True Origins of Holidays

We celebrate holidays with glee and popular traditions. But how many people know where they come from or what the origins of the holiday truly are? Here are some interesting facts about the holidays we celebrate.

• Valentines Day-each year the market profits off of cards,candies,teddy bears, and flowers. It is a celebration of love and a big dent in the pocket book. In the third century, wolves were said to wonder around Rome. The roman God Lupercus was said to watch over the shepard’s flocks so that the wolves would not harm them. Every February, a feast was held to honor this god and during the feast all of the names of women were put in a box and names would be drawn to be matched with men and each couple were to be matched together for the entire year.The Catholic church actually changed this pagan religion by changing the name to St. Valentine’s Day.The priests would then put saints names into a box and young adults would draw from the box and have to act like the saint that they drew for that entire year.One of the men’s names who were in the box contributed greatly to what we celebrate now days.One of them “Valentine” was around during a time of war when many men would rather stay home with their wives instead of fight. As a result, the emperor of the time declared that no more marriages could be performed.Now there are two different versions of this next bit. One is that Valentine secretly performed marriages and was thrown in jail and died, the other is that he was arrested for helping Christians and was thrown in jail and cured a guards daughter.From this came the notion that he fell in love with the girl and would  write her lover letters ending with “from your Valentine”.  Valentine is the patron saint of lovers and engaged couples.
• Easter is such a fun holiday, you get to paint eggs, hide and seek them, get a basket full of goodies and visit the Easter Bunny at your local mall with your little ones. This holiday does in fact come from an ancient Babylonian belief 2000 years before Christ was ever born.It is from the belief that a god was resurrected from the underworld and a celebration (Easter) was held in honor of this.The holiday then became known from the Bible, -from the tradition of the Passover. To us(originally, before the candy,eggs, and Easter Bunny) represents the birth,death, and resurrection of the Lord.You may be surprised to learn that Easter did not in fact become popular until after the Civil War! The Easter egg originally represented spring and then Christians interpreted it to mean the tomb of which Jesus sprung from.The Easter Bunny represents fertility and guess what bunnies do not lay eggs. The Easter Bunny has never been connected with any Christian meaning.
• Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I am a grown woman and I’m not going to lie, I still love to dress up in costumes.Originally the Celts celebrated the end of harvest and the awakening of winter on October 31. This is also the day they believed that dead spirits would rise from the dead. A celebration would take place where they would all dress in costumes and slaughter animals and burn crops and then they would try to tell their fortunes.Since religious Puritans immigrated to America, Halloween was a very limited and scarce holiday, however a few colonies would celebrate the holiday. They would not wear costumes until later when the Irish immigrated to America, however they would tell each other stories of the dead, tell each others fortunes and dance around.After the Irish immigrated the two traditions merged and resulted in people dressing up and going house to house begging for money. People would also place bowls of food outside there doors in hopes of keeping the ghosts away- this along with the begging turned into trick or treat.

• Christmas is probably my favorite holiday. All of the lights, the tree, decorating,shopping, and Santa Clause. It has a little something for everyone. The first “Christmas” ever celebrated was two centuries after Jesus birth where a celebration would be held in the name of winter solstice and the sun. Years and years later, after Christianity was a wide spread the celebration of this turned to the celebration of Christ. He was in fact not even born in December but said to be born in the fall-interesting huh. Santa was actually a nickname for a fire god who was said to crawl down chimneys and give gifts and who people would burn children and eat them in honor of this god. Now to us, this tradition of Santa comes from a man named Saint Nick; you may be interested in the fact that “old Nick” is actually a term that has been used to refer to the devil.Christmas trees were actually widely brought in the home and decorated in ancient cultures but not for decoration but as a way of ensuring a good crop for the upcoming year.

As with most, the origins of this holiday are in fact from pagan roots and it is the church who have shaped it somewhat into what we celebrate now. 

Image via Wikipedia