[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: What's wrong with "Merry Christmas"?

[Janette]

>
> Geoff:
> I have always understood that one of the reasons that
> the Christian festivals often coincide with the pagan
> ones was that the only way that early Christians who
> happened to be slaves under the Romans could only get
> time to hold a festival was at the time of the major
> Roman holidays, hence the convergence of the dates.


montims:

An interesting story, that I hadn't heard before, but as authentic as the
rest of the xmas ritual these days...  The historical version that I have
always heard of is all over the place on the internet, but maybe the most
authoritative is from history.com:
http://www.history.com/minisite.do?content_type=Minisite_Generic&content_type_id=1253&display_order=1&sub_display_order=2&mini_id=1290


Also around the time of the winter solstice, Romans observed Juvenalia, a
feast honoring the children of Rome. In addition, members of the upper
classes often celebrated the birthday of Mithra, the god of the
unconquerable sun, on December 25. For some Romans, Mithra's birthday was
the most sacred day of the year.
In the early years of Christianity,
Easter<http://www.history.com/minisites/easter/>was the main holiday;
the birth of Jesus was not celebrated. In the fourth
century, church officials decided to institute the birth of Jesus as a
holiday. Unfortunately, the
Bible<http://www.history.com/encyclopedia.do?articleId=202891>does not
mention a date for his birth (a fact Puritans later pointed out in
order to deny the legitimacy of the celebration). Although some evidence
suggests that his birth may have occurred in the spring (why would shepherds
be herding in the middle of winter?), Pope Julius I chose December 25. It is
commonly believed that the church chose this date in an effort to adopt and
absorb the traditions of the pagan Saturnalia festival. First called the
Feast of the Nativity, the custom spread to Egypt by 432 and to England by
the end of the sixth century. By the end of the eighth century, the
celebration of Christmas had spread all the way to Scandinavia.
By holding Christmas at the same time as traditional winter solstice
festivals, church leaders increased the chances that Christmas would be
popularly embraced, but gave up the ability to dictate how it was
celebrated. By the Middle
Ages<http://www.history.com/marquee.do?marquee_id=53127>,
Christianity had, for the most part, replaced pagan religion. On Christmas,
believers attended church, then celebrated raucously in a drunken,
carnival-like atmosphere similar to today's Mardi
Gras<http://www.history.com/minisites/mardigras/>.
Each year, a beggar or student would be crowned the "lord of misrule" and
eager celebrants played the part of his subjects. The poor would go to the
houses of the rich and demand their best food and drink. If owners failed to
comply, their visitors would most likely terrorize them with mischief.
Christmas became the time of year when the upper classes could repay their
real or imagined "debt" to society by entertaining less fortunate citizens.

In the same way that Augustine and Gregory stipulated that christian
churches should be built over sacred pagan sites, so that the contryfolk
(pagani in Latin) would worship in the same place as they were traditionally
used to, but this time in a christian church, to the christian god.

I recall that someone earlier in this thread implied that pagans would not
have brought evergreens inside - on the same site
http://www.history.com/minisite.do?content_type=Minisite_Generic&content_type_id=1284&display_order=5&mini_id=1290
it talks about xmas trees:


Long before the advent of Christianity, plants and trees that remained green
all year had a special meaning for people in the winter. Just as people
today decorate their homes during the festive season with pine, spruce, and
fir trees, ancient peoples hung evergreen boughs over their doors and
windows. In many countries it was believed that evergreens would keep away
witches, ghosts, evil spirits, and illness.

In the Northern hemisphere, the shortest day and longest night of the year
falls on December 21 or December 22 and is called the winter solstice. Many
ancient people believed that the sun was a god and that winter came every
year because the sun god had become sick and weak. They celebrated the
solstice because it meant that at last the sun god would begin to get well.
Evergreen boughs reminded them of all the green plants that would grow again
when the sun god was strong and summer would return.

The ancient Egyptians worshipped a god called Ra, who had the head of a hawk
and wore the sun as a blazing disk in his crown. At the solstice, when Ra
began to recover from the illness, the Egyptians filled their homes with
green palm rushes which symbolized for them the triumph of life over death.
Early Romans marked the solstice with a feast called the
Saturnalia<http://www.history.com/minisite.do?content_type=Minisite_Generic&content_type_id=1253&display_order=1&sub_display_order=2&mini_id=1290>in
honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture. The Romans knew that the
solstice meant that soon farms and orchards would be green and fruitful. To
mark the occasion, they decorated their homes and temples with evergreen
boughs. In Northern Europe the mysterious Druids, the priests of the ancient
Celts, also decorated their temples with evergreen boughs as a symbol of
everlasting life. The fierce Vikings in Scandinavia thought that evergreens
were the special plant of the sun god, Balder.
Germany is credited with starting the Christmas tree tradition as we now
know it in the 16th century when devout Christians brought decorated trees
into their homes. Some built Christmas pyramids of wood and decorated them
with evergreens and candles if wood was scarce. It is a widely held belief
that Martin Luther <http://www.history.com/encyclopedia.do?articleId=215276>,
the 16th-century Protestant
reformer<http://www.history.com/encyclopedia.do?articleId=219919>,
first added lighted candles to a tree. Walking toward his home one winter
evening, composing a sermon, he was awed by the brilliance of stars
twinkling amidst evergreens. To recapture the scene for his family, he
erected a tree in the main room and wired its branches with lighted candles.

And interesting facts about xmas day:

– From 1659 to 1681, the celebration of Christmas was outlawed in Boston,
and law-breakers were fined five shillings.

– Christmas wasn't a holiday in early
America<http://www.history.com/states.do>—in
fact Congress was in session on December 25, 1789, the country's first
Christmas under the new constitution.

– Christmas was declared a federal holiday in the United
States<http://www.history.com/states.do>on June 26, 1870.
– The first eggnog made in the United States was consumed in Captain John
Smith's <http://www.history.com/encyclopedia.do?articleId=222537> 1607
Jamestown<http://www.history.com/minisite.do?content_type=Minisite_Generic&display_order=1&content_type_id=54647&mini_id=51103>settlement.


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