Did you know?….
1. The word Christmas is made up of two words. The first word is Christ. Christ is just part of Jesus’ name that means Savior. That is why we call Him Jesus Christ. “The second part of the word is mass. A mass is like a meeting. Years ago when people got together, they called it a mass. So when you put the two words together, the word means “a time when people get together to celebrate Jesus Christ.” It is the Christ-mass, or as we say, Christmas.”
2. The first Santa Claus was a man named St. Nicholas. He lived in a town called Myra, in Asia.” “He was a bishop. In his day bishops wore red coats that symbolized the blood of Jesus and white fur collars that represented the purity of Jesus. St. Nicholas loved to help children. He used to drop gold down chimney tops. The children would hang their socks by the fire to dry at night. Many times the gold would bounce into the children’s socks, or stockings as they called them.
3. The first Christmas tree was called a Tannenbaum. That is a German word for Christmas tree. A bishop named St. Boniface was walking in a field during the winter, when he noticed that everything in the field was without life. All the grass was brown and the leaves had fallen off the trees. Suddenly, he saw a beautiful evergreen tree. To him, it looked like a green arrow pointing up to heaven. He was so moved that he knelt by the tree and worshiped God. He told the people in the church to take a tree inside their home as a reminder to worship God during the Christmas season.”
Many years later a man by the name of Martin Luther told the people to put lights on it so the people outside could see that a Christian lived there.
Remember, Jesus is the reason for the season! Praying you have a Merry Christmas!