Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays? The history of a pagan celebration
Matthew Poteat ("newsleader.com," December 20, 2011)
People are testy this time of year. It's not necessarily the stress of gift
buying, party preparations, or making sure the turkey doesn't burn. It's
the increasing politicization of the season.
Hearing a cheery "Happy Holidays" can send some people into orbit and into
a lecture about Christ being the reason for the season. The secular or
non-Christian person might cringe at hearing Merry Christmas. It's too bad that
so many people get bent out of shape over these things in our increasingly
politically correct culture.
The truth is, there were Christmas-like holiday celebrations well before
the birth of Jesus in a Bethlehem manger. In fact, most ancient human
societies celebrated some sort of festival that marked the end of one year and
the
beginning of another. As the sun sinks ever lower in the sky and the days
reach their shortest period of the year, ancient cultures used this time —
at least those in the northern hemisphere — to celebrate and begin anew.
The celebration that most Americans know as Christmas is related to the
ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia. This was a weeklong festival that began
around Dec. 17 and was marked by parties, visits to friends, and the giving
of gifts, especially candles to signify the returning light after the
winter solstice. Ever-greens were popular decorations around the home. It was
the most anticipated time of the year.
During the Saturnalia, business came to a halt. Certain restrictions were
relaxed and the social order inverted. Within the family, a Lord of Misrule
was chosen. This person presided over the holiday revelries, which often
included drunkenness and practical jokes.
Slaves did not have to work and were treated as equals. They were allowed
to wear their masters' clothing, and be waited on at mealtime. These role
reversals were related to the idea that the sun would soon reverse its course
thus lengthening the light of day.
In the fourth century, Christianity adopted the Saturnalia hoping to take
the pagan masses in with it. It largely worked. After the emperor
Constantine converted to Christianity after 312 A.D., its leaders succeeded in
converting large numbers of pagans by promising them that they could continue
to
celebrate pagan festivals, including the Saturnalia.
The problem was that Saturnalia wasn't very Christian, so bishops simply
named Saturnalia's last day, Dec. 25, Jesus' birthday.
The Christian reform movements of the 16th century brought some changes to
the celebration of Christmas. Because of its pagan origins, one group, the
Puritans (called thus for their desire to purify the Christian faith)
banned the holiday. They found no scriptural justification for its
celebration,
and they disliked the waste, extravagance, disorder, and immorality
associated with it. They also saw Christmas — or, more properly, Christ's mass
—
as a Roman Catholic ceremony. The ban was lifted in 1681, but for more than
a century afterward its celebration was decidedly subdued and sometimes
frowned upon.
In the early American South, however, Christmas retained much of its
ancient tradition for irreverence, disorder and indulgence. Many plantation
owners allowed slaves a few more freedoms than were normal, including a
cessation of work, feasting and alcohol. Slaves who had been hired out for the
year
were often allowed to return home and visit their families, but only for
about a week as Jan. 1 began anew the slave hire season.
Christmas as we know it today began its modern evolution when it became a
federal holiday in 1870. The harsh Puritan view had relaxed, and Amer-icans
fashioned the day into one of commercialism and nostalgia, helping to
lessen the religious tension between newly arriving Catholic immigrants and
their Puritan-Protestant neighbors.
So, next time someone says Merry Christmas, or Happy Holidays, perhaps a
hearty "Io Saturnalia!" might offer the oppor-tunity to come together in the
spirit of the season and discourse on the history of this most celebrated
time of year.
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