What does Christmas represent to the WW?

[arrowsmithbt]

No: HPFGUIDX 95219

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Serena Moonsilver" <serenamoonsilver at y...> 
> 
> I've decided to delurk myself to reply to this.  I don't think her 
> inclusion of Easter or Christmas is particularily religous at all.   
> Those are the traditional holiday time in England when students get 
> time off.   It's simple a way of refrencing them that people can 
> easily recognize and relate to.
> 

I agree wholeheartedly, particularly as "Christmas" and 'Easter" were 
blatant take-overs of  popular pagan religious festivals anyway.

Easter comes from eastre, the vernal equinoctial festival in honour
of the Teutonic Goddess of the dawn. The Easter Bunny is the hare,
considered to be a magical creature (at one time all witches were 
supposed to be able to turn themselves into hares). The Easter 
Egg was thought to be laid by hares! Magical and a sign of Spring.
Because they didn't have burrows and no-one ever seemed to see 
a hare giving birth, lapwing eggs (birds which laid eggs in longish
grass) were mistaken for the product of hares.

Father  Christmas originated not from St Nicholas (what would a 
Middle-Eastern bishop be doing in fur-trimmed cold weather clothing
and being pulled about by  reindeer?), but probably from the old 
Norse tradition that every mid-winter feast the village shaman would
become the local representation of Odin and handed the children
presents according to how they had behaved over the past year.
Add in Evergreens and Yule Logs and most of the trappings around
Christmas are not very Christian at all.

So, a festival full of the symbols of old magic and another centred on
the local wise man, also with magical powers
The WW keeps to the old holidays, but under their more recent names.

Kneasy