The Bible tells us there were three wise men
Matthew 2:1 tells us that “when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem”. Did you notice the word “three”? Nor did I. They brought gifts with them: “they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense and myrrh”; yet the Bible never says how many magi there were, only that they were plural. There could have been two or 200. Magi, by the way, were Zoroastrians. There were believed to be well-versed in mysterious arts, hence our modern word “magic”.
Christmas is just a Christian version of the Roman festival of Saturnalia
Saturnalia was originally held on 17 December. Later it was expanded until it lasted all the way up to 23 December. It never shared a date with Christmas which is a fact. There was a Roman festival on 25 December, the festival of Sol Invictus. But there were Roman festivals on most days of the year and Sol Invictus is not recorded before Christmas and neither it nor Saturnalia have much in common with it.
Good King Wenceslas
There are two problems with it and the name is only three words.. Though Wenceslas existed, he wasn’t a king and he wasn’t called Wenceslas. His name was Vaclav and he was duke, not king, of Bohemia (in the modern-day Czech Republic) in the 10th century. He may have been good. However, it’s equally likely that people looked back on him with rose-tinted glasses after he was succeeded by his brother, Boleslaus the Cruel. Boleslaus really earned his name, not least by killing Vaclav to take the throne. Soon, legends of Vaclav’s goodness had grown so popular that he was posthumously declared king by Otto the Great.
Kissing under the mistletoe comes from the Vikings
The story goes that after the Norse god Baldr was killed by an arrow made of mistletoe, his mother, the unfortunately named goddess Frigg, swore that the plant should never harm anybody else and that instead it should encourage kissing. This, though, isn’t found anywhere in Norse mythology. Mistletoe is an English traditionBut it was well-known enough in 1786 to appear in a popular song from the now-forgotten musical ‘Two to One’.
Christmas starts earlier every year
No Jesus wasn’t born on Christmas.There’s nothing in the Bible about the date of Jesus’s birth, but the earliest calculation, made in the second century, reckoned it was in March. So we’re nine months late on the whole.
Hark the Herald Angels Sing
It’s not the first line of the hymn; that’s not even a line of the hymn, at least according to the man who wrote it. Charles Wesley wrote a hymn that began “Hark how all the welkin rings/Glory to the king of kings”. Another preacher called George Whitefield then published a version with the line we all know now. Wesley responded by saying that people were welcome to republish his hymns “provided they print them just as they are. But I desire they would not attempt to mend them; for they really are not able.”
Prince Albert invented the Christmas tree (or at least imported it to Britain)
There was one Christmas tree recorded in England in 1444, but nobody knows what it was doing there. This one would have surprised Queen Victoria, who had a Christmas tree as a child. So did the sizeable German immigrant population in Manchester in the early 19th century. Victoria and Albert popularised the Christmas tree when they were pictured with one in the Illustrated London News in 1848.
Coca-Cola designed the modern Santa Claus as part of an advertising campaign
Jingle Bells is the essence of Christmas
Jingle Bells was written by James Pierpont in 1857. Pierpont was American and the song (originally called One Horse Open Sleigh) is about Thanksgiving and about winter enjoyment and frolics more generally. How un-Christmassy it is can be gleaned from the other verses, which never make it into a British carol concert. Verse two goes like this:
A day or two ago
I tho’t I’d take a ride
And soon Miss Fannie Bright
Was seated by my side.
The horse was lean and lank
Misfortune seemed his lot
He got into a drifted bank
And we – we got upsot.
The Bible tells us there were three wise men
Matthew 2:1 tells us that “when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem”. Did you notice the word “three”? Nor did I. They brought gifts with them: “they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense and myrrh”; yet the Bible never says how many magi there were, only that they were plural. There could have been two or 200. Magi, by the way, were Zoroastrians. There were believed to be well-versed in mysterious arts, hence our modern word “magic”.
Christmas is just a Christian version of the Roman festival of Saturnalia
Saturnalia was originally held on 17 December. Later it was expanded until it lasted all the way up to 23 December. It never shared a date with Christmas which is a fact. There was a Roman festival on 25 December, the festival of Sol Invictus. But there were Roman festivals on most days of the year and Sol Invictus is not recorded before Christmas and neither it nor Saturnalia have much in common with it.
Good King Wenceslas
There are two problems with it and the name is only three words.. Though Wenceslas existed, he wasn’t a king and he wasn’t called Wenceslas. His name was Vaclav and he was duke, not king, of Bohemia (in the modern-day Czech Republic) in the 10th century. He may have been good. However, it’s equally likely that people looked back on him with rose-tinted glasses after he was succeeded by his brother, Boleslaus the Cruel. Boleslaus really earned his name, not least by killing Vaclav to take the throne. Soon, legends of Vaclav’s goodness had grown so popular that he was posthumously declared king by Otto the Great.
Kissing under the mistletoe comes from the Vikings
The story goes that after the Norse god Baldr was killed by an arrow made of mistletoe, his mother, the unfortunately named goddess Frigg, swore that the plant should never harm anybody else and that instead it should encourage kissing. This, though, isn’t found anywhere in Norse mythology. Mistletoe is an English traditionBut it was well-known enough in 1786 to appear in a popular song from the now-forgotten musical ‘Two to One’.
Christmas starts earlier every year
No Jesus wasn’t born on Christmas.There’s nothing in the Bible about the date of Jesus’s birth, but the earliest calculation, made in the second century, reckoned it was in March. So we’re nine months late on the whole.
Hark the Herald Angels Sing
It’s not the first line of the hymn; that’s not even a line of the hymn, at least according to the man who wrote it. Charles Wesley wrote a hymn that began “Hark how all the welkin rings/Glory to the king of kings”. Another preacher called George Whitefield then published a version with the line we all know now. Wesley responded by saying that people were welcome to republish his hymns “provided they print them just as they are. But I desire they would not attempt to mend them; for they really are not able.”
Prince Albert invented the Christmas tree (or at least imported it to Britain)
There was one Christmas tree recorded in England in 1444, but nobody knows what it was doing there. This one would have surprised Queen Victoria, who had a Christmas tree as a child. So did the sizeable German immigrant population in Manchester in the early 19th century. Victoria and Albert popularised the Christmas tree when they were pictured with one in the Illustrated London News in 1848.