The Festival of Saturnalia: An earth precursor to Christmas

We all know the story of the first Christmas, the one with the star and the manger and the three wise men. But what is less well known is that our Christmas traditions stretch back for hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, and can be traced to the ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia.

The Roman Saturnalia celebrations highlighted the blessings of the Roman deity Saturn, who was known across the Roman Empire as the god of things like agriculture, time, prosperity and commerce. Saturn’s influence can still be seen all over western culture. We have a planet named in his honour, a day of the week and, of course, the celebration we now call Christmas.

Before inventions like centralized heating and artificial light, December was one of the harshest months of the year. Nothing grew, the sun set early and if you didn’t have fire or shelter, the cold nights could be some of your last. But rather than letting the dark months get to them, Romans would plan elaborate feasts on the darkest days of the year, to both remember the economic and agricultural prosperity that allowed them to survive the winter and to pray for prosperity in the future. We no longer pray to Saturn on the darkest months of the year, but many of our other traditions directly carry over from their Roman roots.

As part of Saturnalia celebrations, all public institutions closed their doors for the entirety of the festival. Just like today, court cases, matters of government and school lessons were put on hiatus until the festivities concluded.

Saturnalia also saw gifts exchanged among families and friends, as well as an increase in the number of charitable donations, where the wealthy would help pay for the expenses of the poor. In his account of the Roman holiday, the historian Lucian also highlights the common practice of consuming far too much alcohol before running door to door, singing songs for the neighbours.

It can be hard to celebrate prosperity and life in the dead of winter when nothing grows, and so the pine tree, one of the only plants to stay green for the whole year, were decorated and even cut up into wreaths.

So how did all of these staples of the holiday season make the jump from Saturnalia to Christmas? When Christianity became the dominant faith of the Roman Empire, Christian missionaries travelled all over Europe to spread the word of God. To them, it was more important to grow their following than it was to get all of the stories of Christ exactly correct. Rather than create their own festival in the springtime (the season which most Christian theologians believe to be the true birthday of Christ), they found it easier to adapt existing festivals and traditions to their own growing faith. Christian missionaries simply substituted Saturn with Christ and pushed to have their own deity associated with the pre-existing festival. To their credit, the plan worked, and all over the world, Christians and non-Christians alike celebrate Christmas during the former festival of Saturn.