liqmat wrote:
We celebrate Christmas morning which is still about 15 or so hours away before I wake up for that.
Yes..... True. I actually have no idea, why in some countries you wait until the morning of the 25'th for presents. As to here, we attend at church around 2pm (though not all do it), then a good dinner at 6pm, then singing while walking around the tree and then presents. All in one day.
Can the difference be traced back to how much religion is a part of the actual day, or can the difference be traced to something else? Perhaps because children can not really wait or something?
EDIT:
A bit of googling, gave some interresting knowledge.
The first christian emperor (Konstantin) in the Byzantinian empire. Did a bit of calculation regarding the fact that he knew when mary became pregnant with jesus, and so he added 9 months to that. Now... The old religions celebrated the return of the longer days, and had their own kind of x-mas party thing going on. And because the 23'rd of december was the end of the original celebration (Saturnalia or something like that), then he decided that christmas was to be on the 25'th of december. Two reasons were obvious. He did not want to upset the original religions by celebrating on their holy day, and he did not want christianity to be connected to the old religions in any way. So it became the 25'th.
Now...
In scandinavia, we do not give presents because of the holy men gave jesus presents. Well... It became that in time and over the years, or more acurate, it became the explanation onto why we give each other presents at christmas/X-Mass. Though the tradition goes way back, ages and ages before christianity. And because the scandinavians reality was, that a new day started when it became dark. Then the traditions of giving presents, after they were christianised, became the evening of the 24'th. So... This is actually a way older tradition, that became a christian thing here. Well... Some countries have kept to the 25'th, yet we still keep the presents thing one foot in christianity and one foot in the old norse religious ways. Sweeeet. Love those fact's. 😜
By the way... I have read that more and more danes are returning to the old norse religions. This meaning that we still celebrate the party, though it is not jesus that are celebrated. It is the return of longer daytime hours. And the celebration of all the old gods at the same time. And why not. Only 2% of our population say that they believe in christianity anyway.
Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....
My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen
001100 010010 011110 100001 101101 110011