"Twas the night before Christmas..........."

                     and all through houses all over the United States families are doing last-minute preparations for the blessed celebration of Christmas.  Driving down the street or peeking in the windows, the similarity of those preparations is striking. 
                      Did you ever wonder..........
WHY December 25?
                       There is no record of the actual date of the birth of Jesus.  In fact the church did not celebrate the occasion until more than 300 years after His birth.  In actuality historians believe Jesus was most likely born in the Spring when sheperds would be more apt to spend the nights in the fields rather than winter due to weather.
                        The early Church believed celebrating birthdays was a pagan custom.  Church Fathers found much more importance in celebrating the day a person died----or was born into eternity.  Therefore Easter and Good Friday were much more important in the early Church.
                         It wasn't until 340 AD that the Church began to celebrate the birth of Jesus.  The date of December 25 was chosen for a couple of reasons.  It was chosen to counterbalance the Roman feast celebrating the sun god, a major feast for the pagans of the time.  December 25 was also the time of the Winter Solstice, the time when nights begin to get shorter and days longer----symbolically the time when the light once again begins to overtake the darkness.  The importance of Christmas is not that it is the actual birthday of Jesus but rather a commemoration of his coming into this world to bring us salvation.  It is estimated that more than 400 million people around the world celebrate Christmas.
WHY gift-giving?
                          The tradition of giving gifts at Christmas can be found in the Gospel according to Matthew (2:10-11).  It tells us of the visit of the Magi to the baby Jesus, "They saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshipped him.  Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh."  While the Gospels do not specify that there were three visitors to the Holy Family, tradition has chosen that number because of the number of gifts mentioned.  The beauty of these gifts is found not in their value or worth, but rather in the giving with no expectation of a return.
WHY Christmas Stockings?
                            Legend attributes this custom to St. Nicholas.  There was a kindly nobleman whose wife died.  The gentleman became despondent at the death of his wife and because of this his fortune was soon gone, squandered foolishly.  There was no money left for dowries for his three young daughters and so the girls faced uncertain futures.  When Nicholas, the generous Bishop of Myra in Turkey in the fourth century, heard of the girls' plight, he was determined to help but wanted to remain anonymous.  Late one night, he rode his white horse by the nobleman's house and threw three pouches of gold coins down the chimney where they were fortuitously captured by the stockings the young women had hung by the fireplace to dry.  The young women went on to be married and live happy lives.
WHY Christmas trees?
                              The first Christmas trees appeared in 16th century Germany.  They were used both indoors and out and were decorated with apples, roses and colored paper.  It is believed that Martin Luther first added lighted candles to the tree after being srtuck by the beauty of starlight shinning through the branches of a fir tree outside of his home.  Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, first brought the Christmas tree to England in the 19th century.  Hessian soldiers who fought in the Revolution are credited with the first Christmas trees in America.  The first Christmas tree market appeared in 1851 when a Catskill farmer hauled two sleds of evergreen trees into New York City and sold them all.  By 1900, one in five American families had Christmas trees and by 1925 the custom was nearly universal.