Christmas was created to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Many people have been celebrating this well-known holiday since 1870 in many different ways which include, gifts, decorating Christmas trees and outside of someone’s house, attending church, spending time with family and friends and of course, the excitement of waiting for Santa Claus to arrive.

“Every year me and my cousins decorate the Christmas tree together and we always finish it by putting the star on top,” said Sophomore Jessica Montoya.

In many ancient cultures, a tree was brought inside the house and decorated to ensure a good crop for the new year. In the 8th century, Germanic tribes worshiped oak trees. The evergreen was known as a symbol of Christianity and the began to decorate the tree. This all started the tradition that has many people buying different kinds of Christmas trees. Every year there is about 30 – 35 million real trees sold. There is a total of 21,000 Christmas tree growers and each tree takes about 15 years to grow before they are sold in stores.

The mistletoe was believed to have fallen from heaven and grown on a tree. In the ancient times the Druids believed that the mistletoe would bring good luck as well as health. Other beliefs are that it is a representation of joining heaven and earth. There has been other signs that show if someone has a good crop that it will bring good harvest in the following season. To get a kiss under a mistletoe has two meanings. One is that you would get married and the other symbolized acceptance.

“Each part of my family gets a gift for the other family’s kids and they exchange them,” said Montoya.

Saint Nicholas, also known as Sint Nikolaas, was famous for being very generous because he gave away many gifts to children. He had a feast day for children that was held on Dec 6^th which became a children’s holiday. English colonist could not pronounce his name so they decided to call him Santa Claus. The English later started having the feast day on what is now present day Christmas. Another ancient legend from the 1600’s involved the Germans recognizing Dec 25^th to be the day that Jesus Christ was born and thought they should celebrate that by giving gifts to one another. In the Netherlands and Germany, the Santa Claus figure was known to be riding a horse in the sky to deliver presents to children while an elf named Black Peter accompanied him to whip naughty children. In addition to Saint Nicholas, the three Wise Men gave gifts to baby Jesus which is also believed to start the Christmas gift tradition.

The true meaning of Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ and the popular holiday has evolved to be celebrated in many different ways.