Happy Festivus!

A happy and blessed Winter Solstice to all my Pagan friends.

This year, 2010, is a truly remarkable one for readers in the U.K., as a Lunar eclipse and a Winter Solstice are going to coincide for the first time since 1632. 

A once-every-378-year event!  Whooeee! 

For those who are wondering, Winter Solstice (tomorrow, December 21) is the shortest day of the year and the ancient Pagan day of celebration to which Christmas conveniently attaches its sleigh.

What? Christmas is older than Jesus?

Yes, it's true.

In fact, it's older than Judaism as well.

Surely, you did not think the world began with Moses or Jesus? Dinosaurs once roamed your back yard. I promise you this is true.

Winter Solstice is the the darkest day of the year, and Winter Solstice is celebrated as the beginning of the return, or rebirth, of the Sun.

In short, tomorrow is the beginning of the REAL New Year, and it pretty much always has been celebrated as such.

The Roman holiday held at this time of year was called Saturnalia, and it lasted from December 17th to the 24th, with the Winter Solstice itself being (incorrectly) celebrated on December 25th (Sol Invictus) after Julius Caesar introduced the Julian Calendar in 45 B.C.

Groundhog Day, February 2nd, is the halfway point between the true Winter Solstice (December 21) and March 21 (the Spring or Vernal Equinox).

It is not an accident that February 2nd is also 40 days after Christ was born, as in Hebrew tradition mothers were required to purify their children in the temple 40 days after giving birth.

February 2nd then is not only Groundhog Day, but also the "Feast of the Presentation" otherwise known as Candlemas. In the ancient Pagan world, Groundhog Day was known as Imbolc.

So where did the holiday we know as "Groundhog Day" come from? For that story, read the previous blog posts on that topic.

Bottom Line: Today is a great day to celebrate "that old time religion" by going out into field and forest with the dogs.

And yes, all you New Age Pagans should feel perfectly free to call it Festivus.

In fact, please do!



Seinfeld - The Festivus Story

Fast Facts About Christmas

Not in the Bible:
Christmas is never mentioned in the Bible, and there is no suggestion as to the season, much less the date, of Jesus' birth.

Not Celebrated in Early Christianity:
In the early years of Christianity, Easter was the main holiday; the birth of Jesus was not celebrated.

The Date Was Chosen by a Politician:
The actual date of Christ's birth was chosen by Constantine I, after his conversion to Christianity, and appears to have been a political act designed to have a holiday in his new religion line up with several holidays celebrated by older competing sun-god-worshiping religions, including Elah-Gabal, a Syrian sun god; Sol, the god of Emperor Aurelian, and Mithras, a soldiers' god that originated in Persia. After Constantine's death, Pope Julius I codified the date of Christ's birth as December 25th. The term Cristes mæsse or "Mass of Christ" is an early English phrase first recorded in 1038, 1,000 years after Jesus' death.

Poetic License with the Nativity Scene:
Despite all the depictions of the nativity scene, the Bible mentions no "stable” nor does it mention animals. A "manger" is mentioned, but a manger is a feeding trough, not a stable.

The Pagan Christmas Garland:
Across Europe, Pagans of every stripe have always celebrated the Winter Solstice by draping doorways and mantels with evergreens (holly, pine, fir, spruce, mistletoe), a tradition embraced by the Romans during Saturnalia and the feast of Sol Invictus. After the conversion of Anglo-Saxon (i.e. Norse) Britain in the very early 7th century, Christmas was referred to as Geol, or Yule, the name of the pre-Christian solstice festival which honored the god Thor.

A Drunken Street Festival:
By the Middle Ages, Christianity had more-or-less replaced paganism with believers attending church and then decamping to drunken, carnival-like parties in the street generally accompanied by caroling and, in some locations, re-enactment of the nativity scene. Partying and excessive eating was not illogical for this time of year: December was the only real season for fresh meat, as the weather was cold enough that slaughtered animals did not spoil, nor did they have to be salted to preserve them. Late December was also the when the year’s supply of beer or wine (made from grapes, apples, and grain) was now ready to drink. As Stephen Nissenbaum notes in his book The Battle for Christmas (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1996), "From the beginning, the Church’s hold over Christmas was (and remains still) rather tenuous. There were always people for whom Christmas was a time of pious devotion rather than carnival, but such people were always in the minority. It may not be going too far to say that Christmas has always been an extremely difficult holiday to 'Christianize.'"

Banned in England and Scotland:
In Scotland, John Knox tossed out the "multitude of the monuments of idolatry" in 1562 as part of the Protestant Reformation. These included not only the celebration of Mass, but also Romish liturgical ceremonies, Roman bishops, and many Ecclesiastical holidays, including Christmas. When the Puritans took over England in 1645, they sought to rid the Church of England of all qualities for which they could find no biblical source or authorization. Among the holidays tossed out was Christmas, which was derided as a Pagan holiday adopted by Catholics from the Romans and the pagans of earlier times. Christmas was banned until Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660, at which point the Puritans were persecuted and fled to America.

The Return of "Misrule":
For the next 150 years or so, Christmas in England was a time of "misrule" i.e., socially permitted drunkenness, promiscuity, and gambling, with direct ties back to the Roman tradition of Saturnalia.

The German Christmas Tree:
Germany is credited with starting the Christmas tree tradition in the 16th century when devout Christians began to bring entire evergreen trees indoors -- a kind of one-upmanship on the ancient pagans.

Banned in America:
The Puritans that came to America in 1620 did not celebrate Christmas, and from 1659 to 1681 anyone celebrating Christmas in Boston was fined five shillings.

Christmas Was a Weakness of our Enemies:
On December 25th, 1776, George Washington attacked the Hessian troops outside of Trenton, giving his demoralized forces their first real victory of the war. Washington could be reasonably sure his plan of attack would succeed, as American troops did not celebrate the "German" holiday of Christmas.

Not Celebrated by our Founding Fathers:
Christmas remained out of favor in the U.S., and on December 25, 1789, the first Christmas under America's new constitution, Congress sat in session. In fact, Congress sat in session on Christmas until 1870, when Christmas was finally declared a federal holiday.

A Turkish Elf:
St. Nicholas was actually born in modern day Turkey -- an early Christian saint famous for giving away all of his inherited wealth and traveling the countryside helping the poor, the sick and small children. His traditional feast day was December 6th, but it was celebrated on Christmas eve by early Dutch settlers in New York who called him Sinter Klaas.

Christmas is Introduced to America:
The idea of Christmas was introduced to the U.S. by writer Washington Irving who wrote Knickerbocker History, a satire on the transplanted customs of New York's Dutch population, which contained several references to the legendary "Sinter Klaas," who delivered gifts to children on Christmas Eve. Later, in 1921, Irving wrote a Christmas poem called "The Children's Friend," in which the first reference to a sleigh pulled by reindeer is made. Sleigh, reindeer and elves are a cross-over from Scandinavia, where Christmas is celebrated with a jolly elf named Jultomten who is said to deliver gifts in a sleigh drawn by goats. In Finland, of course, they had much the same story, only there the sleigh was drawn by reindeer.

Expanding on Washington Irving:
In 1822, Clement Clarke Moore, an Episcopal minister, wrote a long Christmas poem for his three daughters. This poem, later retitled, "The Night Before Christmas," was a huge hit and helped establish a picture of "Santa Claus" in people's minds. This picture was crystallized in 1881, when political cartoonist Thomas Nast used Moore's poem as the basis for an illustration showing Santa Claus as a rotund, cheerful man with a big white beard, a red suit trimmed in white, and carrying a sack of toys, and whose base of operations was a North Pole workshop populated by elves.

The German Christmas Tree Comes to England:
Charles' Dickens' book A Christmas Carol was published in 1843 and it played a major role in reinventing Christmas as a holiday emphasizing family and compassion over self-centered excess. In 1846, just a few years after A Christmas Carol was published, Queen Victoria (who was of German descent) put up a Christmas tree. This was an entirely foreign tradition to England and came about because of Queen Victoria's marriage to the German Prince Albert of Coberg. As Queen Victoria was a hugely popular figure, and Christmas was already in the process of being reinvented, everyone quickly rushed out to get a copy the Queen and get their own Christmas tree decorated with glass ornaments made in Germany.

An Ad Man Invents a New Icon:
In 1938, a copywriter at the Montgomery Ward department store invented the story of "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer" as part of an advertising campaign. The story that would sell several million copies, before it was turned into a song (1949) which propelled it into permanent orbit.

There Is No Public Ban on Celebrations or Public Displays:
In 1984, the Supreme Court ruled in Lynch v. Donnelly that religious themes in government-funded winter holiday displays were permitted under the First Amendment. In 2001, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling in Ganulin v. United States which said that observing a day off on December 25th served a legitimate secular interest. .

And now, for a little musical interlude: the incomperable Nat King Cole.


This is a repost from 2008.

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Faith of our (Founding) Fathers

This country is ripe for a good old fashioned religious war, and thanks to the GOP, which has spent the last few years demanding that political candidates wear their religious beliefs on their sleeve, we may yet get it. What a wonderful Christmas present.

"Live by Anne Coulter, die by Anne Coulter," that's what I say.

The first volley might have been fired on the New York subway the other day when a man was physically attacked for replying "Happy Hanukkah" when someone else wished him "Merry Christmas."

Happy Hanukkah?

Those are fighting words!

Or at least they are if you are an idiot, and get all your news from Bill O'Reilly.

And so the nice Christian Boys threw down and started beating up the Jew until a Muslim fellow from Bangladesh stepped in to come to the Jewish fellow's rescue!

A Muslim guy stepped in to end the fight? Unbelievable sounding, but true.

In this twisted world, the ultimate irony is that the only "good Christian" left on a New York City train was a Muslim.

Go figure.

Meanwhile Mike Huckabee is standing firm in his disbelief in evolution.

Science? Science is for the Godless heathens -- you know, those damn foreigners who make all that stuff we like to buy at WalMart.

And never forget, says Huckabee, that life starts at conception.

Does that mean he's opposed to birth control? That's the rumor. But who knows?

Just imagine a tidal wave of Jamie Lynn Spears' trying to home-school their kids based on a fundamentalist educational doctrine that says evolution does not occur. Woooeee. I see no problems for the nation there!

And maybe that will not happen under Huckabee. He seems more rational than that. More to be revealed, no doubt.

Not crazy to be concerned, though, is it?

And then you have Mitt Romney, who took to the airwaves to pay homage to the "faith of his father," which resulted in the over-caffeinated and under-medicated Lawrence O'Donnell (one of the star's of HBO's TV series Big Love) ripping a hole in the studied civility (cough, cough) of The McLaughlin Group.




My favorite part is when the slightly-dim Eleanor Clift tries to smooth things over by noting that the long history of Mormon biggotry is no big deal.

Never mind, suggests Eleanor through omission, that we would never even consider a candidate that was a member of a country club that excluded blacks and women. A church is (somehow) different.

So what if Romney is a card-carrying member of a religion that kept out blacks until Romney himself was well past the age of 30?

The always-liberal Eleanor Clift is so terrified of calling a spade a spade that she tries to rationalize away true racism in the Mormon church for fear of offending anyone, noting that "every religion has had its scandals."

To which the former Catholic priest John McLaughlin asks "is that a crack about the Inquisition?" To which Eleanor Clift notes that the Catholic Church has had more recent scandals than that (i.e. a reference to pedophile priests).

Whoooeee. You cannot make this kind of stuff up.

Fight, fight, fight!

Of course, no one is even mentioning the abortion-defending, wife-cheating philanderer Rudy Giuiliani.

There's no question he's Godless enough for the most die-hard lefty Granola-eating-pagan-dope-smoker. And he's a gun-grabber too, God bless him. Perfect!

Then to take it across the aisle, you have Hillary Clinton, a Methodist who seems to carry a pair of heavy hands with her in the political ring, and who is only too happy to have surrogates (including husband Bill) run down the opposition, especially Barrack Obama.

And don't think folks haven't noticed.

Yesterday, nationally acclaimed documentary film maker Ken Burns (of The Civil War fame) endorsed Barack Obama for President after watching Hillary in action.

Ken, who had planned to stay neutral in the race, said that the Clinton campaign's attacks on Barack Obama prompted him to declare his support for Obama.

Ken says he thinks Barack is the only candidate in the race who can put an end to the "slash-and-burn character attacks" that have prevented progress on the challenges we face as a nation.

Noting Obama's judgment and courage, Burns said we need "a leader who calls upon each and every one of us to heed the 'better angels of our nature' and not our basest fears. Barack Obama will be that kind of president. It is time for a real change."

So there it is. Ken Burns thinks Obama is the only real Christian running. And I'm not saying he's wrong, either.

Ken may very well be right.

After all, Obama is not just a regular church-goer, he's also living the word. As the conservative blogger Mark Finkelstein notes:

"When David Gregory grilled Hillary Clinton on Today on December 17th, the challenges to her came from his own mouth. Not once was a statement by Barack Obama used to confront Clinton.

But when Barack Obama made back-to-back appearances this morning on Today and Morning Joe, again and again tough questions were posed not in the first person but as coming from Hillary Clinton or her surrogates."

In short, there is little or no video of Obama talking evil about others, and no shortage of those clips coming from Hillary.

Bottom line: Pay attention, and people will tell you who they are.

Pay attention to what people do, and you will know a great deal about them.

By watching, you can sometimes learn more than by listening.

Or, as Thomas Jefferson of Virginia so eloquently put it:

“Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life: if it has been honest and dutiful to society, the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one.”

Bingo.

Let us put our faith in that.

Let us watch how people have acted in their life.

Let us judge their faith on action, because faith without action is no faith at all. It is merely rhetoric.

And God knows, we have had our fill of that!.





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