I thought it might be interesting to examine the history of the tradition of Christmas gift-giving.
I think it is fair to say that today the giving of presents has become the biggest part of the Christmas holiday for many people. I must confess that the importance of gift-giving has never been a major part of my Christmas. I grew up poor and so the gifts were few and far between, and what gifts I received were usually handmade (I still have the sleigh my Grandpa made for me).
As I grew up, I would observe the importance of gifts to others, and I willingly contributed to the tradition. If you have read my first Christmas article, you will recall that for me, it was all about family, fun, food and the quiet peace the season brings.
Christmas, as it is celebrated today, started during the Victorian era of the 1860s. Family members exchanged very simple gifts, the love and bonding that it fostered was an important concept.
While Christmas gifts can be virtually anything, we tend to focus a great deal on creating 'lists' that must be filled. We now spend billions of dollars every year buying gifts for our children, parents, spouses, and other relatives and friends. There is an entire industry set up around this single day, and many people I know spend months looking for that 'perfect' gift.
That look on a loved one’s face when you give them a gift from the heart is, of course, a special thing and has become firmly intertwined in most people’s holiday traditions.
Have you ever wondered where the tradition of gift-giving even came from? The giving of presents during this time of year is a custom that dates to ancient Rome. Societies during that time exchanged presents as part of the celebration of the winter solstice, pre-dating the Christmas holiday. With the establishment of the Christian holiday of Christmas, most of the pagan traditions died out, and that included gift-giving, at least for a while.
Historians tell us that it was not until around 336 AD that Dec. 25 was officially declared as Christmas Day, and that gift-giving became popular again.
The connection to the biblical story of the Three Magi and the gifts they brought to the baby Jesus is often credited as the reason for this. Many still speculate that one of the biggest reasons we exchange gifts at Christmas has to do with this story of the Wise Men and the nativity scene from the Bible. You will recall the story of how these three men came to the baby Jesus bearing gold, frankincense and ,yrrh. While this may sound like a plausible origin, it isn't really.
I was taught that while it is important to recognize and honour these three gifts, the greatest original Christmas gift was the birth of Jesus himself.
This theory of the Magi being behind the origins of gift-giving would seem to have some holes. While Christmas became a tradition in the fourth century, gift-giving during the holidays is of Roman origin. It was part of a celebration offered to the Roman god Saturn 'Io Saturnalia' the ancient Roman equivalent of ‘Merry Christmas.' Saturn was viewed as the god of agriculture who gave us vegetation and fruitfulness all year round.
This celebration would last for seven days, from Dec. 17 to 23. The gift-giving ceremonies were seen as a way of gaining fortune for the next year. People initially gave simple gifts like candles, cheap wines, fruits, nuts and the like. Early Christian leaders would phase this out.
They considered it their religious duty to eradicate the existing pagan culture but knew that dumping the beloved festival would cause a backlash, so in the fourth century, they created a rival festival to mark Jesus' birth: Christmas. While the Bible doesn't explicitly state the date on which Jesus was born, church leaders placed the date as Dec. 25 and seemingly borrowed some Saturnalia rituals (including the giving of gifts) for their own festival to keep the public happy.
The festival quickly spread throughout the Christian world. Thus, it was not until the fourth century that we saw the tradition of gift-giving enter the Christmas celebration on a great scale. Many Christians found it quite disturbing, given that the origins of the tradition were pagan in nature, and chose not to celebrate by giving gifts.
Widely referred to today as the ‘Santa Claus Tradition,' the man who would seem to have inspired the story of a ‘jolly old St. Nick’ and this gift-giving tradition was a Christian bishop named St. Nicholas. St. Nicholas was perhaps one of the most famous gift-givers in Christmas history, as he delighted children and adults alike with surprise presents, which he left in the shoes put outside.
Legend has it that he had a habit of secretly bestowing gifts upon the poor, including widows, prostitutes and children at this time of year. This attribute became closely tied with the Christmas holiday and evolved into the story of the ‘jolly old elf’ that we know and love today, The Night Before Christmas poem, solidifying the tradition.
At one point in history, giving gifts was not extended to the average person necessarily. Some rulers of the past expected gifts from their people as a form of tribute. Things would change during the first millennium and the Protestant Reformation when gift giving to children replaced giving them to your superiors.
In the 13th century, many French nuns made and gave gifts to the needy on the eve of St. Nicholas.
This tradition would spread across Europe and into North America during the 19th century. For example, stories arise of how children began to receive gifts of cakes and sweets, nuts, and cards, as well as books and various types of simple toys.
Yet it was in the 18th century that gift giving in Canada became a central tradition of our Christmas festivities.
The dates for gift-giving have changed in recent years as well. Some families celebrate for multiple days at a time. Others, at one point in history, celebrated on dates that were completely different than the official date of Dec. 25. As a child, a friend of mine across the road celebrated Ukrainian Christmas.
It has only been recently that people generally limit their gift opening ritual to Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. Part of that is believed to be due to the rise in popularity of certain Christmas stories, such as The Night Before Christmas.
The holiday first started to become commercialized in the mid-19th century with the sale of Christmas ornaments and Christmas trees. During the next 100 years, this practice would spread to gift giving.
The Christmas advertisement has been in our newspapers since 1820, and Father Christmas or Santa Claus has appeared in stores since the 1840s. I first remember Santa associated with Coca-Cola, hence his red and white outfit.
In Victorian times to give a gift was an expression of kindness, ingenuity and merriment. One of the popular traditions was the cobweb party. Each family member was assigned a unique colour, then shown to a room that was crisscrossed with yarn of varying colours. One’s job was to find their colour and follow it to find where a small gift was located.
Not everyone got into the gift giving spirit. My Quaker forefathers banned the practice in the nation's earliest days, considering it a pagan tradition and many Quakers who were found to be celebrating around Dec. 25 were sternly reprimanded.
Our ancestors carved wooden toys and made pieces of needlework in the agricultural off-season to give to family members and neighbours. After the industrial revolution, we sadly saw those handmade items replaced with mass-manufactured trinkets and toys. Luckily for me, my granddad and grandmother still made gifts for the grandchildren.
By 1904, the local media was already lamenting the rampant commercialism of the day. Editorials stated that "25 years ago, Christmas was not the burden that it is now," and “there was less haggling and weighing, less quid pro quo, less fatigue of body, less wearing of soul; and, most of all, there was less loading up with trash."
There were even organizations founded in the U.S., such as the Society for the Prevention of Useless Giving (SPUG), which boasted influential members. Retailers, however, were not deterred. The ultimate gift giving patron, Santa, started to appear in advertisements, and the dreaded 'Christmas creep' began, with stores advertising their Christmas wares earlier each year.
Over the years, I have encountered people who lobby for the abandonment of Christmas gift giving, with about one-third of our holiday spending still not paid off two months after Christmas. One colleague went as far as to suggest most of us don't even like many of the presents we receive. The only argument that held much sway with me was that true caring doesn't need to be communicated with a lot of gift giving.
Writing this article has prompted me to think more about why we exchange gifts and about the actual art of exchanging gifts. I hope that this brief look at the tradition of Christmas gift giving has given you an insight into why we do it and what it is meant to represent. Hopefully this year we will be able to appreciate not the presents themselves, but why we exchange gifts at Christmas at all.
Sources: Why Do We Give Gifts at Christmas? by Zoe Adams; The Origins and History of Gift Giving from the Curious History Website; A Brief History of Gift Giving at Christmas by Sarah January
