In our own State Christmas is yet below Thanksgiving as a day of devotion and a long way behind New Year’s day sociably. From year to year a more general observance of the day is coming into practice, and before many more anniversaries it will be something like what it was in the “merry days of old”, a day for Christian thankfulness to find expression in innocent gaiety a day which to suspend the business of the year, and to reflect upon it, to make it critic on the year that is before us; to think of the friends scattered round the earth, and may be, of the others gone forever, the grief for whom is softened by reflection on the life of Him who on his day brought with Him into the world that hope in the light of which we see that death has no sting and the grave no victory.
The day has been denominated Christ-mass, from the appellative Christ having been added to the name of Jesus to express that he was Messiah, or the anointed. Probably from the commencement the day was observed by the early Christian fathers, and ninety-eight years after the birth of Christ it was generally observed as a festival. In the year 137 Pope Telesphorus ordered that it be held as a solemn feast, and that divine service should be on that day performed. In the year 303 we are told that Diocletian, the Roman Emperor, who was then keeping his Court at Nicomedia, being informed that the Christians were assembled on its day in great multitudes, to celebrate Christ’s nativity, ordered the doors to be shut, and the church to be set on fire, and six hundred perished in the burning pile. No wonder that when the enemies of the name of Christ melted away before the gentle teaching His merciful gospel that Christian people felt that the triumph should be celebrated not alone in devotion, but in rejoicing over the victory won by his followers in heaven and on earth.
Judging from the ample business done by our retail merchants, and the crowds that were to be seen on Saturday night carrying home mysterious parcels, for which Santa Claus was to have all the credit, the home celebrations were all they should be, and that mythical “little fat man” who ministers to the wants of good children, left no stocking empty.