“Death and ghosts are very present at Christmas,” says Sylvie Blais, art historian, co-author with Pierre Lahoud of Christmas and its traditions in Quebec. The screen of joy of the celebrations makes us easily forget that the dead have always been invited there. “Besides, the dead, those missing from families, are always more present at Christmas than at other times: we think of them more. »
The three ghosts who visit the miser Ebenezer Scrooge, in the famous Christmas story by Charles Dickens, have their distant correspondences in a whole rich folklore which reminds us that Christmas constitutes in some way a point of support for the celebration of the dead. “There are Quebec legends where the dead return at Christmas,” emphasizes Sylvie Blais. “The part of magic during these celebrations is very deep and distant. She’s way bigger than Santa Claus! For example, we have stories where animals start to talk in stables. »
Traditions, in all societies, often appear less profound than one might believe. In the case of Christmas however, the celebrations go back a long, long way. Often until the dawn of time. “We would like to believe that this is a fairly recent consumerist holiday, but it all goes back a long way when you look closely. Even what we know today as Boxing Day probably has roots that go back several centuries,” maintains Sylvie Blais. From the 15the century, boxes are in fact distributed as gifts, most often to the poor, the day after the great feast… In churches, boxes will be placed for a long time for the faithful to fill.
A secular celebration
The Christmas celebration is so old in the history of humanity that it is necessarily secular, historian Pierre Lahoud immediately affirms. The celebration of light, in the day when it finally regained ground over the night, is lost far away in the history of humanity. “Stonehenge, in England, is 5,000 years old! The Christmas party is changing. It has adapted to all cultures. Over the course of time, all kinds of practices have been added to its existence which make it even richer. It is not surprising that many religions wanted to take hold of it,” notes Pierre Lahoud. For her part, Sylvie Blais observes that even the great political religions of the 20the century rubbed shoulders with this celebration to give it a new meaning: the Nazis wanted to remodel this celebration and the Russian communist regime wanted to get rid of it.
Everything is magical and legendary about Christmas, adds Sylvie Blais. “Today, children no longer know much about stories linked to religion. So much so that even this side, once so present, belongs to a kind of tale, to a set of curiosities. »
Like the tales of Thousand and one Night, Christmas can also have a multitude of meanings and doors that open to a world that is both distant and close. In this way, it also resembles Russian dolls that fit together. Each has particular aspects, which generally account for the same phenomenon, while being different from each other, write the authors in Christmas and its traditions.
“We wanted to produce a short book, which examines several facets of Christmas,” explains Sylvie Blais. These are “Christmas curiosities that we offer”. The texts are short. They follow one another, at an almost rushed pace, relying on numerous period illustrations. Ultimately, these are so many avenues that can be explored independently of each other.
At the time of ancient Rome, the Saturnalia already had the feel of the Christmas we know, recalls Pierre Lahoud. The homes are decorated with green plants of all kinds. Green, the omnipotence of green, affirms the presence of light. Many institutions are closed for the occasion. Celebrations are in order. “Everything stops, in a way, already at this time, so that we can celebrate. »
“The weather is never the same at Christmas,” adds Sylvie Blais. This is due to careful staging of the event, with its anticipation for example in the Advent calendar. If this has more or less disappeared, the fact remains that society continues to pause en masse. A rare phenomenon. For those who always put one up in their home, “the tree is now put up early, very early. Before, it was at the last minute that it was decorated. Several elements marked the anticipation of Christmas. The fact remains that this is another moment when almost everyone stops. Christmas once again closes a sort of cycle, which begins again on the following days. »
The conclusion of a cycle
Christmas imposes more than an intermission, but rather the idea of a cycle. “A very long time ago, this concept of “eternal return” was developed by astronomers from Mesopotamia and was then taken up by Greek philosophers,” say the two authors. Christmas underlies the idea that everything comes back, that everything is reborn, that the natural cycle of the world is immutable.
Look: the Yule log, eaten by so many gourmands. The real log is associated, in Scandinavian countries, with the idea of life, nativity, fertility. Pastry chefs, recall Sylvie Blais and Pierre Lahoud, ended up being inspired by this symbol to create, from around 1860, a rolled cake, soon available in a multitude of sweet versions.
That the Catholic religion felt the need to slip the birth of its idol into the swaddling clothes of such an ancient nativity celebration and so deeply inscribed in human consciousness is easily explained. Catholicism feels the need to hammer its idea of Christmas into everyone’s conscience. Pierre Lahoud and Sylvie Blais recall that in 1977 the Canadian Post Office issued a series of stamps of varying nominal values to recall a song from the 16th century.e century, the Jesous Ahatonhia, which the missionaries had instilled in the Hurons in the spirit of Christmas. In any case, humanity did not wait for Christianity and its missionaries on the surface of the earth to mark, in multiple ways, the winter solstice.