The Darker Side of Christmas

In this pandemic year, many of us will be celebrating Christmas under the shadow of grief and uncertainty. But Christmas, like the pagan winter festivals that preceded it, has always carried more than a hint of darkness. The joyous celebration of the birth of the Christian savior has often been an occasion for melancholy and nostalgia, particularly when families are separated by war or other tragic events.

In November 1863, during the Civil War, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s son Charles was seriously wounded in battle. A few weeks later on Christmas, Longfellow wrote “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” reflecting on how the carnage “mocks” the holiday’s promise of “peace on earth, good-will to men.” In 1943, Bing Crosby’s recording of the song “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” spoke to millions of soldiers and their families who couldn’t celebrate the holiday together: “I’ll be home for Christmas/If only in my dreams.” And in 1967, as war raged in Vietnam, Stevie Wonder’s “Someday at Christmas” looked forward, like Longfellow’s poem, to a happier future: “Someday at Christmas there’ll be no wars/When we have learned what Christmas is for.”

 

In the 19th century, telling ghost stories on Christmas Eve was a popular tradition.

Christmas melancholy often takes a ghostly form. In the 19th century, telling ghost stories on Christmas Eve was popular in Britain and North America, a tradition that inspired many writers to create their own. The narrator of Henry James’s psychological horror story “The Turn of the Screw” calls it “gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be.” Charles Dickens wrote a series of ghost stories published yearly at Christmas. “A Christmas Carol” is the most famous, but there were many others, including “The Signalman,” in which a railway worker receives spectral warnings of impending accidents. In the 20th century, continuing the tradition, Christmas has been a popular setting for horror movies, such as “Black Christmas” (1974) and “Krampus” (2015), which draws on German folklore about a demonic anti-Santa Claus who eats naughty children.

Many cultures have similar traditions about a Christmas visitor who punishes bad children, rather than bringing presents to good ones. In France, Père Fouettard (“Father Whipper”) is said to beat badly behaved children with a whip. On Christmas Eve in South Africa, homes may be haunted by Danny, a boy who was beaten to death by his grandmother for eating cookies left out for Santa.

Italy’s La Befana is more sad than scary. When the Christ child was born, she was invited by the three Magi to join them on the journey to Bethlehem, but she declined because she was too busy tending her house. She soon regretted her decision and went out to look for the wise men, but they were already gone. Ever since, on the Feast of the Epiphany—the holiday in early January that commemorates the visit of the Magi—she travels the world in search of the infant Jesus, leaving gifts for children wherever she stops.

Today, when we tend to think of Christmas as “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year”—as the hit song from 1963 calls it—it might seem strange to associate the holiday with melancholy and horror. But those elements are certainly present in the original Christmas story. After all, the child born in the manger is destined to suffer and die on the Cross; one of the gifts brought to the newborn Jesus by the Magi is myrrh, traditionally used in embalming. The Christmas carol “We Three Kings” makes the connection explicit: “Myrrh is mine; its bitter perfume/Breathes a life of gathering gloom/Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying/Sealed in a stone cold tomb.”

On the Christian calendar, Christmas is surrounded by other grim memorials and observances. On Dec. 7, the eve of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Guatemalans start the Christmas season with La Quema del Diablo, “The Burning of the Devil,” burning Devil-shaped piñatas to symbolically cleanse their homes of evil. The day after Christmas, known as Boxing Day throughout much of the world, is also St. Stephen’s Day, which commemorates the stoning to death of the first Christian martyr. And on Dec. 28, the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches observe the Feast of the Holy Innocents, in honor of the infant boys of Bethlehem massacred on the order of King Herod, who according to the Gospel of Matthew hoped to do away with the prophesied King of the Jews. In many Latin American countries, the feast is celebrated like April Fools’ Day, with jokes, pranks and creative “fake news” stories in the papers.

Another source of Christmas darkness comes from the season, since it is celebrated during the darkest, shortest days of the year. Long before Christianity, late December in the northern hemisphere was a time for midwinter festivals full of mirth and light. In fact, the New Testament never says that Jesus was born in the winter; the traditional date of Christmas wasn’t adopted until the year 325. This allowed the Christian holiday to displace the old pagan celebrations of the winter solstice. But some traditions remained unbroken. The practice of bringing evergreen plants like holly and mistletoe into the house at Christmastime began with the pagans, who used them to symbolize the continuation of life even in the midst of winter’s barrenness.

Solstice celebrations weren’t meant to mourn the darkness but to celebrate the fact that after the solstice, the days would gradually get longer. Winter ends and summer returns; so, too, wars and pandemics eventually end. And for Christians, the infant Jesus who grows up to die on the cross will also be reborn. The darkness of Christmas is an indispensable part of the holiday, reminding us that while it can never be banished, it can be acknowledged and absorbed into our celebration.

 

—Dr. Hansen is Master Lecturer of Rhetoric at Boston University’s College of General Studies.

Corrections & Amplifications

The Christmas carol “We Three Kings” includes the lines “Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying.” An earlier version of this article incorrectly quoted the first word as “suffering.” (Corrected on Dec. 20.)

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Appeared in the December 19, 2020, print edition as ‘The Darker Side Of Christmas.’