From Saturnalia to Santa: The Ancient Roots of Holiday Gift Exchanges

Christmas, Hanukkah, Diwali, Yule, Eid al-Fitr, Kwanzaa, and Easter are all very different holidays. And while they might vary significantly in what they honor, how they are celebrated, and who takes part… they do have something in common: gifts. And outside of holidays, we give gifts at birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, and graduations—often some of the most significant days in a person’s life.

We’ve been giving gifts for a long time. It’s a practice that predates even the earliest human civilizations.

Of course, this raises a fairly fundamental question: why? What drives this universal human obsession with giving?

Okay, I’m going to temporarily suspend my disenchantment with humanity. That’s right, I will briefly, ever so briefly, set aside my own cynicism. Today we’re going to focus on mankind’s need to give… not mankind’s need to take.

Gift Giving through Time

What did the caveman put on his holiday wishlist?

A rock album.

Haha. I know, I know. And yes, I’ll be here all night, folks.

Prehistoric humans exchanged necessities—things like meat from the hunt, food that was gathered, and even primitive, crafted tools. Eventually, gifts evolved into more symbolic items, like carved teeth, shells, or bone jewelry.

Mammoth Ivory Necklace from the Gravettian Period (~25,000 years ago). Picture by Thilo Parg, CC BY-SA 3.0, Courtesy of Wikipedia.

The act of giving is pretty much as old as humanity itself. Gifts helped with bonding and trust within a single tribe and could also aid in the formation of alliances between multiple tribes. And that type of generous exchange stuck with us as we settled into the first cities.

In Ancient Egypt, gifts were crucial in certain religious rites. You might give to the gods to win their favor, to the pharaoh to show loyalty, or to the dead for use in the afterlife. In Ancient Greece, the concept of Xenia (“guest-friendship” or “ritualized friendship”) called for giving gifts to travelers, including food, drink, shelter, and a bath. Hospitality fell under the domain of Zeus—someone who was known for disguising himself as a weary traveler to test the generosity of mortals. Better safe than sorry! In Ancient Rome, the festival of Saturnalia was marked by the giving of small or playful gifts—interestingly, this might have been the world’s first instance of “gag gifts.”

As time went by, gifts even took on diplomatic meaning. Royalty and nobility exchanged gold, land, or jewels to show loyalty and forge political alliances.

Wherever you turn in ancient cultures, either in history or mythology, there’s some concept of giving. And yeah, that was bound to make some sort of impact on the development of the modern world.

Giving Gifts at Christmas

With influences from events like Saturnalia and legends of figures like Nicholas of Bari, gift giving was pretty common in Europe as a New Year’s tradition.

At some point, and due to several factors, that tradition was shifted to Christmas. Let’s walk through the logic, shall we?

In the year 336, the Christian church officially decreed that Christmas be celebrated on December 25. It’s pretty common knowledge that the Magi or Wise Men brought gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to dear old baby Jesus, right? So there’s some of your first ties between Christianity and the exchange of gifts around the end of the year (even if the date was invented to replace pagan customs).

It was Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, however, who really drove the point home in the 19th century, viewing Christmas as a wholesome, child-focused, and family-friendly holiday. They made a habit of presenting gifts to staff at this time.

And what do we peasants do when we see royalty acting in a certain way? We imitate. We replicate.

Thanks to the industrial revolution, it was actually possible for less affluent folks to afford purchasing gifts. Toys, books, and decorations were all being mass produced.

Now enter commercialization. Businesses capitalized on the newfound interest, marketing special Christmas items and establishing gifts as a cornerstone of the holiday season. I’m going to change topics now because my temporary suspension of cynicism, which I promised in the opening, forbids me from speaking further in regards to how I feel about the impacts of commercialization on giving.

The Birth of Santa Claus

With so many gifts to give, it’s quite natural that we need someone to do all the deliveries.

So where did our jolly fellow in a red suite come from?

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A poem called “Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas” was first published anonymously in 1837, but later attributed to a man named Clement Clarke Moore. You probably know it better as “Twas the Night Before Christmas.” It describes a jolly, elf-like figure.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack.
His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly
That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself.

And probably the best recitation of this—one of the well-known poems in all of the world—comes from the late Robin Williams.

But I digress.

This poetic description of Saint Nicholas was more or less borrowed from Washington Irving’s 1809 book, A History of New York, which introduced American culture to the Dutch Sinter Klaas.

But no one had drawn Santa yet.

Well, it was a big hit. It caught on.

And one beverage company decided to run with it. They thought their product needed stronger associations with cold, winter months, rather than just being viewed as a refreshing drink for the summer.

One of Coca-Cola’s early, 1931 ads, featuring Santa Claus, as further described by Campaign.

Coca-Cola actually has a whole section of their website dedicated to how they helped shape the image of Christmas. “Coca‑Cola did not create the legend of Santa Claus,” they write. “But Coca‑Cola advertising did play a big role in shaping the jolly character we know today.”

So there you have it. More commercialization that contributed to how we think about the holiday season; or more poignantly, who we think about in regards to gifts.

An Exchange of Energy

As [hopefully] spiritual folks, we know that a gift’s worth isn’t measured by it’s monetary value.

Before we go too much further, let me first dispel an annoyance. It isn’t the thought that counts. If I ask you for dark chocolate and you gift me disgusting white chocolate, it doesn’t matter that you thought about me and chocolate—you just got a bad gift. No amount of thinking in the world is going to get me to enjoy it.

It’s the effort that counts.

Metaphysically, giving gifts is an energetic exchange. The effort behind that exchange is what needs to be balanced, not necessarily the finances or thoughts.

When you shop for someone, you’re inviting a piece of them into your present moment. You try to see things through their eyes. Of the billions of possible gifts, which one would they prefer? And in order to know what they might need or like, you have to know at least a little bit about them!

Types of Holiday Gift Exchanges

So… since it is the holidays and everything… there’s some fun ways you can celebrate by giving gifts as a group.

But don’t do it because you have to. Do it because it’s fun. We do a gift exchange every year in our coven. It helps people get to know one another on a different level. Sure, you can practice magick with them regularly, but do you know what kind of silly little gift they’d enjoy receiving?

Here you go, three easy ways to give gifts as a group.

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Grab Bag: Simplicity and fate! Gather all the gifts into a pile and then allow each participant to choose one at random. You can draw numbers to determine the order if you like, but there’s no stealing or switching—you get what you get.

This one kind of reminds me of a divinatory act… and the very old spiritual lesson: sometimes the medicine (or gift) chooses you! This works well with generic gifts that anyone can use.

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White Elephant: This is controlled chaos. Gather all the gifts into a pile, then assign an order of turns. One at a time, participants can either select a new gift or steal from another player. If a player has a gift stolen, they can either steal or pick something new. You can limit how many times a gift can be stolen, but the same gift cannot be stolen more than once each turn.

You’ll often find humorous or gag gifts here. And the stranger the gift, the more often it seems to get stolen!

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Mysterious Odin: Now it’s personal! Every participant is secretly assigned the name of another participant. You buy a special gift for that person. There’s no stealing or randomness here—you actually have to think. At the end of the exchange, you can decide whether or not to reveal who the gifters are.

Guys, this is not the same thing as a Secret Santa. I’m not sure why everyone keeps telling me that… this is a Mysterious Odin.

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It’s that simple. Just set a low spending limit so that people don’t have to worry about budgeting or extravagance and have fun with it.

Conclusions

As you give gifts to your friends and loved ones this holiday season, remember that even though we’ve put new faces on it, that tradition goes back to the beginning of time. But again, don’t just give gifts because it’s ancient. Don’t gives gifts because it’s expected or because you have to do it. Give because you love people. Give because it’s fun. And overall, give because it feels good.