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mysilvermachine t1_j1rxv35 wrote

Green comes from the norther European traditions of decorating with evergreens for the midwinter festival, presumably because of the association with the rebirth of spring. Red probably because of colour contrast. But it’s noteworthy that when Christmas trees became popular in the U.K. and then the USA gold was the usual colour of ornaments.

So, like all things it evolves over time.

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desertpinstripe t1_j1sev2z wrote

I think the red is from holly berries which are red and appear in many traditional solstice celebrations.

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user6876444568998754 t1_j1tadb6 wrote

Plus cardinals, I don’t know if it’s everywhere but cardinals are kind of a winter symbol where I live

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SirDooble t1_j1tu707 wrote

Cardinals only live in the Americas, so while they'll have become a Christmas icon there, they're not well connected to it in Europe.

Europe has the European Robin however, affectionately called the Robin Redbreast in the UK, which has long been associated with Christmas and featured on some of the first Christmas cards.

The European Robin is mostly sedentary, so it doesn't migrate to warmer climates in the winter. When the trees are bare of leaves, it's quite easy to spot a Robin with it's colourful chest against the greys and whites of winter. This makes them quite an iconic image of winter.

It became a staple part of the modern Christmas tradition which started in the 1800s in the UK. It's certainly fair to say it's one part of why the colour red is associated with Christmas time.

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user6876444568998754 t1_j1ua8l3 wrote

Very interesting! I wasn’t sure if cardinals were everywhere or not but funny how it’s basically the same icon just didn’t bird

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That-Soup3492 t1_j1vdq7c wrote

This is the only correct answer in the thread. All the nonsense about pagan festivals is just people inventing a backstory that doesn't exist. It's just a cultural development, and isn't universal at all. Christmas colors in Eastern Europe often lean into the light blue of frost and ice.

Here's a thread on how thoroughly modern, at most 500-600 years old, Christmas celebrations are.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/rfijy0/pagan_traditions_in_modern_christmas/

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arcosapphire t1_j1vgi7o wrote

That thread specifically acknowledges that the use of greenery predates the more modern customs and is the one thing that could, reasonably, be described as being of older pagan origin.

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That-Soup3492 t1_j1vhrvs wrote

It's impossible to know. There's nothing "pagan" about decorating with greenery in the winter. It's like saying that using potpourri is pagan because ancient people used bowls of fragrant plants in their houses and temples too.

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arcosapphire t1_j1vje88 wrote

I mean personally I think "pagan" is a wildly misapplied word, but I think people mean "it's a cultural thing from prior to the time of Christianization". So the question is basically, is the use of holly and other greenery around this time of year something that is specifically supposed to represent a biblical thing? Or is it something people were already doing and it just got coincidentally associated with Christmas due to the timing?

And I think you'd agree the latter is accurate. And that's what people are trying to get at when they say "it's a pagan thing" even though it might not be related to any religious practice.

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That-Soup3492 t1_j1vlz5o wrote

We can say that there has been cultural continuity; that the Christmas season celebrations are obviously descendants of the feasting and drinking that was done by pre-Christian people during the darkest time of the year... because we are their descendants. Cultures rarely get immediately shorn of certain elements or immediately take them up.

The holly plant has been used by Romans, druids, Norse... people all the way back into pre-history. It was reinterpreted as a Christian decoration with Christian symbolism by Christian converts. Druids thought that holly would protect a home from natural disasters. Christians don't believe that but have used holly to represent Jesus' crown of thorns. That's just cultural evolution.

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arcosapphire t1_j1vmeb8 wrote

What I'm saying is, that's what people mean. That's what they're getting at. They're saying it isn't a Christianity-specific thing like a nativity display is. That is unabashedly Christian.

But instead of writing two paragraphs about the meaning of cultural continuity, they use a shortcut they saw other people use: "it's really just a pagan tradition".

In Christian usage, "pagan" meant "whatever the people who aren't Christians yet are doing".

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That-Soup3492 t1_j1vpeiy wrote

Except, they generally use it derogatorily, or as if it is some sort of "gotcha." As if the Christian symbolism is somehow inauthentic while the Druid symbolism, for example, is somehow authentic. Which is wrong. These things have evolved dozens of times and go right back to pre-history. Nobody stole it from anyone else, and no one's interpretation is inauthentic.

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arcosapphire t1_j1vrsbo wrote

I agree with your perspective, but disagree with the assumption that the use is derogatory or a gotcha. I think it's usually used to indicate that an irreligious celebration is fine, because after all the traditions don't have their root in the religion anyway. At least, that is my viewpoint. I'm an atheist but I like celebrating Christmas as a secular holiday. Things like a Christmas tree don't feel weird because they're not Christian in origin anyway; there's no overt Christian symbolism going on. I would not ever set up a nativity scene, though; that would feel extremely weird to me because it's obviously an expression of a faith I do not have.

I believe the "gotcha" aspects are, in fact, a reaction to the "keep Christ in Christmas" people. There are people who believe that the secularization of the holiday is wrong and offensive. It's at that point that people are ready to come out swinging about how so many aspects of the celebration did not emerge from the religion itself. It's not so much a "gotcha" as an Uno reverse card. People aren't slagging on a holiday they probably enjoy themselves for being inauthentic, they're defending themselves against people who insist that the non-Christian aspects don't belong. And from what you've stated, I'm sure you agree that they do belong, because this is a cultural thing more than it is a religious one.

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Sure-Work3285 t1_j1uaee5 wrote

AFAIK red was a commercial addition from the likes of Coca Cola who advertised Santa in red.

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MarkNutt25 t1_j1vgu50 wrote

Red was a pretty common color for Santa/Father Christmas to wear long before Coca Cola even existed. Check out this version Santa Claus, really pretty similar to the modern version, published 24 years before the Coca Cola company was founded.

As the various visual concepts of Santa Claus/St. Nicholas/Father Christmas coalesced into a single character, those ads probably helped push the needle towards red becoming the only color he ever wears, but the concept had already been kicking around in the public consciousness for centuries, and there's no reason why it couldn't have ended up settling on an image pretty similar to what we have now without the help of Coca Cola's commercials.

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