It should be noted that the use of hã©sita for some time on the “e” of Noã«l. “In the first©edition of its dictionary, the academy©did not set a very©maÂ,” recalls, for example, Le Littrã, © who quotes the linguist Benjamin Pautex. According to the latter, the sages were right to© prefer© the spelling “Christmas”, since it is “impossible to confuse the oe with the oe”. Thus, in 1178, we could read in Le Roman de Renart: “This for a louse before Christmas That we put bacon in salt”. Already in the fifth century, under the pontificate of Gregory the Great, the midnight mass was celebrated. In the seventh century, the custom of celebrating three masses was introduced in Rome: the evening vigil of December 24, the dawn mass and the daytime mass of December 25. The forty days before Christmas become the “Forty Days of Saint Martin” in honor of Saint Martin of Tours. It was not until the fourteenth century that the word “Noã” flourished. And again! Its spelling will not immediately be snow-white and©will fly according to the©regions before taking the form we® know today. The trãsor of the French language briefly and succinctly©recalls the development©of his©writing: “The o de noã«l (opposite the old French nael and the former Provençal Nadal) is dã` à une dissimilation des deux ââa` de natalis.
Christmas, which was one of the great Christian holidays along with Easter, was gradually loaded with local traditions, mixtures of innovations and maintenance of ancient folklore, to the point where the appearance of a popular secular festival with many variations in time and space was presented. The association of the memory of a birth facilitated the central place that the family occupied in the direction and conduct of this feast. The Roman Catholic Church, for example, has insisted on this aspect since the introduction of the feast of the “Holy Family” on the Sunday after December 25, 1893. Gifts in the form of gifts seem to be reminiscent of gifts given during the Roman festivals of Saturnalia in December (strenae).[87] Many churches do not celebrate Christmas and equate it with a pagan holiday. [51] [52] [83] Christmas is considered a commercial holiday. [84] The massive purchase of Christmas gifts has the effect of peak consumption, particularly in the fields of toys, leisure, food and gastronomy. In response to this shopping frenzy, a World Shopping Day is organized by the Adbustern, which is usually scheduled for November 25 to denounce the economic aspect of this holiday and therefore mass consumption in general. The tradition of giving continues outside of any Christian context. Gérald Berthoud, professor of cultural and social anthropology at the University of Lausanne, explains it this way: “The Christmas period, very busy ceremonially, has a certain ritual intensity.
Even though we basically live in a market society, there is something about the exchange of gifts [at Christmas] that is on the scale of the gift and in principle universal: they create, maintain and strengthen bonds; in a way, they form a matrix of the social”[92]. La Noã«l, la fãªte de Noã«l, l`à à Ãque©de Noã«l. Another Christian holiday celebrated in Alexandria since the beginning of the second century anticipates Christmas: the epiphany, considered the first manifestation of Christ, celebrated on January 6 or 10 the day of the pagan festivals, one of which is linked to the birth of Eon of the Virgin Core, another to the cult of Osiris, and a third to the cult of Dionysus. At the beginning of the fourth century, after the Council of Nicaea (325), which definitively established the doctrine of the divinity of Christ, attention turned to the feast of December 25, which made it possible to distinguish the birth of Jesus from its first manifestation and to avoid a confusion too favorable to the position that had become heretical, that Jesus was only a man accepted by God at his baptism[26]. The Christmas animations are diverse. Some are more symbolic and recurrent than others like Christmas trees, Christmas shows and Christmas markets. All of them have the main objective of bringing the dream and magic associated with Christmas in part to children. Even if the ultimate origin of the French word Christmas is actually associated with the concept of “rebirth” of the sun during the winter solstice, this etymology is not due to Either Celtic or Germanic, but Latin. It probably dates back to the feast of the Nativity of Christ, in which the Natalis, associated with the Roman cult of Sol Invictus (the official feast of the dies natalis solis invicti, “Day of the birth of the unconquered Sun”), is extracted from its pagan context to take on a Christian meaning.