5 minute read
Christmas traditions
A Christmas story
What is the dominant thought which comes to your mind during Christmas celebrations?
Is it the singing of carols, the Christmas tree, the giving of presents or even Santa Claus? Do you ever wonder about these ceremonies and when or how they began?
Way back in 1816, Joseph Mohr, a young Catholic priest in the Austrian village of Mariapfarr who may have been affected by the aftermath of the
Napoleonic war or a massive local drought, sat down one day and wrote a short poem starting with the words
‘Silent night, holy night’. It was a poem, not a song.
Mohr was born in Salzburg in 1792.
His mother was an unmarried embroiderer who was deserted by the boy’s father. He was ordained as a priest in 1815 and travelled to many locations in Austria. In 1837 he became pastor in the Alpine village of Wagrain where he died, just before Christmas, at the age of 55 in 1848.
In 1817 the young minister had been transferred to the church of St Nikolaus in the nearby village of Obendorf, and
the poem remained untouched amongst his belongings for two years. He worked as an assistant minister at his new location without any problems until 24 December 1818 when he decided the music presented as part of the church Christmas ceremonies needed a different approach.
He decided to set his poem Silent Night to music and sought help from a friend, an Austrian schoolteacher Franz Gruber who was also the church organist and a composer. It took Gruber only a few hours to write the music and the pair performed the song that night but because the organ had broken down Mohr playing the melody on his guitar singing tenor while Gruber sang bass.
Normally, that was where a new church melody would stop but organ builder Karl Mauracher came to the village in 1819 to carry out repairs on the organ, heard and took a copy of the music with him. That was the major step which transferred Silent Night from just a poem set to music to one of the great carols in the world.
Mauracher gave the music to the local Rainer and Strasser folk-singing families who quickly installed it as part of their program. Apart from local performances, they took the carol to the world. In 1822 the Rainers sang it in Russia at the invitation of Tsar Alexander 1, while in 1839 the Strassers introduced Silent Night to the United States.
The singing of carols has been embraced by people of different cultures around the world to create joy and happiness in the best and the worst of times. Without these carols, within the home or sung by a 100 strong choir at church, Christmas would seem bare or like a table without pudding or gifts.
An early score of Silent Night, discovered in 1995. Note the autograph on the lower left refers to the date of the original poem, and was added several years after publication.
Many are unchanged from the melodies which were written hundreds of years ago while others have appeared in lighter vein such as Jingle Bells, White Christmas, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus is Coming to Town.
Jingle Bells, which was first published in 1857 under the title of One-Horse Open Sleigh, was the world’s biggest selling song until overtaken by Irving Berlin’s White Christmas. Jingle Bells gained worldwide attention on 16 December 1965 when it became the first song broadcast from space when played by the American spacecraft Gemini 6.
The very first carol, written in AD129, didn’t even mention Christmas. It was created by a Roman Bishop with the song called Angels Hymn sung at a Christmas service in Rome. It is believed several thousand years ago pagans celebrated the winter solstice, traditionally the shortest day in Europe, by dancing and singing songs of joy around stone circles in Europe.
St Francis of Assisi changed everything in 1223 when he performed the first nativity play in Italy. Churches from the 1700s organised Christmas carols by the light of candles which became worldwide events such as Sydney’s Carols in the Domain and the Myer Bowl in Melbourne.
Carols became a Christmas fixture in 1843 when O Come All Ye Faithful was published, Away in a Manger in 1885 and Silent Night in 1889 but the festival of Christmas can be traced back to the Romans who held the festival of Saturnalia around 25 December when presents were exchanged and fun was the order of the day.
Fir trees, also known as Christmas trees, had long been part of European celebrations but were not introduced into England until 1832 when a tree was produced at a royal family Christmas party and became widespread when a similar tree was displayed at Windsor Castle.
Holly is used to decorate Christmas cakes and puddings and takes its origin
An icon of Saint Nicholas dating from the first half of the 13th century. from pagan days where like other green plants it heralded the coming of new life and spring. It was also used by Christians to decorate their homes.
And last but not least we come to the man of many names – Father Christmas, Santa Claus, Saint Nicholas and Kris Kringle. A small town called Myra in Southern Turkey is recognised as the starting point where the bishop was Saint Nicholas, a wealthy young man who gave away all of his property to care for the poor and especially children.
He was born on 6 December, the beginning of Advent in some countries, and he was declared a saint after the legend of his good works became widespread and was remembered.
Father Christmas, as he is better known today, originated from 1851 through John Nash of the magazine Harper’s Weekly who drew a picture of a jolly Father Christmas. The character of a ‘Jolly Old Man’ can also be traced to a Coca Cola advertisement in 1931 which showed a Father Christmas dressed in a red suit and with a long white beard.
Have a happy, healthy, singing Christmas.
