The "true meaning of Christmas" is a phrase that began to appear in the mid-19th century when a shift toward a more secular culture resulted in a national backlash in the United States.
The poem A Visit from St. Nicholas (1822) helped popularize the tradition of exchanging gifts, and seasonal Christmas shopping began to assume economic importance.
The topic was taken up by satirists such as Stan Freberg and Tom Lehrer during the 1950s and eventually by the influential TV special A Charlie Brown Christmas, first aired in 1965 and repeated until 2021.
His best friend Linus van Pelt eventually clarifies the actual meaning of the holiday through reciting the Annunciation to the Shepherds near the end of the program.
The phrase found its way into the 2003 Urbi et Orbi address of Pope John Paul II, "The crib and the tree: precious symbols, which hand down in time the true meaning of Christmas!