News: Misc.-1752 Calendar Set Christmas as Dec 25th (1973)

Contact: Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon
E-mail: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org 

Surnames: No surnames

----Source: Clark County Press (Neillsville, Clark Co., WI) 12/20/1973

1752 Calendar Set Christmas (December 25th - 1973)

We know that our calendar today is a relatively modern institution. But do we realize that in earliest times, Christmas was celebrated on January 18? It is still so celebrated by the Armenian Church. Later on, the date became January 6 - and it was only in 1752, with the final change to the Gregorian calendar, that the rearrangement of dates place Christmas Day on December 25.

Some church people in England were very indignant when this change took place - feeling that somehow they had been robbed of 11 days and the corresponding wages. Some of them tried to find out if the new date were correct by noting whether or not the tree called the Glastonbury Thorn (supposedly planted by Joseph of Arimathea) would flower on the new date or the old. Sometimes the tree bloomed on one day and sometimes on the other, however, depending on the weather - so that supporters of both dates managed to keep up the quarrel for some time.