When You Think Of Christmas...Who 1st Comes To Mind...Be Honest

Americans spend more money at Christmas than any other time of the year. And, yes, it seems like stores set up their Christmas displays and turn on their Christmas music earlier every year. Christmas-themed commercials start popping up a week before Thanksgiving, at the very latest, and the day-after-Thanksgiving sales are advertised at every store. Certainly, Christmas is the biggest, most widely-celebrated holiday of the year for Christians and non-Christians alike. In reality, however, many of the traditions we partake of at Christmastime didn’t start with Jesus’s birth. Things like gift-giving and elaborate meals had been taking place for years before Jesus’s birth in celebration of the Winter Solstice. As the Christian religion began to spread in the years after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, the Winter Solstice celebration merged with the Christian celebration of Jesus’s birth. This was a secular celebration long before it was a Christian celebration , by the middle ages St Nicholas was added to the tradition and transplanted in the Americas as Santa Claus. Join us tonight along with scholar and educator Dr. Lee Warren, as we discuss the true origins of Christ-Mass and the corporate marriage that introduced Santa Claus and reduced Jesus as the focal point and became Christmas