Ever wonder why we practice the Christmas traditions we do? Why we have holly, rosemary, and mistletoe and ivy? Why we put Christmas trees in our homes, or exchange gifts?
No doubt most people can't truthfully say they know what these traditions symbolize. We just recognize them as Christmas 鈥渟tuff鈥� we were brought up with as children, and blindly accept as adults. They are popular symbols of Christmas, but we don鈥檛 know why.
Here are the stories behind a few of those symbols.
Christmas greenery: Holly, blue rosemary, mistletoe and ivy
So let鈥檚 start with holly. The sharp leaves symbolize the thorns on Christ鈥檚 crown; the evergreen leaves, eternal life. The red berries symbolize Christ鈥檚 blood spilled at the cross. If the berries are white, they symbolize His purity; if green, the cross, and if black, His death.
Blue rosemary, as a legend goes, got its colour when Mary laid her blue cloak on a bush as they ran from King Herod鈥檚 assassins.
Mistletoe and ivy, which always stay green, symbolize eternal life.
Christmas trees: Where the tradition began
And Christmas trees? St. Boniface started that tradition in the 8th century. For him, the tree鈥檚 triangular shape symbolized the Holy Trinity. Legend also says Jesus, Mary and Joseph hid in some cedar trees to escape Herod鈥檚 aforementioned assassins. We give gifts, supposedly, as a nod to the three wise men that brought baby Jesus gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
Poinsettias: How they came to be Christmas plants
Poinsettias are also called Flores de Noche Buena, or Flowers of the Holy Night. Poinsettias are the quintessential Christmas plant, growing a seasonal and brilliant Christmas red. The poinsettia (euphorbia pulchentima) is native to Guatemala and Mexico, (and the Philippines*) growing along roadsides as big as shrubs, or even trees.Some can even get to be about 10 feet tall.
It鈥檚 said the plant was used by the Aztecs for some type of ceremonies, many hundreds of years ago. Its arrival on the Christmas scene appears to have been with Franciscan monks, in the 17th century. Today, poinsettias come in many colours besides red: white, pink, peach, you name it. And there are about as many legends connecting the plant with Christmas.
Perhaps the most popular is the story of Pepita, a young Mexican peasant girl.
As the story goes, she and her young brother were walking to Mass on Christmas Eve, but they didn鈥檛 have a gift for baby Jesus, being poor as they were. So along the way, they gathered weeds from the side of the road, making a tiny bouquet. The other children howled with laughter at their humble gift, but when Pepita and her brother put the weeds in the church manger, they miraculously transformed it into the beautiful red and white plant we see today.
Another legend tells of another poor boy who prayed for a gift to give to Jesus, and while he prayed, a poinsettia sprang up at his feet. Symbolically, the shape and arrangement of the poinsettia鈥檚 leaves remind one of the Star of Bethlehem, which the three wise men followed to find the Christ Child. The red is the blood of Christ; the white, purity of His sacrifice.
The much more mundane story is that a U.S. ambassador to Mexico named Joel Robert Poinsettia was so taken with the red flowers that he shipped them back home to South Carolina, where other people shared his taste 鈥� so much so that December 12th, U.S. citizens celebrate National Poinsettia Day.
