Heinz, Donald (2010). Christmas: Festival of Incarnation. Fortress Press. p.94. ISBN 978-1-4514-0695-5. The Provençal Nativity Scene". Simplytreasures.com. Archived from the original on September 14, 2012 . Retrieved December 25, 2013.

a b Roy, Christian (2005). Traditional Festivals: A Multicultural Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. p.146. ISBN 978-1-57607-089-5. Archived from the original on January 11, 2014 . Retrieved February 3, 2012.

Frøyshov, Stig Simeon. "[Hymnography of the] Rite of Jerusalem". Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology. a b Anon (May 22, 2007). "Bank Holiday Fact File" (PDF). TUC press release. TUC. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 3, 2013 . Retrieved January 12, 2010. Somalia joins Brunei by banning Christmas celebrations 'to protect Islam' ". The Daily Telegraph. December 24, 2015. Archived from the original on May 29, 2018 . Retrieved April 4, 2018.

These 30 Christ-Centered Christmas Activities and Crafts for Kids were carefully chosen and brought together for use with your family this holiday season. Hill, Christopher (2003). Holidays and Holy Nights: Celebrating Twelve Seasonal Festivals of the Christian Year. Quest Books. p.91. ISBN 9780835608107. This arrangement became an administrative problem for the Roman Empire as it tried to coordinate the solar Julian calendar with the lunar calendars of its provinces in the east. While the Romans could roughly match the months in the two systems, the four cardinal points of the solar year—the two equinoxes and solstices—still fell on different dates. By the time of the first century, the calendar date of the winter solstice in Egypt and Palestine was eleven to twelve days later than the date in Rome. As a result the Incarnation came to be celebrated on different days in different parts of the Empire. The Western Church, in its desire to be universal, eventually took them both—one became Christmas, one Epiphany—with a resulting twelve days in between. Over time this hiatus became invested with specific Christian meaning. The Church gradually filled these days with saints, some connected to the birth narratives in Gospels (Holy Innocents' Day, December 28, in honor of the infants slaughtered by Herod; St. John the Evangelist, "the Beloved," December 27; St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, December 26; the Holy Family, December 31; the Virgin Mary, January 1). In 567, the Council of Tours declared the twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany to become one unified festal cycle.Who did God tell in the book of Genesis ‘all peoples on Earth will be blessed through you,’ foretelling that Jesus would be among his descendants? Abraham Christmas | Origin, Definition, Traditions, History, & Facts | Britannica". www.britannica.com . Retrieved December 22, 2021. Christmas Day is celebrated as a major festival and public holiday in countries around the world, including many whose populations are mostly non-Christian. In some non-Christian areas, periods of former colonial rule introduced the celebration (e.g. Hong Kong); in others, Christian minorities or foreign cultural influences have led populations to observe the holiday. Countries such as Japan, where Christmas is popular despite there being only a small number of Christians, have adopted many of the cultural aspects of Christmas, such as gift-giving, decorations, and Christmas trees. A similar example is in Turkey, being Muslim-majority and with a small number of Christians, where Christmas trees and decorations tend to line public streets during the festival. [167]

European History Professor Joseph Perry wrote that likewise, in Nazi Germany, "because Nazi ideologues saw organized religion as an enemy of the totalitarian state, propagandists sought to deemphasize—or eliminate altogether—the Christian aspects of the holiday" and that "Propagandists tirelessly promoted numerous Nazified Christmas songs, which replaced Christian themes with the regime's racial ideologies." [164] Kelly, Richard Michael, ed. (2003). A Christmas Carol. Broadview Press. pp.9, 12. ISBN 978-1-55111-476-7. The Restoration of King Charles II in 1660 ended the ban, and Christmas was again freely celebrated in England. [58] Many Calvinist clergymen disapproved of Christmas celebration. As such, in Scotland, the Presbyterian Church of Scotland discouraged the observance of Christmas, and though James VI commanded its celebration in 1618, attendance at church was scant. [120] The Parliament of Scotland officially abolished the observance of Christmas in 1640, claiming that the church had been "purged of all superstitious observation of days". [121] Whereas in England, Wales and Ireland Christmas Day is a common law holiday, having been a customary holiday since time immemorial, it was not until 1871 that it was designated a bank holiday in Scotland. [122] However, in 17th century England, some groups such as the Puritans strongly condemned the celebration of Christmas, considering it a Catholic invention and the "trappings of popery" or the "rags of the Beast". [57] In contrast, the established Anglican Church "pressed for a more elaborate observance of feasts, penitential seasons, and saints' days. The calendar reform became a major point of tension between the Anglican party and the Puritan party." [116] The Catholic Church also responded, promoting the festival in a more religiously oriented form. King Charles I of England directed his noblemen and gentry to return to their landed estates in midwinter to keep up their old-style Christmas generosity. [109] Following the Parliamentarian victory over Charles I during the English Civil War, England's Puritan rulers banned Christmas in 1647. [57] [117]

25. PRAYER OF GRATITUDE

Hastings, James; Selbie, John A., eds. (2003). Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics. Vol.6. Kessinger Publishing Company. pp.603–604. ISBN 978-0-7661-3676-2. Archived from the original on November 22, 2018 . Retrieved February 3, 2012. a b c Hale Bradt (2004). Astronomy Methods (PDF). p.69. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 20, 2018. . Hutton, Ronald (February 15, 2001). The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-157842-7. Further information: Persecution of Christians in the Soviet Union, Kirchenkampf, and Antireligious campaigns in China A 1931 edition of the Soviet magazine Bezbozhnik, published by the League of Militant Atheists, depicting an Orthodox Christian priest being forbidden to take home a tree for the celebration of Christmastide, which was banned under the Marxist–Leninist doctrine of state atheism. [259]