Wizarding Holidays

[Scott]

No: HPFGUIDX 14701

meboriqua at a... wrote:
"Okay, in relation to all the postings about how witches and wizards
get educated when they are young and if they study Muggle subjects, I
was wondering why the magical world celebrated holidays like Halloween
and Christmas.  Does magical history cross with Muggle history, or
shouldn't they have their own holidays?  Does that mean that all
wizards are Christians?"

Margaret wrote:
"Why should they have to be?  It's not like all the =Muggles= who
celebrate Halloween and Christmas are Christians.  All the
Halloween and Christmas customs we see being followed at Hogwarts
are the secular ones, as far as I recall."

--It's true that we only see secular traditions, but they are secular 
traditions of Christian holidays. What I think the original poster 
was saying was that they had to have been influenced by Western 
culture because otherwise they wouldn't celebrate these at all.  Bear 
in mind that the Christian celebration is a "corruption" of the Pagan 
Saturnalia (?). Most Christian festivities were developed around 
Pagan celebrations. So the wizarding had to have been at least 
partially influenced or they'd not follow these traditions.

"Now that you mention it, though, I think it's rather a pity we
haven't seen any special wizarding holiday celebrations.  That
could be =fun=!"

--At least they don't have a "Harry Potter Day" or something like 
that. Poor Harry would feel so embarassed. But maybe there ARE 
Wizarding Holidays, and we've not seen them yet. However I think we 
would have...

Scott

> 
> --Margaret Dean
>   <margdean at e...>