Christmas

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 167215

Shelley wrote:
<snip> To explain what the Wizards did during the
> Middle Ages, or how they evolved with Christianity, would be in
itself a new work of fiction. The speculations of Ceridwen in an
earlier post answering your question, for example, cross for me
entirely too close to this new writing of fiction, and while may be a
good theory, is in fact NOT the explanation that Rowling gives us. She
gives us the answer of "Because I wrote it that way."
> 
> Why do the Wizards need Christmas? Rowling needed a Christmas as an
element of her setting. Beyond needing it to mark time, she uses the
Christmas break to accomplish things Harry will do in the castle
without the other students being around (brewing polyjuice potion;
infiltrating the Syltherin common room). She uses it to get the kids
out of the castle for other plot important events. She needed a
Christmas to get Harry together with Sirius so that they could bond
before Rowling kills Sirius off. She uses the Christmas carols to show
the change in mood in Sirius- he's actually singing and happy.  She
uses the Suits of Armor in the castle hallway singing Christmas carols
for humor, and to show the work of Peeves to distort those carols. She
uses the decorations to show the magical world and some of its daily
use. <snip> She uses Christmas to give Harry presents (the
invisibility cloak), and to demonstrate the love he feels in the
wizarding world contrasted to the pitiful life he had at the Dursleys.
She uses Christmas because it helps her to tell her story. That's why
Wizards celebrate Christmas, and why they have any Christian roots at all.

Carol responds:
I'm not so sure that we can dismiss details like the Fat Friar and the
painting of the monks and a hospital called St. Mungo's quite so
easily. My own impression is that the history of Muggle Britain and
Wizarding Britain developed hand in hand until the Act of Secrecy in
1692 (despite occasional witch-burnings and the more successful
hangings, etc. in the Salem Witch Trials). Nearly Headless Nick's
botched beheading, cut by the editors from the books but presented on
JKR's site, was done by Muggles in 1492 (not for religious reasons or
anti-wizard prejudice but because he botched some magic performed on a
Muggle). IOW, I think that British wizards celebrate Christmas because
it's part of British tradition (complete with Christmas trees, thanks
to the Muggle Prince Albert). And their Christmas traditions are
largely secularized as a mirror of Muggle Britain's.

IMO, Christmas is not so much a plot device as a part of the setting
and atmosphere of Hogwarts as a very British boarding school that
happens to have a very different curriculum than otherwise similar
Muggle boarding schools. But I don't think that speculation on the
origins of wizarding customs or the relationship of the Muggle and
Wizarding worlds in the past is fruitless. It's certainly fun, and
there's just enough canon and other information to make it worth our
while, especially in connection with JKR's own Christian beliefs.
Questions such as why wizards celebrate Christmas--or hold
baptisms--when there's no apparent system of religious worship are, I
think, legitimate--and Muggle/Wizarding relations are much more
interesting, IMO, than the goblin rebellions, interspersed with an
occasional giant war or a bit of legislation relating to vampires,
that Professor Binns drones on about.

I have other ideas as to why JKR may have chosen to depict the WW as a
secularized Christian society rather than eliminating religion
altogether or inventing a new religion or making her witches pagan,
but I'd rather state them here because I fear they would be unpopular
and I don't feel inclined to dodge virtual tomatoes or hexes. I think
the *primary* reason, however, was that she wanted to include familiar
elements in her unfamiliar world and she imagined an audience of
(British( children, who would celebrate Christmas (and Easter) in ways
similar to those she depicted (minus gnomes and hippogriffs). And I
suspect that the holidays (in the sense of "vacations," nor "holy
days") she assigns to the students and teachers at Hogwarts correspond
with those of most British children as well.

Carol, wondering if British children really have stacks of presents at
the ends of their beds rather than under the Christmas tree and
thinking it's rather sad if that's the case because it makes the
present-opening more solitary