The other day I was listening to Catholic Answers Live concerning a call from someone who asked whether Jesus would have celebrated Christmas and if it was in the Bible or not. The questioner was obviously one of those people who believes that Christmas is pagan and shouldn't be celebrated by Christians. I have known exactly one such person in my life, a Plymouth Brethren Christian who was at the time a friend, and boy did I find that weird. They celebrated no holy days whatsoever.
The answerer came at the question from the perspective that well, Jesus's birth was predicted by the Old Testament and recorded in the new and had a major signficance for us that is worth celebrating. That is all well and good, but I think he missed the point. She obviously was trying to corner him into the dichotomy of "Jesus did it/it's in the bible, Good" and "Not in the bible, Bad". There are a lot of aspects of the Christian life which aren't in the bible. Not being in the bible in and of itself should not mean that something shouldn't be done. There are no marriage ceremonies, or anything that calls for marriage ceremonies, in the Bible; does that make it unbiblical to have one? Wedding rings are a pagan custom, shall we abolish them? There are no altar calls in the New Testament, either. There are no organs, no guitars, no overhead projectors. (Although there are some Christian traditions that do not use instruments for this reason.) There are no pews in the Bible, nor any church buildings. The Bible says very little about church polity; we know we have bishops, presbyters (priests), and deacons, we have councils, we have (we as Catholics believe) Petrine primacy, we have, arguably, a succession of bishops, we can infer the existence of a particular church (church of Corinth, church of Rome, etc.), but the details aren't filled in. This is reflected by the wide variance in Protestant church polity: some are presbyterian, some are episcopal, some are congregational, some are non-denominational.
The fact is, in all likelihood Christmas was a latecomer to the scene. Undoubted Pascha (that is, what in English is called "Easter") was in the beginning the first and only feast; there are recorded arguments between the disciples of John and the other bishops over whether to celebrate it on the 15th of Nisan or the first Sunday following the first full moon following the spring equinox. Originally what we call Christmas was celebrated on January 6th, and combined three epiphanies: The epiphany of the Nativity (God made man), the epiphany of the Magi, and the epiphany of the Baptism of the Lord. Gradually, other feasts were added to observe other mysteries of the faith, and the epiphany of the Nativity was moved back to December 25th and the epiphany of the Baptism in the West was moved forward. All of these are disciplines, though, not essential to the faith.
The point of all of this is that what is for one person an "unbiblical tradition of men" may be an exigency another has the freedom to adopt for catechetical reasons. When I told my friend I didn't understand why they didn't celebrate the central mystery of the faith, the death and Resurrection of our Lord, he replied that they celebrate it every day. I found this unconvincing. If you claim you celebrate something every day you arguably don't enter as deeply into it over time. My friends that have lived on both coasts tell me that in California they miss the seasons. The weather may be great, but you get bored with it after a while. Ho-hum, another cloudless 75 degree day, just like all the others. Variety is the spice of life; we need to focus on different mysteries so that we don't take them for granted. It's sort of like saying "Oh my wife and I never go out for dinner, because we love each other and are romantic every day." You may have every intention to be romantic every day but I'm willing to bet you aren't as deeply romantic every day as you could be if you set time apart to focus on being romantic. Human beings can only deal with so much excitement and stimulation. That is why the church has seasons, and why she instituted feasts. Mom is smart.
That reminds me of a children's book, can't remember the name, but it was about a magical year when Christmas happened every day. The kid who was the central character was elated for the first few days, but it got old really quick, and soon he was fed up.
Did Jesus originally want us to celebrate his birth? I don't know, but I do know that he wants us to love him and meditate on him and enter into his Incarnation. What better opportunity to do this than Christmas.
