Why Do Wizards Celebrate Christmas?

[Ali <Ali@zymurgy.org>]

No: HPFGUIDX 49882

 
> "gkjpo <kristen at s...>" <kristen at s...> wrote:
> Easter can also be translated into a general holiday.  Easter egg 
hunts aren't exactly religious.  
> 
>  
> [snip] I agree ... that they celebrate more in the general 
> sense than any specifically religious sense.  But, it's not a 
religious school, so I would expect that they wouldn't be able to 
have any religion-specific celebrations anyway.  I don't know about 
schools in Britian, but in the US it is customary to have time off 
around Christmas and the beginning of spring (not necessarily right 
at Easter), so Hogwarts is consistent with what I'm used to (in the 
> US).

Me:

British school holidays are normally called Christmas, Easter and 
Sumer holidays. The fact that Hogwarts is not a religious school 
would not matter. And yes, they might well be able to have religion-
specific celebrations. In Britain we do not have the State/Religious 
divide that I believe happens in the United States and perhaps many 
other countries. Out Head of State, the Queen is also the Supreme 
Head of the Church of England which is the official religion of 
England. The fact that Britain has a very secular society would not 
alter this.
 
Barb:
 
> It's also worth noting that when there is a special event on 
Christmas evening, it is called the Yule Ball.  Not the Christmas 
Ball--Yule.  Yule is an ancient pre-Christian winter holiday in the 
British Isles.  It is in part because of various age-old Yule 
traditions--such as wassailling (going door to door singing and 
expecting money or food/drink in return) that we now have some 
Christmas traditions, such as caroling (the ghosts at Hogwarts are 
depicted caroling in the corridors--and even the suits of armor, 
IIRC).  Also, despite the modern use of the English word "Easter" for 
what is called "Paschal" in a number of Romance languages (or a 
variation thereof), "Easter" was originally a pagan deity whose feast 
was celebrated in the spring, and like Yule, worship of Easter went 
back many, many years in the British Isles to pre-Christian times.  
So the use of the phrase "Easter break" may not have any Christian 
overtones at all, when you think about it, if the original meaning is 
being used.>>

me:

I partly agree with this. At least some of the success of 
Christianity in Britain - and elsewhere - was that it took over 
existing festivals. Our religious festivals are combinations of the 
Christian and pre-Christian religion in Britain. Most people now 
celebrate these in a secular rather than religious way, and there 
origins would be unknown to most people. the use of "Yule Logs" and 
even the saying "Yuletide Greetings" are common at Christmas, and 
again would be associated with Christmas celebrationswhatever their 
non-Christian origins.

Barb;
 
>> However, one must also consider Ron's information about the almost 
constant intermarriage between wizards and Muggles over the 
centuries, and also consider the steady influx of new Muggle-born 
witches and wizards into the wizarding world every year.  Through 
both marriage and Muggle-born magical children getting their letters, 
significant Muggle influence is flowing into the wizarding world all 
of the time, and it is not inconceivable that there are many magical 
folk who celebrate Christmas and Easter in either the religious or 
secular sense, just as one will find people's observance of these 
holidays running the gamut from pious to completely areligious in the 
Muggle world.>>


I would also argue that the divide between the wizard and Muggle 
worlds only seems to have happened with the presecution of wizards 
after Christianity came to Britain, as such, it would be more than 
possible that many British wizards would have Christianity as their 
base religion just like their Muggle counterparts.

 In terms of representation of other religions at Hogwarts, I don't 
believe that it has ever been JKR's intention to dwell much on either 
religion or ethnicity. She shows discrimination and prejudice through 
the wizard/Muggle divide, and differences in colour or custom are 
really only glimpsed at to show us that these are accepted without 
issue. Christianity has a higher profile as it is shown in an 
institionalised way, common to English* schools.

Ali

*I say English as Scottish schools do work differently, and I believe 
that at least when JKR started writing the Potterverse her source of 
inspiration would have been English schools as it was only later that 
she lived and worked in Scotland.

(My second attempt at writing on this subject thanks to Yahoomort)