Тематический сборник текстов для чтения (английский язык). Соснина Е.П - 108 стр.

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108
TOPIC 11. HO LIDAYS, CELEBRATIO NS, CUSTOMS, TRADITIONS
Text 1. Christmas
An enormous number of customs, with either secular, religious, or national aspects,
surround Christmas, and vary from country to country. Most of the familiar traditional
practices and symbols of Christmas, such as the Christmas tree, the Christmas ham, the
Yule Log, holly, mistletoe, and the giving of presents, were adapted or appropriated by
Christian missionaries from the earlier Asatru pagan midwinter holiday of Yule. This
celebration of the winter solstice was widespread and popular in northern Europe long
before the arrival of Christianity, and the word for Christmas in the Scandinavian languages
is still today the pagan jul (=yule). The Christmas tree per se is believed to have first been
used in Germany.
Rather than attempting to suppress such popular pagan feast days, Pope Gregory I
allowed Christian missionaries to give them a Christian reinterpretation, while permitting
most of the associated customs to continue with little or no modification.
2
The give and take
between religious and governmental authorities and celebrators of Christmas continued
through the years. Places where conservative Christian theocracies flourished, as in
Cromwellian England and in the early New England colonies, were among those where
celebrations were suppressed.
3
After the Russian Revolution, Christmas celebrations were
banned in the Soviet Union for the next seventy five years. A few present day Christian
churches, notably the Jehovah's Witnesses, some Puritan groups, and some ultra-
cons ervative fundamentalis t denominations , s till view Chris tmas as a pagan holiday not
sanctioned by the Bible, and do not celebrate it.
Since the customs of Christmas celebration largely evolved in Northern Europe, many
are associated with the Northern Hemisphere winter, whose motifs are prominent in
Christmas decorations and in the Santa Claus myth.
Gift-giving is a near-universal part of Christmas celebrations. The concept of a
mythical figure who brings gifts to children derives from Saint Nicholas, a good hearted
bishop of 4th century Asia Minor. The Dutch modeled a gift-giving Saint Nicholas around
his feast day of December 6. In North America, English colonists adopted aspects of this
celebration into their Christmas holiday, and Sinterklaas became Santa Claus, or Saint Nick.
In the Anglo-American tradition, this jovial fellow arrives on Christmas Eve on a sleigh

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