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Marju Kõivupuu, a folklorist, the ambassador of the current Heritage Year and the Citizen of the Year 2013 explores the development of Christmas as the “Holiday of Light” in the Nordic countries and Estonia in this Christmas video in the One-Minute Lecture series.

“Christmas is the holiday that brings the best feelings for people – generosity, benevolence, noticing and supporting the lonely and the weak,” noted Kõivupuu. “May Christmas bring emotional warmth, love and belief in miracles to all of us!”

Although the celebration of Christmas as the birthday of Christ didn’t develop into a national holiday until the 14^th century in the Nordic countries, the traditions of a festive celebration of the return of light can be traced back in the ancient history of these parts. According to Kõivupuu, the naming of the holiday as Christmas (as is the Finnish joulu, Scandinavian jul) and the South-Estonian winter holiday (Latvian ziemas sveetki) took root in the Estonian language from these ancient times.

At the beginning of December, Marju Kõivupuu, a Senior Research Fellow of Ethno-culture at the TU Estonian Institute of Humanities, was awarded the “Citizen of the Year 2013” title by the Republic of Estonia for her dedication in introducing and preserving Estonian heritage.

This autumn the  was awarded the prize for popularization of research in Estonian.