The more we allow the pop culture to drag us away from Christmas and toward Xmas
...
Actually, if you wish to be historically accurate the term X-mas much more religiously centered, by genuine religious fanatics even, than the term Christmas. The X in X-mas was to symbolize a name too holy to be pronounced.
Of course if you wish to be biblical Christmas would be in March instead of December. A shift that allowed it to be pushed as a replacement for the perfectly good Roman celebration of Saturnalia. Saturnalia actually sounds like more fun than what we ended up with.
A mild description:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SaturnaliaThe whole X-mas versus Christmas versus holidays thing highlights one of the issues I have with it. Everyone wants to use it to promote their religion and advance their cause. Instead of just deciding to celebrate to celebrate. The whole 'war on Christmas' theme has its origins in John Birch anti-PHRASECENSOREDPOSTERSHOULDKNOWBETTER. propaganda.
Of course even the supposedly secular stories, The Night Before Christmas, A Christmas Carol all were written as propaganda pieces to promote a very Presbyterian 'salvation by good works' theme. Point being that the winter solstice holidays have been manipulated to push one religion or another for so long that people forget the original meaning.
The original celebration, before the priests got hold of it, marked the lowest point for the sun. It meant that the fall, and harvest, was over. It was an orgy of consumption and living that very much aligned with the Roman ideal of 'eat, drink, be merry, for tomorrow we die'. The hard winter would be here but while there was food to eat, wine to drink, and life in our bones we would give it hell. It was about building morale and spitting in the face of winter before 'the dying time' was upon us.
It was the last blowout to build community before hunkering down to withstand the cold, deprivation, and inevitable disease that would sweep through every agricultural hamlet. We forget that on either side of zero BC most children didn't live to see their first birthday, farm animals and people died for no apparent reason. Crops failed and stored food went bad. Death was a constant companion. But never more-so than during the depth of winter. Entire families perished. Sometimes entire towns died or went mad. The later part often coming from ergot poisoning. But at the time, in a pre-scientific age, it was all a mystery. The one thing that was known was that people who stayed organized, remained hopeful, and united tended to fare better. Both harvest and winter festivals were part of that survival strategy.
Of course, now, not so many people starve. The various religions have hijacked an otherwise useful festival. Even Saturnalia was an overlay of a less religious festival. Worse of it all, now, for commercial reasons, the powers that be have take it from a few days to three solid months of moderated levity and religious propaganda. A spiritual and economic forced march. If they could limit it to a week I would like it more. If they could remove the religious/supernatural overtones and return it to a pre-winter pep rally and celebration of life I would like that even more.
With the new year we can all get back to normal life.
Previous Topic
Index
