The modern idea of Christmas has not been around long; in fact, the idea of celebrating christmas had been condemned by religious figureheads for hundreds of years. The idea of carols, exchanging gifts, evergreen trees, and greenery at Christmastime have all stemmed from one specific event that changed our holiday season forever.

Christmas carols were first sung in Europe thousands of years ago as a celebration of the winter solstice. Early Christians began taking over the pagan Christmas music and turned them into carols sung year round.

The earliest christian Christmas carol was sung in 1410, but only fragments of it remain. In these times, Christmas carols were sung describing untrue events often involving the birth of Christ, however most of the time these carols were sung in the home rather than as a church hymn.

In the 1600’s, the celebration of Christmas was condemned among many religions, predominantly protestant and puritan. The reintroduction of Christmas culture was in the mid 1800’s, where the royal marriage of Prince Albert and Queen Victoria reignited the Christmas spirit. Prince Albert was German, and he had brought German customs along with him- one custom being Yuletide, a German Pagan religious festival; this German idea and English practices came together to form the modern celebration of Christmas, such as christmas carols, evergreen trees, gift exchanging, etc.