Happy Yule

Local newspaper had a angry reader message that christmas was celebration of Jesus and non christians should not be allowed to have christian holidays. I always thought it was pagan festival. So I read a bit to educate myself.

It seems to be in winter solstice to celebrate Sol god. Or more recentyle in northern europe, to celebrate Norse god Odin. Julius Ceasar declared winter solstice to be December 25th at 46 BCE. Though atleast here at northern we celebrate it at 24th.

From 13th century Iceland books:

Quote:

Odin was referred to by many names in Skaldic poetry, some of which describe his appearance or functions. These include Síðgrani, Síðskeggr, Langbarðr, (all meaning "long beard") and Jólnir ("Yule figure"). According to Phyllis Siefker, children would place their boots, filled with carrots, straw, or sugar, near the chimney for Odin's flying horse, Sleipnir, to eat. Odin would then reward those children for their kindness by replacing Sleipnir's food with gifts or candy. This practice, survived in Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands after the adoption of Christianity and became associated with Saint Nicholas as a result of the process of Christianization

Reindeers are from 1823 poem about St. Nicholas. Also some have made comparisons to Odins 8 legged horse that could leap distances.

Quote:

Saint Nicholas on December 6 came to be celebrated in many countries with the giving of gifts. In 16th-17th century Europe, many Protestants changed the gift bringer to the Christ Child or Christkindl, and the date for giving gifts changed from December 6 to Christmas Eve.

Christmas tree tradition is from Estonia and Germany from 15th and 16th century. Church banned gift giving in middle ages, and then retracted and attributed it to Saint Nicholas.

According to gospel of Luke (luke 1:5) Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great and when Cyrenius was governor of Syria. That means he born before 4 BC or around AD 6-7. According to John 8:57 he born around 18 BC. If they cant be sure about the year, I cant be sure they nailed Jesus' birth date aswell.

To me, it really doesn't matter anymore for which god the christmas belongs to. It's a great world-wide holiday. It just annoys me a bit when I see christians trying to tell others who can celebrate it.

Btw. I just scratched the issue but I gotta read up on Norse mythology more, just to understand my roots better. (Moon's day, Tyr's day, Odin's day, Thor's day, Freyja's day, Washing day, Sun's day)

Interesting. I always knew it was a pagan holiday, but my understanding was that christians were going to pagan holidays and participating in very immoral activities, so some churches started a christian holiday to happen at the same time of the year, so the christians would have something to go to, and wouldn't head off to the pagan feasts.

I never researched the issue though - it scarcely would change how I celebrate christmas. (Actually, come to think about it, I hardly celebrate it at all - I just go about life as normally. Thanksgiving is the big "family gets together" holiday for me, and as for praying to God or whatever, I do that year round, not on a specific holiday)

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Anyone who tries to dictate who can celebrate a holiday is being really silly and making a fool out of themselves. Likewise, I find it ridiculous to what extremes some non-christians go, to delberitely take God out of it (as if the rampant commercialism hadn't done enough already [wink]). Then some christians unfortunately rise to the obvious baiting, and make equally embrassing responses.

If you want to celebrate the season while ignoring God, you don't need billboards to do it.
If you want to celebrate the season by buying loads of junk, and maybe attending a church session that one day of the year, to make yourself feel good, then do that.
If you want to celebrate the season by lying to your kids that a huge fat guy in a red suit is going to break into the house and leave presents, then do that.

As for those of us who honor God, we aren't held to a specific day of the year to do that. Our whole lives are supposed to be honoring to God - if we do a sucky job at it... well, we're human, I don't claim to be perfect. [smile]

Both christians and athiests make fools out of themselves during these seasons - It usually starts immiediantly after halloween. It seems to be common to humans in general, not confined to one belief or another. It's the poor examples of christians (or any group) that make the most noise and get the most attention.
However, I don't know the context of the "angry reader" you mentioned. Maybe it was in response to a specific article the newspaper wrote, or maybe you are paraphrasing the person in a biased way - I don't know.

(I'm writing this rapidly while rushing out the door, pardon me if I said something offensive, don't have time to think through it too clearly)

Quote:

Original post by Servant of the Lord Interesting. I always knew it was a pagan holiday, but my understanding was that christians were going to pagan holidays and participating in very immoral activities, so some churches started a christian holiday to happen at the same time of the year, so the christians would have something to go to, and wouldn't head off to the pagan feasts.

Actually it was more along the lines of Christians showing up in "Pagan" lands, and then getting laughed at/lynched by the locals. Later Christians came along, looked at what the existing traditions were, and basically said "Hey! These are ours too, come worship our god and we'll give you cookies!"

You'll be even more surprised when you read up on Easter. :-)

Quote:

Original post by Servant of the Lord However, I don't know the context of the "angry reader" you mentioned. Maybe it was in response to a specific article the newspaper wrote, or maybe you are paraphrasing the person in a biased way - I don't know.

I found the paper and did quick translation:

Quote:

Christmas is religious event, it's Jesus' birthday afterall. If atheist or someone believing in other religion doesn't want to celebrate christmas, then he should have no day off. No presents, no christmas tree at home, nor any christmas food to eat. Or maybe us christians could start to demand holidays for all possible religious holidays, from all religions out there. And let's also remember to demand them to be quiet about it. Let's just take the days off.

Quote:

Original post by Servant of the Lord (I'm writing this rapidly while rushing out the door, pardon me if I said something offensive, don't have time to think through it too clearly)

Your reply was good and to the point :)

I thought they had Jesus birth time down because they knew it was right after the census.

Anyhoo, christmas and easter are a lot like what they tried to do with halloween. Nobody wants to give up their holiday, so the religious leaders just try to change the meaning (ie All Saints Day for halloween).

Because christmas is a pretty good mix of christian and pagan themes, I think everyone should be able to celebrate it without feeling hypocritical.

Quote:

Original post by Ftn Quote: Original post by Servant of the Lord However, I don't know the context of the "angry reader" you mentioned. Maybe it was in response to a specific article the newspaper wrote, or maybe you are paraphrasing the person in a biased way - I don't know. I found the paper and did quick translation: Quote: Christmas is religious event, it's Jesus' birthday afterall. If atheist or someone believing in other religion doesn't want to celebrate christmas, then he should have no day off. No presents, no christmas tree at home, nor any christmas food to eat.

Yeah, just silliness. [rolleyes]
I shouldn't get veteran's day off, since I'm not a veteran, nor am I in the armed forces, so I can't properly 'honor' their sacrafice, under that same logic.
Plus, it's obviously not Jesus' birthday anyway, so just a misinformed and confused individual.

His point, "if you don't want to celebrate christmas", "then don't celebrate the season at all" just doesn't make sense. Either you celebrate it through commercialism and via the ritualistic/cultural requirments of your specific region, or you must pretend it doesn't exist at all, and close your eyes every time you walk past christmas lights?

Happy Holidays everyone!

Quote:

Original post by ChurchSkiz I thought they had Jesus birth time down because they knew it was right after the census.

My understanding is that he was actually born in the spring.

Tonight the History Channel ran a documentary tracing the development of Christmas. I didn't watch it all the way through, but the parts I caught while surfing away during the commercials from the show I was watching contained some interesting information. A large part of our concept of Santa Claus comes from the poem "The Night Before Christmas". Our image of Santa Claus as an old man with a long white beard comes from the 19th century illustrations of Thomas Nast, the man who also gave Americans the image of Uncle Sam as well as the Elephant and Donkey symbols for the Republican and Democratic parties respectively. Nast also gave us the idea that Santa keeps a list of who's naughty and who's nice. The Christmas tree was introduced to the Anglophone world by Queen Victoria who's husband, Prince Albert, was German.

Quote:

Original post by LessBread My understanding is that he was actually born in the spring.

It's actually the last part of September. Given that humans take nine months before being born it is quite possible that Jesus was concieved on December 25th.

Here there was something along the same lines: A semi-fanatical (christian) church lynched a Christmas pixie dummy in a noose from the church roof. The priest claimed that "pixies are false idols and depictions of demons". Pixies are a big part of the traditional Scandinavian culture, especially at Christmas.

Link to the story in danish. There is a picture. The sign around the dummy's neck reads "We denounce the Devil and all of his work and all of his being".

This church used the exact same argument: That Christmas is a christian celebration that has been "infiltrated" by the pagan idol-worship, a theory which seems to be totally back-assward.

Edit: The story I was taught was that in ancient times, before christianity, there was a big winter solstice feast around 20-25 of December to celebrate that the days where getting longer again. When the christians started appearing they realized that they couldn't compete with this feast, so they "moved" the birth of Jesus so that it just happened to coincide with solstice. This way the converted could still have their midwinter feast, but without being tempted to revert to paganism.

All the stuff with Santa Claus and gifts and trees and whatnot is much later, most of it from the 17-19th century.


[Edited by - Promethium on December 23, 2010 5:24:55 AM]