Okay, so there are these folks who think that there’s a War on Christmas. Blah blah. Let’s just call those folks eccentric, okay?
The Winter Solstice is universal. It’s obviously a significant event, and it’s obvious that lots of different religions and traditions have noted that event. And most have marked it with light because, hey. Light. Birth, too, is a common holiday theme, because the Sun is gone, and then it begins really, really smalll, so that’s like being born, so… (one of the things I adore about Paganism is the simplicity).
So despite the rage against “the Holidays,” the fact is, there are an awful lot of holidays this time of year, only one of which is Christian.
Over at Wild Hunt, Jason (somewhat tongue-in-cheek, I think) agrees with Catholic writer Andrew Greely that maybe Christmas should be moved out of the Solstice season. I disagree. I mean, ain’t my holiday, they can do what they want, but I hope they don’t.
When I was a kid, I keenly felt that left out feeling that everyone had a holiday and we didn’t. Then I became a cynical, Christmas-hating, turn-that-damn-music-off teenager, which suited my cynical teenage sensibility.
One day, I shed my cynicism, and noticed the love, the light, the sense of fun. I started digging it. So it was something of a relief to me, after I became Pagan, to discover that a lot of “Christmas” was, in fact, Pagan. That Santa was Pagan, that decorating trees was Pagan, that exchanging gifts was Pagan. I dove right into all those lovely, yummy traditions.
It’s nice to share a holiday with everyone. And as more and more people got on board with the Happy Holidays thing (as they got “PC”), there were more and more people to share with. In recent years, it’s become easier to fling open one’s arms to Christians, to Jews, to Pagans, to New Agers, and even to Atheists, and say “Happy Holiday Season! Enjoy the Longest Night!” Some years, Ramadan and Diwali also fall around the Solstice, and how lovely it is to find that there is a time of year for universal celebration.
Indeed, isn’t that part of the meaning of most of these holidays? Isn’t part of it about the love of the light of the world? And the more inclusive we are with that love, doesn’t that make us more true to the spirit of Christmas/Chanukkah/Solstice/Yule/
Saturnalia/Kwanzaa/Ramadan/Diwali/Festivus? And isn’t that just bloomin’ GREAT?
Today I feel sorry for those strange, eccentric Christmas Warriors, because they are purposely excluding themselves from the love.
I feel a Dar Williams song coming on…
😉
Seriously, though, this is beautiful and absolutely right.
Not being raised in any religious tradition but being innately spiritual I have looked for a long time for where I might fit. I found a cute test on Belief.net called the “Belief-o-matic” that said I best matched Universal Unitarianism.
Right now I have “God Rest Ye, Unitarians” on my blog and I also found a whole trove of UU humor online. An open-minded, empirically inclined group that tends towards humor. Oh yes, these are my people.
“Person A (Mainstream Protestant Denomination): I hear that you allow all sorts of weirdos in your
church. Atheists, Buddhists, Pagans…
Person B (Unitarian Universalist): We allow Christians too — we’re very open minded!”
The Belief-o-matic is great, it’s been all over the Pagan sites. And the UUs are great folks. I love our local congregation.
What’s this empire coming to? Now they want us to stop greeting people with “Io Saturnalia!” “We have all these different cultures in Rome,” they tell us. “We shouldn’t offend anyone,” they tell us, “We’ve got to be inclusive.”
We’ve got the barbarians from the north with their tree decorations and their fire rituals. And the weirdos from Gaul, cutting mistletoe with a golden sickle. And the Mithraists, the Zoroastrians, the Isis cults, and, of course, those characters who hang out in the catacombs. “Hail, Winter!” we’re supposed to say. I ask you, what next: we lose the feast? We stop the Solstice parties? No more honoring Ops, goddess of abundance?
I was buying some greenery down by the Forum the other day, and there’s old Macrobius with some Visigoth chick, and she goes, “Gut Jule.” And I go, “Hey! In this country, we say, “Io, Saturnalia! Maybe you should go back to where you came from.” Then Macrobius goes, “She can’t, she’s a slave.”
Whatever.
At this time of year, the Visigoths sacrifice a pig and burn a special log that they dance around, instead of acting like normal people and going to the temple of Saturn.
I swear, I was at this party over at Septima Commodia’s house the other day. She always has a Saturnalia party. Anyway, she decorated the place with prickly green leaves. “It’s holly,” she said, “The latest fashion from Brittania. They all do it in Londinium.”
It gets worse.
She had this statue of some goddess from Ultima Thule or somewhere, name of Frigga, sitting right there on the dining room mensa. I mean, this is darned near blasphemous. I’d be scared about what the lares and penates would do if I put that thing in my house. But Septima Commodia just said, “Oh get over it! We’re cosmopolitan around here.” Cosmopolitan. That’s what they call it. Well by Jupiter, I live in Latium. I’m a Roman. And this empire was founded on the principle that the gods, our gods, must be honored at the appropriate time and in the appropriate way. None of this foreign heretical nonsense or these strange customs from Germania or Hibernia or Palestine. I say, “Io, Saturnalia!” and if you don’t like it, you can leave.
_________________
-NPR
Deborah,
Thanks for the link! My tounge was happily located in my cheek the entire time.
Barbs,
That post is awesome! Did you write that? Where is it from?
Barb, I’m promoting this to the front page.
Ah, now I understand why you were telling the kitten how clever it was bringing you an ornament from the Christmas tree…..I was way confused. waitaminit…isn’t she Jewish? And pagan…? Got it now…
The more the merrier.
Nice to see you Paula. For a minute I was confused. I couldn’t figure my mother posted this…and then I realized, oh THAT Paula.