11/12/2017

The Impact of Christmas and New Year in People’s Life

Planning

Brainstorming.
1. Decorations in Christmas.
2. New Year Resolutions.
3. Christmas Carols.
4. Santa Claus.
5. Presents.
6. Christmas and New Year Dinner.
7. Religion.
8. Commercialism.
Free Writing.
1. People decorate their houses with colorful lights and other ornaments as a Christmas tree or
a Jesus Christ’s birth set.
2. In the New Year’s celebration most people set to themselves some purposes or objectives,
called resolutions, to achieve in the year to come.
3. There are many songs called carols that refer to the Christmas celebration, some are really
old and some others are very recent.
4. During Christmas many people animates the spirit using the mythical figure called Santa
Claus.
5. The presents bought by many people for their family members are something normal in
Christmas but also, in a minor abundance, in New Year’s Eve.
6. Many people celebrates Christmas and New Year since one day before with a dinner joining
all the family at night and when 24 o’clock rings they are already celebrating and partying.
7. Christmas emerged from religious rituals, because there are many religions that take
Christmas as their biggest celebration from the year.
8. Many stores take advantage from both of the holidays to sell and win more.
Journalist’s Questions.
1. What are Christmas and New Year?
 Christmas is a Christian holiday honoring the birth of Jesus Christ, it evolved through the
years and today is a time for family and friends to get together and exchange gifts. (History
Channel)
 The New Year is the time at which a new calendar year begins and the calendar’s year
count increases by one. Many cultures celebrate the event in some manner and the first
day of January is often marked as a national holiday. (Wikipedia, 2017)

2. Why are they celebrated?

 Christmas is celebrated because Christians honor the birth of Jesus Christ. Many
traditions have been associated to Christmas through the pass of the years, but in the
nowadays it is taken more as a family holiday.
 New Year is celebrated, believe it or not, because of our will to survive. It has been
celebrated since thousands of years ago because it allows us to celebrate that we have
survived and made it through another year, through another translation from the Earth
around the sun.
 3. How are they celebrated?
 Actually both are celebrated very different in every culture, religion and/or region, so we
would need to see each one of these to know how they are celebrated throughout the
world.
4. When did they start to be celebrated?
 Christmas started being celebrated worldwide in the IV Century when the filocalian
liturgical calendar included the 25th of December (date that was established by Sexto Julio
Africano as the day of the birth of Jesus Christ in the year 221) as the day of birth of Jesus
Christ.
 The New Year’s Eve is the most ancient holiday of all, it started being celebrated in the
Ancient Babylon 4000 years ago. Back in those days it was celebrated within the first
Crescent Moon after the first day of spring.
Reading Material.

David, R. (2013). Psychology Today. Retrieved December 2017, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/how-

risky-is-it-really/201312/why-we-really-celebrate-new-years-day

gotQuestions?org. (n.d.). Retrieved December 2017, from https://www.gotquestions.org/why-celebrate-

Christmas.html

History Channel. (n.d.). History Channel. Retrieved December 2017, from www.history.com/topics/christmas

Primeros Cristianos. (2016). primeroscristianos.com. Retrieved December 2017, from

http://www.primeroscristianos.com/index.php/temas/item/2645-como-se-comenzo-a-celebrar-la-fiesta-de-
la-navidad/2645-como-se-comenzo-a-celebrar-la-fiesta-de-la-navidad

Wikipedia. (2017). Retrieved December 2017, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Year

Wordpress.com. (2011). Retrieved December 2017, from https://celebnavi.wordpress.com/origen-de-la-celebracion-

de-ano-nuevo/
 Jorge González Zavala
3°C 11/12/2017

The Impact of Christmas and New Year in People’s Life

Organizing
1. Journalist’s Questions: 1. What are Christmas and New Year?
2. Journalist’s Questions: 4. When did they start to be celebrated?
3. Journalist’s Questions: 2. Why are they celebrated?
4. Journalist’s Questions: 3. How are they celebrated?
5. Brainstorming: 1. Decorations in Christmas.
4. Santa Claus.
2. New Year Resolutions.
6. Free Writing: 1. People decorate their houses with colorful lights and other
ornaments as a Christmas tree or a Jesus Christ’s birth set.
4. During Christmas many people animates the spirit using the
mythical figure called Santa Claus.
2. In the New Year’s celebration most people set to themselves
some purposes or objectives, called resolutions, to achieve in the
year to come.
7. Brainstorming: 8. Commercialism.
8. Free Writing: 8. Many stores take advantage from both of the
holidays to sell and win more.
 Jorge González Zavala
3°C 11/12/2017

The Impact of Christmas and New Year in People’s Life

Essay
Christmas and New Year are what we nowadays call holidays, probably are the most famous and
the biggest of all holidays. Maybe you celebrate them year after year like many people around the
world, but ¿have you thought how do these holidays affect society?, ¿when did the tradition begin?
Or even ¿why do you celebrate them?
Well, in a moment all those questions are going to be solved by means of this text, so keep reading!

Before we start looking for the answers, we need to have clear what do Christmas and New Year
are. First of all, Christmas, originally is a Christian festivity in which Jesus Christ’s birth is
commemorated. And New Year is a new year that is about to begin and the festivity happens, in
most places of the world, at the first day of the year.

Now that we’ve clarified the concepts of Christmas and New Year we can start by finding when did
they start being celebrated?
When Christ left the Earth, his apostles began spreading the news about him, and almost
everywhere, people started adoring him, and with that, they also began celebrating 3 moments of
his life: his Passion, his Redeeming Death and his Glorious Resurrection. But no one cared about
his birth.
It wasn’t until the II Century when the people’s desire to know about Jesus’ birth started to grow, so
many people invented fake stories filled of imaginary events. So until the III Century we hadn’t any
information about Jesus’ birth, in the year of 221 a.C. Sexto Julio Africano, who was a historian from
the date, offered an ascertainable testimony about his birth happening on December 25 th, but it
wasn’t until the IV Century, in 354 a.C. when people from the West began officially to celebrate his
birth on December the 25th.
And the New Year started being celebrated 4000 years ago in the ancient Babylon, where they
celebrated basically the besprent of crops and the flowering of some plants. It was celebrated the
first day of spring after the first Crescent Moon. Now we celebrate it the 1st of January because is
the day in which the Gregorian calendar establishes as the beginning of the year.

Nowadays we celebrate Christmas as a special day to meet with our family and friends and have a
good time in winter. And we celebrate New Year only as a party to be happy because we survived
another year.

Now let’s see how Christmas is celebrated here in Northern America and some parts of Europe.
In most of the places people decorate their houses to fuel what is generally called “the Christmas
Spirit”, the ornaments that are normally set in every house are: the Christmas Tree which can be a
fir or pine if it is natural or also can be artificial made out of plastic or synthetic materials; it is usually
decorated with small figures related to Christmas, color spheres, color lights and a shiny star at the
top. Some colorful lights at the exterior of the house and green and red garlands covering the inside.
Another common element in the Christmas celebration is Santa Claus, who is a character in charge
of flavor the Christmas with his so well known “Christmas Magic”. He is a character based on the
Christian bishop Nicolás de Myra from Turkey in the IV Century.
Nicolás was the son of a rich family, but after his parents death, he gave all his goods to the poor
people and he entrusted himself to religion and be a priest.
In Holland they took Sankt Nikolaus from Germany and adapted it to be Sinterklaas, a likeably
character that brings presents to children on the 5th of December. And in the XVII Century he arrived
to the United States, where in 1809 Washington Irving changed his name to Santa Claus and
Clement Clarke Moore said he was dwarf and thin, but that he gives toys to the children in Christmas
Eve traveling on a sleigh pulled by 9 reindeers including the leader Rudolf.
Santa Claus arrived to Mexico in the 1920s when it appeared in some toy shops brought from the
USA, but it wasn’t until the 1950s that his popularity arose when Coca Cola used him as his
Christmas image.

The New Year celebration is a little much smaller than Christmas: people get together on the 31 st of
December night and wait until the 24 hours to shout “Happy New Year” and start planning their 12
New Year’s resolutions, which tend not to be fulfilled by almost anyone. Within the celebration
people eats a dinner and adults drink until the next day.

But this text was to see how do they affect people ¿right? So let’s see:
Most people in Christmas gets cheerful and is happy because of the holiday, though the people that
is alone for Christmas tends to get a powerful depression during this Eve, the same happens with
New Year, except that Christmas is mostly taken to be with the family and New Year mostly taken
to have fun with friends.
Another thing is the commercialism that exponentially grows during this holidays, this is because
most people’s traditions include buying presents for their families and friends, so stores are fully
loaded during most of December, also people who have young children keeps the tradition of Santa
Claus, so they buy more presents and the stores get more loaded. But of course the stores take
advantage of the situation as always, and set discounts, biddings and offers so the Christmas Eve
is the best season of the year for the stores.
And in New Year there’s not as many buying-selling activity as in Christmas, but there are families
that also buy presents in New Year. And as the 3 Wise Men day is 5 days later also some parents
begin to buy the presents at this Eve.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!