Revelation 17:1-2
1 And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, come hither; I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters; 2 With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.

Revelation 18:3-4
3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. 4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

Note: In 46 BC, when the Roman "Julian Calendar" was adopted, December 24th was the shortest day of the year. Therefore, December 25th was the first annual day that daylight began to increase. Thus, the origin of the REBIRTH or Annual Birthday of the Invincible SUN.

In accordance with the Roman "Julian calendar," the "Saturnalia" festival appears to have taken place on December 17th; it was preceded by the "Consualia" near December 15th, and followed by the "Opalia" on December 19th. These pagan celebrations typically lasted for a week, ending just before the late Roman Imperial Festival for "Sol Invictus" (Invincible Sun) on December 25th.

In 1582 AD. Roman Catholic Pope Gregory the XIII caused the current "Gregorian Calendar" to be adopted, in order to eliminate the solar time shift error introduced by the "Julian Calendar."

By December 1582 AD the shortest day of the year had shifted 12 days on the Roman "Julian Calendar" to Wednesday, December 12, 1582.

However, the Original December 25th 'Birth Date' was retained for all pagan Sun gods by the Roman "Saturnalia" and "Sol Invictus" traditions; which were now called the "Twelve Days of Christ Mass."

On the new Roman Catholic Gregorian calendar the shortest annual day was numerically shifted back 10 days to the 22nd of December, where it remains to this day; while the original order of the days of the week remained unchanged.

Therefore, Wednesday, December 12th, 1582 AD, became Wednesday, December 22nd, 1582 AD, and the True Sabbath Day remained unchanged.

Yahweh, the Only True Self-existent Eternal Creator, would never have allowed The True Messiah to be born on or near the December 25th birthday period of the pagan Sun gods; during the time in which virgins were sacrificed, murder was commonplace, and orgies the norm. This would be an entirely unacceptable association.

Jeremiah 10:1-4

"Hear ye the word which the LORD speaketh unto you, O House of Israel: Thus saith the LORD, learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain; for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not."

Jeremiah 44:18, 19, 23
18 But since we left off to burn incense to the Queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine. 19 And when we burned incense to the Queen of heaven, and poured out drink offerings unto her, did we make her cakes to worship her, and pour out drink offerings unto her without our men. 23 Because ye have burned incense, and because ye have sinned against the LORD, and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD, nor walked in His law, nor in His statutes, nor in His testimonies, therefore, this evil is happened unto you, as at this day.

Galatians 4:8-11
8 How best then, when ye knew not G-d, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods [obviously referring to pagan heathen practices]. 9 But now, after that ye have known G-d, or rather are known of G-d, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, where unto ye deserve again to be in bondage? 10 Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years [reference to pagan holidays]. 11 I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain.

II Corinthians 6:14-18 states
14 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers; for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? 15 And what concord hath Messiah with Belial? Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? 16 And what agreement hath the temple of G-d with idols? For ye are the temple of the living G-d; as G-d hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their G-d, and they shall be My people. 17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the LORD, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, 18 and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the LORD Almighty.

It is certainly clear from all that we have read, that an end time apostasy has come upon both Jews and Gentiles. Both have strayed far from the original precepts of the faith, and there will be a heavy accounting before the LORD for this. These holidays represent only part of the great apostasy that has come upon G-d's people in the latter days. They cumulatively fulfill what are known as the latter day prophesies that predict a great apostasy before the coming of Messiah. G-d is calling for both Christians and Jews to come out of their compromised faith and return to their original calling, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the LORD.
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THE TRUTH ABOUT EASTER? PLEASE READ!



Many Christains are unaware of the origins of Easter, Which is Actually a Pagan

Festival held in Honor of Idols. in fact, Easter was Celebrated Hundreds of Years before the Bith of Christ. it wasn't until atleast 300 after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the establishment of his chruch that the Celebration of his resurrection began to be intermingled with the Pagan Practices of Easter. you sould know the truth.

Origins of the word Easter and the Goddess it Represents
Easter is Derived from "EOSTRE" the pagan Anglo-saxon goddess,and/or EOSTARE" the Norse pagan festival of spring. when God gave the Law to the Israelites in the old Testament.he clearly instructed them not to even utter the name of other Gods" Exodus 23:13.Aphrodite, Asherah, Ashtoreth, Astarte, Diana, Eostre, lanna, Ishtar, Isis, Ostara, Semiramis, Venus,...call her what you will, but she one in the same--a false goddess, and idol, Worshiped by Pagans. and God Declares that she is Detestable. Asherah is Mentioned in the old testament quite Frequently. Exodus"34:13-Deuteronomy" 12-2-4, Deuteronomy"16-21, Judges"6-25-30, 1 Kings"14-15-23, 1 Kings" 15-13, 1 Kings 16-33, 1 Kings 18-19, 2 Kings"17-7-16, 2 Kings"18-4, 2 Kings"21-3-7, 2 Kings"23-4-15, 2 Chronicles"14-3, 2 Chronicles"15-16, 2 Chronicles"17-6, 2 Chronicles"24-18, 2 Chronicles"31-1, 2 Chronicles"34-3-7, Isaiah"17-8, Isaiah"27-9, Jeremaih" 17-2, Micah"5-14, Ashtoreth (the Babyloian goddess of the woods and nature) is also mentioned by name in the Bible, Judges"2-11-13, 1 Samuel"7-3, 1 Kings"11-5-33, in every instance, she is an idol which greatly angers God. Inanna, the Sumerian patron of the temple Prostitutes(also considered the merciful mother who intercedes with the gods on behalf of her worshipers) is represented with a star inscribed in a circle.there are several scirptures which clearly show that worship of any of the Celestial elements (sun.,moon or stars) is forbidden by God, Deuteronomy 17-2-5, 2 Kings"23-4-15, Ezekiel"8-15-16, Ishtar [pronounced" Aes-tar"] (the Babylonians/ Chaldean goddess of love and war) and Semiramis (an Assyrian goddess } were both known as the queen of Heaven" and the" Queen of Heaven" is Specifically mentioned in the Bible" Jeremiah"7-18, Jeremiah"44-19-25.

As u can see....Easter has nothing to do with Jesus Christ, so you have to ask yourself? why do i celebrate a festival that has nothing to do with God!
never did...and never will...people please read your Bibles with understanding.

Mattherw- 12-38
Then certian of the scirbes and Pharisees answered, saying Master, we would see a sign from thee.

But he answered and said unto them, an evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet jo'nas;
for as jon'nas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

you cant get three days and three nights from good friday to easter sunday morning...i dont care what math you use...it's not possible!

Jesus the Christ didn't rise easter sunday morning.

here's some food for thougth?

matthew 28-1
In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Mag-da-le'ne and the other mary to see the sepulchre.
and, behold, there was a great earthquake; for the angel of the lord descened from the heaven, and it came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.
his countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow; and for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men. and the angel answered and said unto the women, fear not ye; for i know that ye seek jesus, which was crucified.
he is not here; for he is risen, as he said. come see the place where the lord lay.

so right here when mary got there to see jesus...he was already gone on the sabbath day, as it began to dawn toward the first day, so he rise on the sabbath day, not sunday...because the scriptures dont lie.

i hope you got something from this...p.s please do not send me happy easter messages...i will not accept it....in Jesus name the true God OF ISRAEL!!

SHALOM

I've received a number of emails from various liberal, moderate, and conservative Christians, including two dozen clergypeople, concerning their reactions to earlier versions of this essay. More often than not, they are horrified at the liberties their Fundamentalist brethren have taken with both historical truth and Christian theology, and have asked me to please not think that all Christians, "are like those lunatics." So in the interests of not alienating those open-minded Christians who may not yet be aware of the duplicity and malice of many of their supposed co-religionists, I've edited this to make clearer the distinctions between mainstream Christians and their (dare I say it?) demonically obsessed brothers and sisters. If there are some readers who consider themselves to be Christian Fundamentalists, but who do not approve of the behavior or words of those described herein, I suggest that they admonish their brethren rather than myself, and that they meditate upon what it is about Fundamentalism that makes it so easy to slide into anger, hatred, fear and deceit in the name of Jesus (or Yahweh or Allah or Science, for that matter).

If you don't like the music, you can stop it by clicking a button on the bottom of this page.

If you prefer a more colorful Halloween experience, you can click here for the regular edition of this essay.

Every year at this time, some folks begin shouting that Neopagans must be "stopped" from celebrating our New Year's Day, which they describe as a "Satanic" holiday. Some Christian Fundamentalists say loudly and publically that we Druids, Witches and other Neopagans kidnap children, sacrifice babies, poison or boobytrap Halloween treats, drink blood, and hold orgies at Halloween. They use these claims to disrupt or prevent our religious rites, slander our beliefs, and blaspheme our deities, despite the total lack of evidence to support them:

* Local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, have never found even one example of a "Satanic cult human sacrifice." What they do occasionally find are budding psychopaths killing small animals in what a psychiatrist would call a "ritualistic" manner.

* Similarly, the urban legends about "Satanic cults looking to kidnap blond blue-eyed children for sacrifice" (presumably by evil "non-Aryans") reveal more about racism than crime in America because here, too, there is not a single real incident recorded by law enforcement agencies.

* All those stories of poisoned candy and razor blades in apples — which some Christian Fundamentalists would have us believe is how modern Witches and Druids now "sacrifice" kids — turn out to be more urban legends with zero law enforcement backing — see Curses! Broiled Again! : The Hottest Urban Legends Going, by noted folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand for details.

* Claims are made that "the ASPCA reports the evidence of animal mutilation and destruction is ten times more available on the week preceeding and the weekend following Halloween." I've been unable to get the ASPCA to back this up. Apparently, some pounds and animal control facilities may not adopt out black kittens to punk/goth/scary-looking teenagers just before Halloween, but the evidence on which they base these policies is unclear. It may just be another urban legend based on teenaged sociopaths killing animals in years past.

* The urban legend of Baby-Killing, Blood-Drinking, Incestously-Orgiastic, Evil-Doers has been around a long time — in fact, it's been passed down for 2,500 years and used against one religion after another — including the early Christians!

* Supposed physical evidence to support this nonsense is either completely absent or quickly vanishes once closely examined by law enforcement experts.

* The modern authors of various books promoting these slanders have repeatedly been proven — by Evangelical Christian journalists — to be frauds and con-artists milking the Fundamentalist market.

* In thirty years of my attending Samhain/Halloween rites, and discussing them with other Neopagans, not one of them has included an orgy — darn it!

You can visit the Satanic Ritual Abuse page maintained by the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance for details on these psychotic fantasies and the findings of various reputable researchers. A good book on how urban legends have become entwined with American Halloween traditions is Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life, edited by Jack Santino.

Perhaps the best book written on the topic of the Evil Satanic Conspiracy silliness so far is Satanic Panic, by sociologist Dr. Jeffrey Victor. The publisher's card catalog description for this work sums it up well:

Again and again we are told — by journalists, police, and fundamentalists — that there exists a secret network of criminal fanatics, worshippers of Satan, who are responsible for kidnapping, human sacrifice, sexual abuse and torture of children, drug-dealing, mutilation of animals, desecration of churches and cemeteries, pornography, heavy metal lyrics, and cannibalism. This popular tale is almost entirely without foundation, but the legend continues to gather momentum, in the teeth of evidence and good sense. Networks of "child advocates," credulous or self-serving social workers, instant-expert police officers, and unscrupulous ministers of religion help to spread the panic, along with fabricated survivors' memoirs passed off as true accounts, and irresponsible broadcast "investigations." A classic witch-hunt, comparable to those of medieval Europe, is under way. Innocent victims are smeared and railroaded. Satanic Panic uncovers the truth behind the satanic cult hysteria, and exposes the roots of this malignant mythology, showing in detail how unsubstantiated rumor becomes transformed into publicly-accepted "fact."

People with poor self-images always want to inflate the power and evilness of their real or imagined opponents. After all, if there's a Gigantic Global Satanic Conspiracy® to defeat the Forces of Goodness,® the people believing in it can think of themselves as "fighting on the side of the angels," instead of as the pathetic, demon-obsessed, xenophobes that they really are. Of course, my pointing out that these folks are bigots will make them claim that I'm "Christian-bashing," so they can retain their precious sense of victimhood. I find it very annoying that many racist, sexist and creedist groups in current (or former) power have managed to twist the term "bashing" away from its original reference to members of minority groups being physically beaten and killed to instead mean themselves being verbally criticised, and I refuse to capitulate to this linguistic hijacking. However, I'm going to steal Dr. Victor's term for the rest of this essay, and refer to these extremists as Satanic Panickers, in order to distinguish them from other Christian Fundamentalists who may not be quite as nasty towards those of us who belong to minority belief systems.

If you'd prefer a more neutral discussion of Evangelical Christian Beliefs about Halloween, you can visit the website of the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. Their essay on How Christians View Non-Christian Religions is also quite good, as are most of their materials on their huge website.

Those who still think after reading this essay and others on this site, that I'm only saying what I'm saying because I'm, "filled with hatred for Christ and Christianity," as several correspondants have informed me, may read my short discussion of "Anti-Christianity" and Who-Hates-Who? elsewhere on this site. Denouncing professional (and amateur) inquisitors for their deceitful propaganda and hate-mongering, doesn't mean that I hate them and "therefore" all of Christianity — frankly my attitude is one more of pity than anything else. I've received many emails from Christians, including a dozen ministers, who say that they don't like the Satanic Panickers any more than I do.

By the way, if you're interested in seeing just what idiots "real" Satanists are, you can read My Satanic Adventure and The Enemies of Our Enemies elsewhere on this website (or read the raving egomaniacal flamewars on the Usenet newsgroup "alt.satanism"). Just like some of their Christian Fundamentalist brethren, they also call me a "basher" and a "bigot," — one Satanist online denounced me as an "anti-Satanic, anti-white, communist, fascist pig." I must be doing something right! Apparently I'm a terrible person, since I'm unimpressed by their Christian Dualism in drag. Now, however, let's focus on the Satanic Panickers' weird fantasies about Halloween.

You will often read in the hate literature published by Satanic Panickers (such as the infamous tracts and comic books — which one Baptist minister told me were "Christian pornography" — from multimillionaire publisher Jack Chick) that, "Samhain was the Celtic God of the Dead, worshipped by the Druids with dreadful bloody sacrifices at Halloween." Chick embroiders this error in a tract called "The Trick" and a fullsized comic book called, "Spellbound?" (a panel of which is shown here.)

Chick describes Ancient Evil Druids going from castle-door-to-door seeking virgin princesses to rape and sacrifice. These comic book villians would leave carved pumpkins with candles ("made from human fat!") in them for those who cooperated, and arrange demonic assassinations for those who refused to give them what they wanted.This, according to Mr. Chick, is supposed to be the "true" origin of trick or treating — of course he also publishes tracts insisting that Catholics aren't Christians, that all non-Christians are Devil-worshippers, and that the entire rock-and-roll record industry is run by Satanists who cast a curse on every record before it's released! (Can you imagine the logistics nightmare of trying to get a group together to curse even one new album in a hundred, out of the thousands released every year, let alone all of them?)

Let's look at a few historical facts:

* Paleopagan Druidism in Ireland and the British Isles was wiped out by Christianity long before anyone was building medieval castles with "princesses" in them.

* Virginity simply wasn't as important to European Paleopagans as some would assume — except for occasional political purposes — and was certainly a condition that lusty Celtic women then had little problem removing in pre-Christian days.

* Since half of the Paleopagan Druid caste were women, it's highly unlikely that these historically strong and assertive Celtic women would have allowed their husbands, fathers and sons to get away with raping and murdering women of any caste — whether virgins or not!

* There's a distinct lack of historical or archeological evidence that the ancient Druids ever sacrificed anyone other than criminals, prisoners-of-war, or volunteers — if them. The human sacrifices called "missions," "inquisitions," "crusades," and "pograms," however, have killed innocent men, women and children by the millions — and this is very well proven by mainstream historians, even if some modern Christians insist that the murderers "weren't really Christians."

* The pumpkin is a New World plant that never grew in Europe until modern times, so it couldn't have been used to make jack-o-lanterns by the Druids. Human fat (I'm told by a biologist) would make a lousy candle fuel even if anyone were psychotic enough to try. Apparently turnips were used to make lanterns in Ireland and Scotland, but these were not the plants that Americans know as "turnips." One correspondant told me, "a turnip to the Scots /Irish is not what the English would call a turnip. Rather than being white and purple skinned, it is yellow and purple and is known to the English as a 'swede.' They are about between half a foot and a foot in diameter." These are harder to carve than pumpkins, which is probably why Irish immigrants to North America switched to using the latter, but still easier to carve than the roots the Americans and British call "turnips." I'm unaware of any historical references to the turnips being used as jack-o-lanterns in Ireland until modern times, or of turnip-lamps being used in the Paleopagan Celtic territories where the Druids once worshipped.

* There's zero evidence that the ancient Druids or their congregants ever dressed in identity-hiding costumes or engaged in ritualized begging at harvest time. It's possible, but by no means certain, that this was a Paleopagan custom. (see later in this essay for medieval and modern customs of this). As for the dark medieval monks' robes depicted by Chick in his comics, since the ancient Druids considered white their caste color and brown or black the color associated with the servant caste, they probably wouldn't have been caught, you should pardon the expression, "dead" in them!

* There is no historical or archeological evidence of any Celtic deity, of the dead or any other topic, named "Samhain." We know the names of some 350 Celtic deities from all over Europe and the Celtic Isles, and "Old Sam Hain" ain't one of 'em.

* Major dictionaries of Celtic Languages don't mention any "Samhain" deity either: McBain's Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language says that "samhuinn" (the Scots Gaelic spelling) means "Hallow-tide" (the holiday), probably from roots meaning "summer's end;" with a possible derivation from the annual assembly at Tara every November 1st. MacFarlane's School Gaelic Dictionary defines it simply as "Hallowtide." I have several Irish/English dictionaries in my home, and they all say that "samhain" or "La Samhna" (to use the Irish spellings) is the first of November, or the month of November, or "Hallowtide/Halloween."

So where do Satanic Panickers get their weird beliefs about Halloween? One correspondant asked me, "How can these things never happen if so many people preach that it does? … Where would Christians get these ideas if they weren't fact?" The short answer, of course, is that preachers are people and (1) all people make mistakes, (2) some people are ignorant, and (3) others just tell lies. After all, lots of people used to believe that the Earth was flat and that the sun moved around the Earth,. The Church quoted scriptures to "prove" these beliefs and burned early scientists at the stake for disagreeing. Yet merely saying, "They're lying to you," though true, can easily be thrown back into our own faces, if it's only a matter of one group's word against another (assuming neither group can get away with silencing the other). A more useful answer, one with the weight of solid academic research behind it, will take us a bit more time.

The sources of information that Satanic Panickers use are extremely few:

* Books written over a century ago, especially Two Babylons or the Papal Worship, a work of nasty anti-Catholic propaganda written in 1873 by Alexander Hislop, and a book by a man named Godfrey Higgins, The Celtic Druids, published in 1827;
* Decades-old editions of encyclopedias which simply quote Hislop or Higgins;
* Sermons, books and broadcasts by self-proclaimed-and-promoted "Ex-Grand-High-Druid-Witch experts" on the occult — all of whom turn out to be phonies and often criminals as well; and
* More decades of sermons by pastors repeating unquestioningly the statements made by other pastors before them.

An essay called Halloween: Myths, Monsters & Devils, by W.J. Bethancourt III, contains a superb and detailed analysis of Satanic Panickers' literature on the topic (his Bibliography page should not be skipped either). His essay says, among many other interesting things:

As for "Samhain" or "Saman" being the "lord of the dead," this is a gross fallacy that seems to have been perpetuated in the late 18th and 19th centuries CE. I have found it in Higgins (first published in 1827, and trying to prove the Druids emigrated to Ireland from India!) where he quotes a Col. Charles Vallency (later a General, who was trying to prove that the Irish were decended from the inhabitants of Armenia!!!) Higgins also refers to an author named "Pictet," who gives this name as that of a god, associating the word with "sabhan," (which word I cannot find in any Gaelic dictionary at my disposal) and trying for a connection with "Bal-sab," to prove a Sun god and Biblical association.

The full title of Higgins' book (leaving out the solid capital letters) is: The Celtic Druids; or, An Attempt to shew, that the Druids were the priests of oriental colonies who emigrated from India, and were the introducers of the first or Cadmean system of letters, and the builders of Stonehenge, of Carnac, and of other cyclopean works, in Asia and Europe. Browsing through the facsimile 1829 edition of Higgins' book (published by Kessinger Publishing, LLC, Kila MT), it quickly becomes clear that the Honorable Godfrey Higgins, Esq. while astute enough to notice the similarities between the Sanscrit, Latin and Irish languages, was working without the tools or knowledge of those disciplines which were to become known as linguistics, anthropology, archeology, or indeed any modern social or physical science. He made up for his ignorance with an obsession to reconcile what he knew of Celtic languages, cultures and history with Semetic languages, cultures and (the Christian Bible's version of) history. The results, despite his prescient guesses about what would someday be known as the Indo-European languages and the common Indo-European clergy caste, are so far off the mark about almost every subject he touched upon, as to appear pathetic to even the most charitible modern scholar.

Pardon me if the following seems a long digression, but the influence of this author's book has been so long lasting and so pernicious to the reputations of the ancient Druids, and of Halloween, that it's reasonable to quote several key paragraphs. Here, set in underlined type to distinguish it from real scholarship, or my own opinions, is what Higgins has to say about "Samhan or Bal-Sab" in Chapter V, Section XVII:

The God Samhan is placed by M. Pictet ["of Geneva, a learned friend of the author's"] at the head of his double series, with the following explanation: Samhan eadhon Ceisil, eadhon Giolla; Samhan, that is to say the evil spirit, (Satan,) that is to say, the Serviteur.

Samhan appears to have been one of the Gods, the most revered, in Ireland. An annual solemnity was instituted to his honour, which is yet celebrated on the evening of the first day of November; which yet at this day is called the Oidhche Samhna, or the night of Samhan.

This solemnity was consecrated by the Druids, to the intercession of the living for the souls of those who had died the year preceding, or in the current year. For, according to their doctrine, Samhan called before him these souls, and passed them to the mansions of the blessed, or returned them to a re-existence here, as a punishment for their crimes. He was also called Bal-Sab or Lord of Death. It was probably this epithet which induced the commentator to call Samhan by the name of Ceisil, which, in modern Irish, means devil.

Samhan was also the Sun, or rather the image of the sun. This word is found in many Semitic languages: in Arabic, Schams, the sun; Hebrew, sms; Chaldean, smsa; Syrian, Schemscho; in Pehlvi, Schemsia; in Sanscrit, Hamsa, the sun. The Sun was the first object of worship of all the Heathens, either as Creator, or as an emblem or Shekinah of the Divinity. The attributes of Samhan seem at first contradictory, but they are not unusual amongst the Heathen Gods. With the Greeks, Dionysos, the good Demiurge, is identified with Hades. In Egypt, Osiris was the Lord of death; with the Scandinavians, Odin, the God beneficent, was, at the same time, king of the infernal regions. This deity was above all others whom we have named [in the preceding sections], but he was below the supreme being Baal. If Samhan were the Sun, as we see he was, he answers to Mithra of the Persians, who was the middle link between Oromasdes and Arimanius — between the Creator and the Destroyer, and was called the preserver.

Schelling says, the Irish doctrine was, that souls did not descend to the severe Zeus, (Pluto, the Jupiter of the Styx,) but that they ascended to the merciful Osiris. Such is the meaning of the Irish Samhan, who is a merciful judge, not deciding by his caprice, but holding his power from the God Supreme, of whom he is the image. In all this is a curious mixture of physical and moral doctrines.

I will leave as an exercise for the reader to count all the outright mistakes and obvious lapses in logic. That some Fundamentalist Christians should, to this very day, use such an abyssmal example of obsolete scholarship — he thought Irish was a dialect of Hebrew, and the Celts descendents of Moses for crying out loud! — as a primary source for their anti-Halloween propaganda, shows just how desperate they are.

For the real origins of Halloween customs and the identity of "Samhain," we have to look a great deal deeper than Christian comic books, 19th century fantasies/speculations, or Sunday morning sermons to investigate the Paleopagan and Neopagan Celtic and Germanic calendars.

There were four Major High Days celebrated by the Paleopagan Druids throughout the Celtic territories: Samhain, Oimelc, Beltane & Lughnasadh (in the Irish spellings). Four additional High Days (Winter Solstice or "Midwinter," Spring Equinox, Summer Solstice or "Midsummer," and Fall Equinox), which are based on Germanic or other Indo-European cultures, are also celebrated in the Neopagan Druid calendar, along with others based on mainstream holidays (visit the linked essay for details).

The most common practice for the calculation of Samhain, Oimelc, Beltane & Lughnasadh has been, for the last several centuries, to use the civil calendar days or eves of November 1st, February 1st, May 1st and August 1st, respectively. You can see the just-cited essay for other methods used by Neopagans today, however, since we have conflicting evidence on how the Paleopagan Druids calculated these dates, modern Neopagans just use whichever method is most convenient. This means, of course, that we aren't all doing anything uniformly on any given night, which fits perfectly with the Neopagan saying that, "organizing Pagans is like herding cats." It doesn't match the Evil Conspiracy theories about us — which have us all marching to a strict drumbeat in perfect Satanic unison — at all.

These four major holy days are traditionally referred to as "fire festivals" because to the ancient Celts, as with all the Indo-European Paleopagans, fire was a physical symbol of divinity, holiness, truth, and beauty. Whether in Ireland or India, among the Germans or the Hittites, sacred fires were kindled on every important religious occasion. To this very day, among Eastern and Western Catholics, you can't have a satisfying ritual without a few candles being lit — of course, the Satanic Panickers consider them Heathen too!

Samhain or "Samhuinn" is pronounced "sow-" (as in female pig) "-en" — not "Sam Hain" — because "mh" in the middle of an Irish word is a "w" sound. It's known in Modern Irish as Lá Samhna, in Welsh as Nos Galen-gaeof (that is, the Night of the Winter Calends), and in Manx as Laa Houney (Hollantide Day), Sauin or Souney. Samhain is the most important of the fire festivals, because (according to most Celtic scholars) it marks the Celtic New Year. Around the same time, the Celt's Indo-European cousins in India celebrate Divali, which has some similar themes and customs. Samhain was the original festival that eventually became "All Saints' Day" in the Western Christian calendar (Eastern Christians continued to celebrate All Saints' Day in the spring, as the Roman Christians had originally). Since the Celts, like many cultures, started every day at sunset of the night before, this became the "evening" of "All Hallows" ("hallowed" = "holy" = "saint") which was eventually contracted into "Hallow-e'en" or the modern "Halloween."

Among other things, Samhain is the beginning of the Winter Half of the Year (the seasons of Geimredh & Earrach) and is known as "the Day Between Years." It appears that to the Celts the year, like the day, began with its dark half. Interestingly, in India the mid-April festival of Rath Yatra begins their New Year and the summer season, possibly echoing an older idea that the year should begin with its brighter half. (There's also an Indian festival in late January or early February to honor the goddess Sarasvati, who as matron deity of the arts and learning can be seen as a nearly direct equivilent to Brid/Bridget, the Irish goddess and later saint whose annual festival occurs in early February.)

The day before Samhain is the last day of the old year and the day after Samhain is the first day of the new year. Being "between years," it is considered a very magical time, when the dead walk among the living and the veils between past, present and future may be lifted in prophecy and divination.

Many important mythological events are said to have occured on that day. It was on a Samhain that the Nemedians captured the terrible Tower of Glass built by the evil Formorians; that the Tuatha De Danann later defeated the Formors once and for all; that Pwyll won his wife Rhiannon from Gwawl; and that many other events of a dramatic or prophetic nature in Celtic myth happened. Many of these events had to do with the temporary victory of the forces of darkness over those of light, signaling the beginning of the cold and dark half of the year.

There is some evidence to indicate that three days were spent celebrating this festival. Philip Carr-Gomm, Chosen Chief of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, speaking of both Paleopagan and Mesopagan Druids in England, had this to say about it in his Elements of the Druid Tradition:

Samhuinn, from 31 October to 2 November was a time of no-time. Celtic society, like all early societies, was highly structured and organised, everyone knew their place. But to allow that order to be psychologically comfortable, the Celts knew that there had to be a time when order and structure were abolished, when chaos could reign. And Samhuinn, was such a time. Time was abolished for the three days of this festival and people did crazy things, men dressed as women and women as men. Farmers' gates were unhinged and left in ditches, peoples' horses were moved to different fields, and children would knock on neighbours' doors for food and treats in a way that we still find today, in a watered-down way, in the custom of trick-or-treating on Hallowe'en.

But behind this apparent lunacy, lay a deeper meaning. The Druids knew that these three days had a special quality about them. The veil between this world and the World of the Ancestors was drawn aside on these nights, and for those who were prepared, journeys could be made in safety to the 'other side'. The Druid rites, therefore, were concerned with making contact with the spirits of the departed, who were seen as sources of guidance and inspiration rather than as sources of dread. The dark moon, the time when no moon can be seen in the sky, was the phase of the moon which ruled this time, because it represents a time in which our mortal sight needs to be obscured in order for us to see into the other worlds.

The dead are honoured and feasted, not as the dead, but as the living spirits of loved ones and of guardians who hold the root-wisdom of the tribe. With the coming of Christianity, this festival was turned into Hallowe'en (31 October), All Hallows [All Saints Day] (1 November), and [All Souls Day] (2 November). Here we can see most clearly the way in which Christianity built on the Pagan foundations it found rooted in these isles. Not only does the purpose of the festival match with the earlier one, but even the unusual length of the festival is the same.

The Christian Church was unable to get the people to stop celebrating this holiday, so they simply sprinkled a little holy water on it and gave it new names, as they did with other Paleopagan holidays and customs. This was a form of calendrical imperialism, co-opting Paleopagan sacred times, as they had Paleopagan sacred places (most if not all of the great cathedrals of Europe were built on top of earlier Paleopagan shrines and sacred groves, wells, etc.). So when Satanic Panickers come to your local school board and try to get Halloween removed from the public schools because "it's a Pagan holiday," they are perfectly correct. Of course, Valentine's Day/Lupercalia, Easter/Eostre, and Christmas/Yule also have many Paleopagan elements associated with their dating and/or symbols, as the Jehovah's Witnesses and others have pointed out for decades. So if we decide to rid the public schools of all holidays that have Pagan aspects to them, there won't be many left for the kids to enjoy.

I find it amusing that American teens and preteens seem to have instinctively expanded their seasonal celebrations to add another night before Halloween, one on which they commit various acts of harmless (or unfortunately not) vandalism, including pranks on neighbors. If we assume that All Saints Day was invented to co-opt the central day of Samhain and was associated originally with the Gods and Goddesses of the Celts, and All Souls Day was supposed to co-opt the worship of the Ancestors, then the modern "Cabbage Night," "Hell Night" (boy does that push the Satanic Panickers' buttons!), or simply "Mischief Night" (which used to be April 30th — the night before May Day — in Germany, and is the 5th of December or Krampus Tag in Austria) would correspond to a celebration of the often mischievous Nature Spirits or Sidhe. This then nicely covers the Indo-European pattern of the "Three Kindreds" of Deities, Ancestors, and Nature Spirits.

Where does this custom come from? Is it really ancient, a few centuries old, or relatively modern? Let's look at the evidence:

Kevin Danaher, in his remarkable book The Year in Ireland, has a long discussion of the traditional Irish celebrations of this festival. In one section on "Hallow-E'en Guisers," he says:

A familiar sight in Dublin city on and about October 31 is that of small groups of children, arrayed in grotesque garments and with faces masked or painted, accosting the passers-by or knocking on house doors with the request: "Help the Hallow E'en party! Any apples or nuts?" in the expectation of being given small presents; this, incidentally, is all the more remarkable as it is the only folk custom of the kind which has survived in the metropolis.

A couple of generations ago, in parts of Dublin and in other areas of Ireland, the groups would have consisted of young men and grown boys, who often travelled considerable distances in their quest, with consequently greater reward. The proceeds were usually expended on a "Hallow E'en party," with music, dancing, feasting and so on, at some chosen house, and not merely consumed on the spot as with the children nowadays…

Irisleabhar na Gaedhilge, ii, 370, states that in parts of Count Waterford, Hallow E'en is called oidhche na h-aimléise, "The night of mischief or con." It was a custom in the county — it survives still in places — for the "boys" to assemble in gangs, and, headed by a few horn-blowers who were always selected for their strength of lungs, to visit all the farmers' houses in the district and levy a sort of blackmail, good humouredly asked for, and as cheerfully given. They afterward met at some rendezvous, and in merry revelry celebrated the festival of Samhain in their own way. When the distant winding of the horns was heard, the bean a' tigh [woman of the house] prepared for their reception, and got ready the money or builín (white bread) to be handed to them through the half-opened door. Whoever heard the wild scurry of their rush through a farm-yard to the kitchen-door — there was always a race amongst them to get possession of the latch — will not question the propriety of the word aimiléis [mischief] applied to their proceedings. The leader of the band chaunted a sort of recitative in Gaelic, intoning it with a strong nasal twang to conceal his identity, in which the good-wife was called upon to do honour to Samhain… "A contributor to An Claidheamh Soluis, 15 Dec. 1906, 5, gives a example of these verses, from Ring, County Waterford:


'Anocht Oidhche Shamhna, a Mhongo Mango. Sop is na fuinneogaibh; dúntar na díirse. Eirigh id' shuidhe, a bhean an tighe. Téirigh siar go banamhail, tar aniar go flaitheamhail. Tabhair leat ceapaire aráin agus ime ar dhath do leacain fhéin; a mbeidh léim ghirrfiadh dhe aoirde ann ages ciscéim choiligh dhe im air. Tabhair chugham peigín de bhainne righin, mín, milis a mbeidh leawhnach 'n-a chosa agus uachtar 'n-a mhullaigh; go mbeidh sé ag imtheacht 'n-a chnocaibh agus ag teacht Ôn-a shléibhtibh, agus badh ó leat go dtachtfadh sé mé, agus mo chreach fhada níor bhaoghal dom.'

'("Oh Mongo Mango, Hallow E'en tonight. Straw in the windows and close the doors. Rise up housewife, go inside womanly, return hospitably, bring with you a slice of bread and butter the colour of your own cheek, as high as a hare's jump with a cock's step of butter on it. Bring us a measure of thick fine sweet milk, with new milk below and cream above, coming in hills and going in mountains; you may think it would choke me, but, alas! I am in no danger.")'

Wow, that chant sure sounds Satanic, doesn't it?

As I mentioned before, because it was an "in-between" kind of holiday, spirits (nice or nasty), ancestors (ditto), or mortals (ditto?) were thought to be more easily able to pass from This World to the Other World and vice versa. It was also a perfect time for divination or "fortune telling" (Danaher talks about all of this at great length). While some monotheists may consider either or both of these activities to be "evil," most religions in human history have considered them perfectly normal.

Before and after the arrival of Christianity, early November was when people in Western and Northern Europe finished the last of their harvesting, butchered their excess stock (so the surviving animals would have enough food to make it through the winter), and held great feasts. They invited their ancestors to join them, decorated family graves, and told ghost stories — all of which may strike some monotheists today as spiritually erroneous, but which hardly seems "evil" — and many modern polytheists do much the same. So where does "trick or treating" come in?

According to Tad Tuleja's essay, "Trick or Treat: Pre-Texts and Contexts," in Santino's previously mentioned anthology, Halloween, modern trick or treating (primarily children going door-to-door, begging for candy) began fairly recently, as a blend of several ancient and modern influences. I'm mixing Tuleja's material here with my own insights, see his essay for details of his opinions, which I'll mark with italics to separate from mine:

* At various times and places in the Middle Ages, customs developed of beggers, then children, asking for "soul cakes" on All Souls Day.
* At some other Medieval times and places, costumed holiday parading, singing and dancing at May Day, Halloween, and Yule (with different themes, of course, though sometimes with similar characters, such as the "Hobby Horse") became popular in Ireland and the British Isles. Originally these costumed celebrants were adults and older teens, who would go from house to house (as Danaher describes above) demanding beer and munchies in exchange for their performances, which mixed Pagan and Christian symbols and themes. While many Neopagans may think these folk customs go all the way back to Paleopagan times, they are actually fairly modern (see Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in England, by Ronald Hutton).
* To the medieval householders, of course, being thought stingy (especially in front of the visiting ancestors and faery folk at Halloween) would be very bad luck, as it would violate the ancient laws of hospitality. Perhaps there were some inebriated paraders who might have decided to come back later in the night and play tricks upon those who hadn't rewarded them properly, but any references to such are fairly modern.
* In 1605 c.e., Guy Fawkes' abortive effort to blow up the British Parliament on November 5th, led to the creation of "Guy Fawkes Day," celebrated by the burning of effigies of Fawkes in bonfires and children dressing in rags to beg for money for fireworks. As the decades rolled by, this became thoroughly entwined with Halloween celebrations and customs. This is not surprising, considering that bonfires were a central part of the old Samhain/Halloween tradition, and that Nov. 5th was actually closer to the astrological date for Samhain than the 1st was!
* In 19th Century America, rural immigrants from Ireland and Scotland kept gender-specific Halloween customs from their homelands: girls stayed indoors and did divination games, while the boys roamed outdoors engaging in almost equally ritualized pranks, which their elders "blamed" on the spirits being abroad that night.
* Also in mid-19th Century New York, children called "ragamuffins" would dress in costumes and beg for pennies from adults on Thanksgiving Day.
* Things got nastier with increased urbanization and poverty in the 1930's. Adults began casting about for ways to control the previously harmless but now increasingly expensive and dangerous vandalism of the "boys." Towns and cities began organizing "safe" Halloween events and householders began giving out bribes to the neighborhood kids as a way to distract them away from their previous anarchy. The ragamuffins disappeared or switched their date to Halloween. The term "trick or treat," finally appears in print around 1939!

Pranks became even nastier in the 1980's, with widespread poverty existing side-by-side with obscene greed. Unfortunately, as criminologists, military recruiters and historians know, the most dangerous animals on our planet are unemployed teenaged males. Bored kids in a violence saturated culture slip all too easily from harmless "decoration" of their neighbors' houses with shaving cream and toilet paper to serious vandalism and assaults. Blaming either Neopagans or Halloween for this is rather like blaming patriots or the Fourth of July for the many firecracker injuries that happen every year (and which are also combatted by publicly sponsored events).

By the mid- 20th century in Ireland and Britain, it seem only the smaller children would dress up and parade to the neighbors' houses, do little performances, then ask for a reward. American kids seem to remember this with their chants of "Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg," and other classic tunes done for no reason other than because "it's traditional."

All this is a far cry from the horrific images "conjured" by Satanic Panickers, (as in this Chick Publications tract "The Trick"). Rather than an ancient Satanic plot to kill or corrupt children, the American tradition of trick-or-treating is a modern custom invented by town councils, schoolboards and parents in the 1930's to keep their kids out of trouble.

To a great extent, the costumes worn by modern trick-or-treaters represent, as they might have in older times, an effort to entertain, amuse and/or scare the neighbors, and to compete a bit with others in beauty, ugliness, humor, scariness, and costuming skill.

One Christian mother told me that even though she now understands more about the origins of Halloween, she is still reluctant to let her kids celebrate it, as she put it, because, "People today are totally unconcerned and disrespectful of the value of life and safety of others. Regardless of personal religion, selfishness and cruelty have no place in society, but has been allowed all the same. (Yes, that includes the Fundamentalist crowds)." Perhaps this is why the other 1930's parental solution of supervised parties has continued to grow in popularity even as after-dark trick-or-treating has dwindled.

One rather wise Christian teenager told me:

Probably the thing that makes Halloween so different is not that people act far differently (some minor increases in vandalism and rabble-rousing), but rather that it is so simply accepted. What makes my peers decide to egg somebody's house on Halloween rather than another day? The fact that it is accepted and almost anticipated. And so they join the bandwagon, fearing less repercussions because of the "viable" defense, "Hey, anybody could've done it — all those weirdos out and everything." How many Satanists go trick-or-treating vs. the number of high school kids smashing pumpkins? Common sense speaks for itself. I would personally say if Halloween is to survive as a non-controversial institution, we need to first clean up the simple and obvious criminal element. Without that, many so-called Christians would lose their leg to stand on. However, and I hope you agree, we (meaning the Biblically-based Chrisitian community vs. subscribers to other faiths) could discuss the underlying spiritual issues without the argument of increased criminal activity (supposedly incited by Pagans) twisting the issue. Besides it's easier to discuss things coherently when your house isn't TPed in the dark and you're looking for a scapegoat.

Is Halloween an appropriate holiday for Christians to celebrate? I suppose that depends on which kind of Christians are asking. Conservative Christians, who often place far more emphasis on (the parts they like of) the "Old Testament," than they do the "New Testament," can simply point to the genuinely traditional Halloween customs of divination and communication with otherworldly spirits and dead ancestors, and say these activities are forbidden to them. Liberal Christians, who usually pay more attention to the "New" than the "Old Testament," may come to different conclusions. Moderate Christians, of course, will be caught in the middle as usual. But no one, regardless of religion, should need to "bear false witness" (lie) about Halloween, or indeed any other religious topic, in order to make a spiritual decision for him- or herself, or their children — the only folks for whom they may have the right to make that decision.

What was Halloween in America like forty years ago? Read Phaedra Oorbeck's Halloween and Me essay on this website for some heartwarming memories.

Why Bother to save Halloween? is an essay by Richard Seltzer, which has yet more reasons why it's important to keep the custom of trick or treating alive:

Halloween is a time that reconfirms the social bond of a neighborhood (particularly the bond between strangers of different generations) by a ritual act of trade. Children go to lengths to dress up and overcome their fear of strangers in exchange for candy. And adults buy the candy and overcome their distrust of strange children in exchange for the pleasure of seeing their wild outfits and vicariously reliving their own adventures as children.

In other words, the true value and importance of Halloween comes not from parading in costumes in front of close friends and family, but from this interchange with strangers, exorcising our fears of strangers, reaffirming our social bond with the people of the neighborhood who we rarely, if ever, see the rest of the year.



Several correspondents have said, if the holiday isn't evil why are there so many evil images associated with it such as ghosts, skeletons, black cats, ugly witches, demons, monsters, and Jack O'Lanterns? The answer, of course, is that most of these images aren't evil, and the ones that are were added by people opposed to the holiday.

Ghosts have always made perfect sense, for Samhain was the festival where the Gates Between the Worlds were open wide and departed friends and family could cross over in either direction. As I mentioned earlier, people invited their ancestors to join them in celebration. The only ones who would cower in fear would be people who had wronged someone dead and who therefore feared retribution of some sort. The often repeated folk tale that the dead roamed the earth after dying until the next Samhain, when they could then pass over to the afterlife, makes no sense in either Celtic Paleopagan or Medieval Christian beliefs, so is probably fairly modern.

Samhain was the time of year when the herds were culled. That means that farmers and herders killed the old, sick or weak animals, as well as others they didn't think would make it through the winter with that year's available food. Prior to the last few centuries in the West, most people lived with death as a common part of life, especially since most of them lived on farms. Samhain became imbued with symbolism of the death of the old year and the rebirth of the new year. So skeletons and skulls joined the ghosts as symbols of the holiday. Again, there's nothing evil here, at least to the innocent in heart. Indeed, in Mexico, where the holiday is known as Los dias de los Muertos, or "Days of the Dead," (combining All Saints Day with All Souls Day) skeleton and skull toys and even candies are made and enjoyed by the millions, many by and for devout Roman Catholics.

Medieval Christians feared cats, for reasons as yet unclear, and especially feared black cats who could sneak "invisibly" around at night. It's ironic that they feared cats so much that they killed tens of thousands of them, leaving their granaries open to rats and mice, no doubt causing much food to be wasted, and leaving Europe as a whole open to the Black Plague, which was carried by the fleas on those rats and mice. Unfortunately, the millions of human deaths caused by the Black Plague were later blamed on the Gothic (Satanic) Witches the Church invented, then murdered. Cats, as "evil" animals, became associated with the "evil" witches.

Witches as figures of unalloyed evil were invented by the medieval Church. Paleopagan "witches" were usually local herbalists, midwives, healers and fortune tellers, who might sometimes be suspected of doing evil magic, but who were thought of mostly in terms of their crafts. As diviners, they may well have been consulted on the best divination night of the year, but I know of no formal association of witches with Samhain until the late Middle Ages.

As the Church tried harder and harder to make people abandon their Paleopagan customs for the new Christian ones, Samhain became a prime target. The Church began to say that demons were abroad with the dead, and that the fairy folk were all monsters who would kill the unwary. When Gothic Witchcraft was invented, the "Evil Devil-Worshipping Witch" simply became the newest monster to add to the others. The green skin was a touch the Wizard of Oz movie added to the "evil old hag" version of the Gothic Witch.

Halloween became a holiday in modern times for which half the fun was being scared out of one's wits. Modern fiction added new monsters to the American mix, including vampires (previously known mostly in Eastern Europe), werewolves, mummies (after modern Egyptology started), and various psychopathic killers and ghouls. These are not images anyone actually needs to perpetuate, but the teens certainly enjoy them.

Jack O'Lanterns, as mentioned earlier, became popular as house decorations in the USA after immigrant Irish discovered how much easier pumpkins were to carve than turnips, unleashing what has turned into quite an art form in the last decade or so. They certainly add a spooky touch, especially when the glowing faces appear from the darkness.

Most psychiatrists and psychologists seem to agree that Halloween's emphatic celebration of death serves to bring out our culture's suppressed feelings about the topic, which can be a healthy experience for both children and adults. I strongly suspect that the primary reason for American culture's aversion to thinking about death and dying is that most modern Westerners don't actually believe the mainstream monotheistic religions' doctrines on the topic, or if they do, they fear eternal punishment more than they expect an eternal reward. The Paleopagan/Neopagan views that death is a transition to a new state of being where things go on much as they have here, at least until one reincarnates, is much less frightening (at least for those having a relatively happy life now), and makes most spirits of the dead unthreatening to us.

Certainly, Halloween gives parents an opportunity to discuss their beliefs and attitudes about death with their children, one hopes with no recent close death to cloud the issues, and to soothe whatever fears their children may have.

Reporters are always asking us what we Neopagans "do" for Halloween. Well, usually we take our kids around our neighborhoods trick-or-treating, as cautiously as any other parents. Those who stay at home may hand out commercially packaged candy to those who visit our houses (we might prefer to give out homemade goodies, but paranoia has made such treats unwelcome). Over the weekend, our circles of friends will have rituals that might include "dumb suppers" (silent, saltless meals) for the Ancestors, or separate "kid circles" and costume parties for our children — and we always wind up with at least as many kids as we started out with! Most of us will do some divination, give honor to those who have died in the past year, play traditional games, and meditate on our own mortality.

In 1997 c.e., something new was added to our Neopagan Samhain traditions in the United States. Hundreds of us met in Washington, DC (as well as in other cities) wearing green clothes, bringing canned goods for the local food banks, cleaning up local parks and monuments, and just being visible as part of the American religious landscape. We brought thousands of flowers (both silk and real), to represent those Neopagans who could not join us because of travel or job scheduling difficulties, or because they rightfully fear Satanic Panicker persecution in their home towns should their names or faces become publically known as belonging to a minority belief system. The flowers were later taken to local hospitals and nursing homes.

This event, called Blessed Be and Meet Me in DC, was staged by an informal coalition of DC-area Neopagans and participated in by Neopagans at simultaneous "mirror events" in other cities. I was there, and was delighted to see, despite death threats and promises of violence from Satanic Panickers, a couple of hundred Neopagans at the Jefferson and Lincoln monuments, as well as members of other liberal and moderate religious communities, and a few representatives of the mainstream media. Unfortunately, since nobody got shot and we weren't actually doing anything lurid, we didn't get nearly the coverage we had hoped for. The event was repeated in 1999 and 2000, and the mainstream media has started to pay more attention. To find out how you can participate in future events, visit the BBMMDC Website for details, and come back often for updates! For stories of the BBMMDC 2000 celebrations, visit The Wiccan-Pagan Times website.

So what do we American Neopagans really do on Samhain? No blood drinking, no baby sacrifices, no orgies — just good, clean, all-American festivity with some thoughtful additions appropriate to the season and a few gentle political and social statements about our right to exist and our presence in the vibrant fabric of American religious pluralism. I know that disappoints the Satanic Panickers — especially the ones who run around on the 31st of October looking for Occult Crimes In Progress, or who try to crash any Neopagan rituals they can find that night. (Note for law-and-order types: it's a violation of state and federal laws to disrupt any religious ritual in progress unless there's a clear felony happening — which you won't find at our rites.)

Some of the Satanic Panickers (as well as other conservative Christians) spend Halloween engaging in what they call "spiritual warfare" against local Neopagans. While for some Christians this phrase (at least on Halloween) refers only to saying prayers for "peace, protection, safety and for God's influence," as one correspondent told me, to the Satanic Panickers, spiritual warfare means saying "imprecatory psalms" and praying for the destruction of all of us folks they think are Evil Incarnate. Oddly enough, when members of competing religions are accused of doing such things, the process is labled "casting curses" or "evil black magic" by these very same Christians!

Don't believe it? Here's a quote (minus the all-caps shouting) from an email I received in 1998 c.e.:

"…just keep your mouth shut! and don't ever try again to make those web pages! … You better erase your web pages as soon as possible otherwise you will be sick to death within two month. Two month! Remember this!"

Since I'm still alive, we know that this one illiterate "spiritual warrior" was sorely disappointed. Of course, so was the one who promised to pray me to death the year before… I get a half a dozen emails every year now, challenging me to battle them on the astral plane and promising to destroy me and all other Neopagans, Druids, Witches, etc., in the name of Jesus. Funny how there's more of us every year, despite the "spiritual warriors" and their supposedly inevitable victory over all of us Heathen.

Witches, Druids and other Neopagans are not responsible for the Satanic Panickers' bizarre fantasies of who and what they think we are. We will no longer let them get away with commiting or advocating hate crimes against us — and then whining that they're the ones being persecuted because we're allowed to exist and to celebrate our own holy days according to our own beliefs.

Other Christians may join the mother who told me, "I choose to believe the Bible principals verbatim, but I do not agree with everything my church leaders tell me as addendums. I require solid evidence." I hope this essay has provided just that kind of evidence.

For everyone else, as one Pagan couple put it a couple of years ago, "Have wonderful and thoughtful memories, and plan a fantastic and responsible future, as our year ends and the New Year starts."

Copyright © 1974, 2001 c.e., Isaac Bonewits. This text file may be freely distributed on the Net, provided that no editing is done, the version number is retained, and everything in this notice box is included. Anyone may print out up to ten copies to be given to local school boards, clergy, or law enforcement agencies as needed.

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The Origin of Christmas

The Real Story of Christmas

origin of christmas


I. When was Jesus born?

A. Popular myth puts his birth on December 25th in the year 1 C.E.


B. The New Testament gives no date or year for Jesus' birth. The earliest gospel – St. Mark's, written about 65 CE – begins with the baptism of an adult Jesus. This suggests that the earliest Christians lacked interest in or knowledge of Jesus' birthdate.

C. The year of Jesus birth was determined by Dionysius Exiguus, a Scythian monk, "abbot of a Roman monastery. His calculation went as follows:

a. In the Roman, pre-Christian era, years were counted from ab urbe condita ("the founding of the City" [Rome]). Thus 1 AUC signifies the year Rome was founded, 5 AUC signifies the 5th year of Rome's reign, etc.

b. Dionysius received a tradition that the Roman emperor Augustus reigned 43 years, and was followed by the emperor Tiberius.

c. Luke 3:1,23 indicates that when Jesus turned 30 years old, it was the 15th year of Tiberius reign.

d. If Jesus was 30 years old in Tiberius' reign, then he lived 15 years under Augustus (placing Jesus birth in Augustus' 28th year of reign).

e. Augustus took power in 727 AUC. Therefore, Dionysius put Jesus birth in 754 AUC.

f. However, Luke 1:5 places Jesus' birth in the days of Herod, and Herod died in 750 AUC – four years before the year in which Dionysius places Jesus birth.

D. Joseph A. Fitzmyer – Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies at the Catholic University of America, member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, and former president of the Catholic Biblical Association – writing in the Catholic Church's official commentary on the New Testament[1], writes about the date of Jesus' birth, "Though the year [of Jesus birth is not reckoned with certainty, the birth did not occur in AD 1. The Christian era, supposed to have its starting point in the year of Jesus birth, is based on a miscalculation introduced ca. 533 by Dionysius Exiguus."

E. The DePascha Computus, an anonymous document believed to have been written in North Africa around 243 CE, placed Jesus birth on March 28. Clement, a bishop of Alexandria (d. ca. 215 CE), thought Jesus was born on November 18. Based on historical records, Fitzmyer guesses that Jesus birth occurred on September 11, 3 BCE.



II. How Did Christmas Come to Be Celebrated on December 25?

A. Roman pagans first introduced the holiday of Saturnalia, a week long period of lawlessness celebrated between December 17-25. During this period, Roman courts were closed, and Roman law dictated that no one could be punished for damaging property or injuring people during the weeklong celebration. The festival began when Roman authorities chose "an enemy of the Roman people" to represent the "Lord of Misrule." Each Roman community selected a victim whom they forced to indulge in food and other physical pleasures throughout the week. At the festival's conclusion, December 25th, Roman authorities believed they were destroying the forces of darkness by brutally murdering this innocent man or woman.

B. The ancient Greek writer poet and historian Lucian (in his dialogue entitled Saturnalia) describes the festival's observance in his time. In addition to human sacrifice, he mentions these customs: widespread intoxication; going from house to house while singing naked; rape and other sexual license; and consuming human-shaped biscuits (still produced in some English and most German bakeries during the Christmas season).

C. In the 4th century CE, Christianity imported the Saturnalia festival hoping to take the pagan masses in with it. Christian leaders succeeded in converting to Christianity large numbers of pagans by promising them that they could continue to celebrate the Saturnalia as Christians.[2]

D. The problem was that there was nothing intrinsically Christian about Saturnalia. To remedy this, these Christian leaders named Saturnalia's concluding day, December 25th, to be Jesus' birthday.

E. Christians had little success, however, refining the practices of Saturnalia. As Stephen Nissenbaum, professor history at the University of Massachussetts, Amherst, writes, "In return for ensuring massive observance of the anniversary of the Savior's birth by assigning it to this resonant date, the Church for its part tacitly agreed to allow the holiday to be celebrated more or less the way it had always been." The earliest Christmas holidays were celebrated by drinking, sexual indulgence, singing naked in the streets (a precursor of modern caroling), etc.

F. The Reverend Increase Mather of Boston observed in 1687 that "the early Christians who first observed the Nativity on December 25 did not do so thinking that Christ was born in that Month, but because the Heathens' Saturnalia was at that time kept in Rome, and they were willing to have those Pagan Holidays metamorphosed into Christian ones."[3] Because of its known pagan origin, Christmas was banned by the Puritans and its observance was illegal in Massachusetts between 1659 and 1681.[4] However, Christmas was and still is celebrated by most Christians.

G. Some of the most depraved customs of the Saturnalia carnival were intentionally revived by the Catholic Church in 1466 when Pope Paul II, for the amusement of his Roman citizens, forced Jews to race naked through the streets of the city. An eyewitness account reports, "Before they were to run, the Jews were richly fed, so as to make the race more difficult for them and at the same time more amusing for spectators. They ran… amid Rome's taunting shrieks and peals of laughter, while the Holy Father stood upon a richly ornamented balcony and laughed heartily."[5]

H. As part of the Saturnalia carnival throughout the 18th and 19th centuries CE, rabbis of the ghetto in Rome were forced to wear clownish outfits and march through the city streets to the jeers of the crowd, pelted by a variety of missiles. When the Jewish community of Rome sent a petition in1836 to Pope Gregory XVI begging him to stop the annual Saturnalia abuse of the Jewish community, he responded, "It is not opportune to make any innovation."[6] On December 25, 1881, Christian leaders whipped the Polish masses into Antisemitic frenzies that led to riots across the country. In Warsaw 12 Jews were brutally murdered, huge numbers maimed, and many Jewish women were raped. Two million rubles worth of property was destroyed.



III. The Origins of Christmas Customs

A. Christmas Trees
Just as early Christians recruited Roman pagans by associating Christmas with the Saturnalia, so too worshippers of the Asheira cult and its offshoots were recruited by the Church sanctioning "Christmas Trees".[7] Pagans had long worshipped trees in the forest, or brought them into their homes and decorated them, and this observance was adopted and painted with a Christian veneer by the Church.

B. Mistletoe
Norse mythology recounts how the god Balder was killed using a mistletoe arrow by his rival god Hoder while fighting for the female Nanna. Druid rituals use mistletoe to poison their human sacrificial victim.[8] The Christian custom of "kissing under the mistletoe" is a later synthesis of the sexual license of Saturnalia with the Druidic sacrificial cult.[9]

C. Christmas Presents
In pre-Christian Rome, the emperors compelled their most despised citizens to bring offerings and gifts during the Saturnalia (in December) and Kalends (in January). Later, this ritual expanded to include gift-giving among the general populace. The Catholic Church gave this custom a Christian flavor by re-rooting it in the supposed gift-giving of Saint Nicholas (see below).[10]

D. Santa Claus

a. Nicholas was born in Parara, Turkey in 270 CE and later became Bishop of Myra. He died in 345 CE on December 6th. He was only named a saint in the 19th century.

b. Nicholas was among the most senior bishops who convened the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE and created the New Testament. The text they produced portrayed Jews as "the children of the devil"[11] who sentenced Jesus to death.

c. In 1087, a group of sailors who idolized Nicholas moved his bones from Turkey to a sanctuary in Bari, Italy. There Nicholas supplanted a female boon-giving deity called The Grandmother, or Pasqua Epiphania, who used to fill the children's stockings with her gifts. The Grandmother was ousted from her shrine at Bari, which became the center of the Nicholas cult. Members of this group gave each other gifts during a pageant they conducted annually on the anniversary of Nicholas' death, December 6.

d. The Nicholas cult spread north until it was adopted by German and Celtic pagans. These groups worshipped a pantheon led by Woden –their chief god and the father of Thor, Balder, and Tiw. Woden had a long, white beard and rode a horse through the heavens one evening each Autumn. When Nicholas merged with Woden, he shed his Mediterranean appearance, grew a beard, mounted a flying horse, rescheduled his flight for December, and donned heavy winter clothing.

e. In a bid for pagan adherents in Northern Europe, the Catholic Church adopted the Nicholas cult and taught that he did (and they should) distribute gifts on December 25th instead of December 6th.

f. In 1809, the novelist Washington Irving (most famous his The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle) wrote a satire of Dutch culture entitled Knickerbocker History. The satire refers several times to the white bearded, flying-horse riding Saint Nicholas using his Dutch name, Santa Claus.

g. Dr. Clement Moore, a professor at Union Seminary, read Knickerbocker History, and in 1822 he published a poem based on the character Santa Claus: "Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in the hope that Saint Nicholas soon would be there…" Moore innovated by portraying a Santa with eight reindeer who descended through chimneys.

h. The Bavarian illustrator Thomas Nast almost completed the modern picture of Santa Claus. From 1862 through 1886, based on Moore's poem, Nast drew more than 2,200 cartoon images of Santa for Harper's Weekly. Before Nast, Saint Nicholas had been pictured as everything from a stern looking bishop to a gnome-like figure in a frock. Nast also gave Santa a home at the North Pole, his workshop filled with elves, and his list of the good and bad children of the world. All Santa was missing was his red outfit.

i. In 1931, the Coca Cola Corporation contracted the Swedish commercial artist Haddon Sundblom to create a coke-drinking Santa. Sundblom modeled his Santa on his friend Lou Prentice, chosen for his cheerful, chubby face. The corporation insisted that Santa's fur-trimmed suit be bright, Coca Cola red. And Santa was born – a blend of Christian crusader, pagan god, and commercial idol.



IV. The Christmas Challenge

· Christmas has always been a holiday celebrated carelessly. For millennia, pagans, Christians, and even Jews have been swept away in the season's festivities, and very few people ever pause to consider the celebration's intrinsic meaning, history, or origins.

· Christmas celebrates the birth of the Christian god who came to rescue mankind from the "curse of the Torah." It is a 24-hour declaration that Judaism is no longer valid.

· Christmas is a lie. There is no Christian church with a tradition that Jesus was really born on December 25th.

· December 25 is a day on which Jews have been shamed, tortured, and murdered.

· Many of the most popular Christmas customs – including Christmas trees, mistletoe, Christmas presents, and Santa Claus – are modern incarnations of the most depraved pagan rituals ever practiced on earth.



Many who are excitedly preparing for their Christmas celebrations would prefer not knowing about the holiday's real significance. If they do know the history, they often object that their celebration has nothing to do with the holiday's monstrous history and meaning. "We are just having fun."

Imagine that between 1933-45, the Nazi regime celebrated Adolf Hitler's birthday – April 20 – as a holiday. Imagine that they named the day, "Hitlerday," and observed the day with feasting, drunkenness, gift-giving, and various pagan practices. Imagine that on that day, Jews were historically subject to perverse tortures and abuse, and that this continued for centuries.

Now, imagine that your great-great-great-grandchildren were about to celebrate Hitlerday. April 20th arrived. They had long forgotten about Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen. They had never heard of gas chambers or death marches. They had purchased champagne and caviar, and were about to begin the party, when someone reminded them of the day's real history and their ancestors' agony. Imagine that they initially objected, "We aren't celebrating the Holocaust; we're just having a little Hitlerday party." If you could travel forward in time and meet them; if you could say a few words to them, what would you advise them to do on Hitlerday?

On December 25, 1941, Julius Streicher, one of the most vicious of Hitler's assistants, celebrated Christmas by penning the following editorial in his rabidly Antisemitic newspaper, Der Stuermer:

If one really wants to put an end to the continued prospering of this curse from heaven that is the Jewish blood, there is only one way to do it: to eradicate this people, this Satan's son, root and branch.

well people you really need to know the history on things you so call celebrate
before you celebrate them...this has nothing to do with Jesus and his birthday
so i hope someone got some understanding.

and if you still wont to celebrate this pagan festival..then the Lord will Judge you on it
when he makes his second Coming!!

here's a lil food for thought?

Jeremiah 10:1
1- Hear ye the word which the Lord Speaketh unto you,O house of Israel:

2- Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the Heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of Heaven:for the Heathen are dismayed at them.

3-For the customs of the people are vain:for one cutteth a tree out of
the forest,the work of the hands of the workman, with the ax.

4-they deck it with silver and with Gold:they fasten it with nails and with hammers,
that it move not.

5-they are upright as the palm tree, but speak not:the must needs be brone,becuase
they cannot go.Be not afraid of them: for they cannot do evil, neither aslo is it in
them to do good.

skip to verse 8

But they are altogether brutish and foolish: the stock is a Doctrine of Vanities.

skip to verse 21....for the pastors are become brutish, and have not sougt the Lord:
therefore they shall not prosper, and all their flocks shall be scattered.


this is in the bible people..you need to know this? please read your bibles.

thank you

Christmas Is Not Of The True And Living Jesus
Current mood: rejuvenated

christmas
.

writing.com - december really 25th means what?

december 21st ancient greeks celebrated bacchanalia
bacchus - god of wine
december 17th-24th ancient romans celebrated saturnalia
saturn - god of time

both festivals were known for their riots and orgies
winter solstice festivals - celebrate the return of the sun; shortest amount of daylight of the year

under the julian calendar (46ce) winter solstice was december 25th

1st century christians kept the custom of the feasts of the lord (lev. 23)
christmas was established in connection with the fading expectation of jesus' return

mithra, persian god of light and contracts, was born from a rock [or egg] on december 25th

emperor aurelian established dies invicti solis, also mithraism as rome official religion

other pagan cultures facing early christianity/christmas syncretism
norse - yule feast lastnig 12 days - logfires, holy places decorated with holly, ivy, bay
celts - temples decorated with mistletoe
germans - oak tree of odin (in the 8th century st boniface persuaded them to exchange it for a christmas tree

christmas gift-giving is reminiscent of presents exchanged in rome during saturnalia (wax tapers & dolls, remnants of earlier human sacrifice to saturn)

as early as 245ce origen was proclaiming it heathenish to celebrate jesus' birthday
on june 3, 1647 parliament established punishments for observing christmas
christmas was banned by puritans in new england; cotton mather - "affront to the face of god"

deut 12:29-32 "whatever i command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it"


|~
catholic encyclopedia - christmas

not among the earliest celebrations of the church
origen wrote that "sinners alone, not saints, celebrate their birthday"

first evidence of the feast is from egypt, roughly 200ce
placed on 25 pachon (may 20th), others placed it on 24 or 25 pharmuthi (april 19th or 20th)
no month in the year thathas not been assigned jesus' birth
basilidians celebrated the epiphany and nativity together on 11 or 15 tybi (january 6th or 10th)
this double commemoration became popular
december christmas reached egypt between 427 and 433

cyprus, mesopotamia, armenia, asia minor
end of 4th century epiphanius asserts that jesus was born on jan 6th and baptized on nov 8th
armenia ignores the december festival
cappadocia, gregory of nyssa's sermons show that the dec 25th date was celebrated by 380

jerusalem
cyril of jerusalem (348-386) asks julius to assign a date to the nativity, based on census documents brought by titus to rome - julius assigns december 25th
in the middle of the 6th century, jerusalem was unusual in combining the 2 celebrations. argued from luke 3:23 that jesus' baptism day was the aniversary of his birthday

antioch
386 chrysostom unites antioch in celebrating dec 25th

constantinople - 379 or 380 gregory nazianzen made himself exarchos of the new feast. after his exile in 381 the feast disappeared.
thought to have been reintroduced by chrysostom between 398 and 402

rome
earliest evidence is from the philocalian calendar, compiled in 354
december 25th is marked natalis invicti

from the 4th century forward, every western calendar assigns christmas to dec 25th

origin of date
gospels offer no help
census would have been impossible in winter, but winter it must have been; only then was field labor suspended
"natalis invicti, celebrated on 25 december, has a strong claim on the responsibility of our december date."
this feast reached its climax under aurelian in 274

in england, christmas was forbidden by an act pf parliament in 1644


|~
kate prendergast - chronos, saturn, mithra: archaeology and the pagan origins of christmas (science and spirit article)

cult of mithra spread rapidly across the roman empire in the 1st and 2nd centuries
reproduced the logic of other greco-roman seasonal rites: kronia, saturnalia
saturnalia began on dec 17th, lasting for 1 week - most popular festival of the year
-role reversal, gift giving, eating, drinking, game-playing
kalends - new years festival which complemented saturnalia

mithra - indo-iranian god of light (the sun) from as early as the 2nd century bce
a bull-slayer and savior
3 central motifs depicting mithra's life cycle:
1. birth from a cosmic egg (winter solstice)
2. mithra slaying the bull (vernal equinox)
3. mithra's meal with sol
all are primarily seasonal and astrological

difference between mithraic cult and deus sol invictus cult
mithraic was associated with the roman army
sol invictus cult was the imperial roman religion

deus sol invictus cult imported to rome in 219ce
by 274 was the dominant religion of the state, sponsored by emperor aurelian
continued to flourish under constantine until his conversion
constantine's reign was spoken of as a sun emperorship
heart of the cult centered on the celebration of dies natalis invicti on dec 25th

by the 4th century it was universally established in the east that jesus' birth was jan 6th
the west never recognized the 6th and synchronized the christian festival with existing western traditions
in the 350s constantine established jesus' birth as falling on dec 25th
thus he incorporated saturnalia, the solstice, and mithra's birthday into christianity

christmas echoed mithraism by having a savior figure born on the solstice and enacting the sacrifice and salvation on the spring equinox


|~
ralph monday - christ, constantine, sol invictus: the unconquerable sun

shamash - sun god of babylonia and assyria. did daily battle with the forces of darkness until reemerging, reborn, at dawn

religious dualism and dogmatic moral teaching of mithraism set it apart from other roman cults
stirking parallels to christianity in mithraism:
born of a virgin birth
12 followers
killed and resurrected
performed miracles
known as mankind's savior
born on december 25
shepherds attended birth

mithra
born to anahita, previously a fertility goddess
born in a cave or grotto
born from a rock [or egg], often depicted surrounded by a coiled serpent
holds a statue and a torch

upon becoming the imperial religion, mithra became sol invictus (the invincible sun)

constantine
in 312 while preparing for battle maxentius, had a vision of the cross above the sun, and the words "in hoc signo vinces" - "by this sign, conquer." he instructed the army to paint their shields with this sign to carry into battle. he won, converted to christianity.
instantly an underground mystery cult, in danger of dying out, became the pinnacle of the world's greatest nation
constantine interpreted jesus as a war god, and quite possibly never understood the mysteries of christianity. he continued to worship sun gods.
the triumphal arch of constantine (315) depicts jupiter, mars, hercules, mithras, and suns, but no christian symbols
evidence suggests that constantine viewed jesus as one of many gods in a crowded pantheon
2 important contributions of constantine's reign are the establishment of christmas and easter, both of which are seasonal (winter solstice and vernal equinox)

before the establishment of the gregorian calendar, december 25th was the solstice

christmas was the most variable of the feasts, often confused with the epiphany
pope julius i, in the 4th century, commanded a committee of bishops to establish the date of the nativity
they chose the 25th, the day when the pagan world celebrated the birth of their sun gods
egypt - osiris
greek - apollo and bacchus
chaldean - adonis
persian - mithra
when the constellation virgo rose above the horizon (the sun is born of a virgin)

archetypal goddess - earth, nature, matter, darkness
archetypal god - domains of spirit and light

"all imagery involving light or illumination pertains to the masculine principle as opposed to the dark earthiness of the great mother" - edward edinger

archetypal halo symbolizes the sun


|~
mario seiglie - christmas reconsidered

not a single example in the nt of a a new religious feast day being established in jesus' honor

"whatever i command you, be careful to observe itl you shall not add to it nor take away from it" - deut 12:30-32

mithra - persian god of light and sacred contracts

aurelian established dies invicti solis, day of the invincible sun on dec 25
constantine adhered to mithraism until the time of his conversion. was probably instrumental in carrying over this major feast to his new religion

in egypt jan 6th was the birthday of osiris
in rome dec 25th was sol invictus and mithra's birthday

"in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. for laying aside the commandment of god, you hold the tradition of men... all too well you reject the commandment of god, that you may keep your tradition." - mark 7:7-9

jesus did not consider his birthday of importance, instead instructing his followers to keep the passover feast

leviticus 23


|~
wikipedia - sol invictus

sol invictus - undefeated sun
deus sol invictus - undefeated sun god
-term applied to 3 distinct deities: mithra, al gabal, and sol
dies natalis solis invicti - festival of the birth of the unconquered sun

elegabalus attempted to impose worship of el gabal (sun god of emesa, syria)
aurelian introduced official cult of sol invictus; possibly created dies natalis solis invicti
- earliest recorded reference to festival date of dec 25th is on 354ce

religion of sol invictus continued until abolition by theodosius i in 390


|~
wikipedia - mithra

mitra - proto-iranian word possibly meaning "covenant, contract, oath, or treaty" and alternately "friend"
more general meaning of "alliance"

in zoroastrianism mithra is a member of the ahuric triad, protectors of asha (truth)

in persian culture he is the progeny of anahita
temple dedicated to "anahita, the immaculate virgin mother of lord mithras" c.200bce

modern shab-e yalda is a remnant of ancient winter solstice festivals
yalda literally means birth of the sun


|~
wikipedia - mithras

mithraism - hellenistic mystery religion developed in the mediterranean in 2nd and 1st centuries bce
practiced in the roman empire from 1st century bce to the 5ht century ce

mithras - greek masculine form of mithra


|~
mystic rose - are christmas and easter pagan?

dies natalis solis invicti - nativity of the invincible sun

aurelian declared mithra/sol invictus as patron of the roman empire in 274ce

western christians were celebrating christmas on dec 25 in the late 3rd century, before sol invictus festival was widely celebrated

early christians believed that jesus was crucified on march 25 (julian calendar), celebrated that day as the feast of the annunciation; 9 months later is dec 25
eastern christians chose jan 6
christmas
.

writing.com - december really 25th means what?

december 21st ancient greeks celebrated bacchanalia
bacchus - god of wine
december 17th-24th ancient romans celebrated saturnalia
saturn - god of time

both festivals were known for their riots and orgies
winter solstice festivals - celebrate the return of the sun; shortest amount of daylight of the year

under the julian calendar (46ce) winter solstice was december 25th

1st century christians kept the custom of the feasts of the lord (lev. 23)
christmas was established in connection with the fading expectation of jesus' return

mithra, persian god of light and contracts, was born from a rock [or egg] on december 25th

emperor aurelian established dies invicti solis, also mithraism as rome official religion

other pagan cultures facing early christianity/christmas syncretism
norse - yule feast lastnig 12 days - logfires, holy places decorated with holly, ivy, bay
celts - temples decorated with mistletoe
germans - oak tree of odin (in the 8th century st boniface persuaded them to exchange it for a christmas tree

christmas gift-giving is reminiscent of presents exchanged in rome during saturnalia (wax tapers & dolls, remnants of earlier human sacrifice to saturn)

as early as 245ce origen was proclaiming it heathenish to celebrate jesus' birthday
on june 3, 1647 parliament established punishments for observing christmas
christmas was banned by puritans in new england; cotton mather - "affront to the face of god"

deut 12:29-32 "whatever i command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it"


|~
catholic encyclopedia - christmas

not among the earliest celebrations of the church
origen wrote that "sinners alone, not saints, celebrate their birthday"

first evidence of the feast is from egypt, roughly 200ce
placed on 25 pachon (may 20th), others placed it on 24 or 25 pharmuthi (april 19th or 20th)
no month in the year thathas not been assigned jesus' birth
basilidians celebrated the epiphany and nativity together on 11 or 15 tybi (january 6th or 10th)
this double commemoration became popular
december christmas reached egypt between 427 and 433

cyprus, mesopotamia, armenia, asia minor
end of 4th century epiphanius asserts that jesus was born on jan 6th and baptized on nov 8th
armenia ignores the december festival
cappadocia, gregory of nyssa's sermons show that the dec 25th date was celebrated by 380

jerusalem
cyril of jerusalem (348-386) asks julius to assign a date to the nativity, based on census documents brought by titus to rome - julius assigns december 25th
in the middle of the 6th century, jerusalem was unusual in combining the 2 celebrations. argued from luke 3:23 that jesus' baptism day was the aniversary of his birthday

antioch
386 chrysostom unites antioch in celebrating dec 25th

constantinople - 379 or 380 gregory nazianzen made himself exarchos of the new feast. after his exile in 381 the feast disappeared.
thought to have been reintroduced by chrysostom between 398 and 402

rome
earliest evidence is from the philocalian calendar, compiled in 354
december 25th is marked natalis invicti

from the 4th century forward, every western calendar assigns christmas to dec 25th

origin of date
gospels offer no help
census would have been impossible in winter, but winter it must have been; only then was field labor suspended
"natalis invicti, celebrated on 25 december, has a strong claim on the responsibility of our december date."
this feast reached its climax under aurelian in 274

in england, christmas was forbidden by an act pf parliament in 1644


|~
kate prendergast - chronos, saturn, mithra: archaeology and the pagan origins of christmas (science and spirit article)

cult of mithra spread rapidly across the roman empire in the 1st and 2nd centuries
reproduced the logic of other greco-roman seasonal rites: kronia, saturnalia
saturnalia began on dec 17th, lasting for 1 week - most popular festival of the year
-role reversal, gift giving, eating, drinking, game-playing
kalends - new years festival which complemented saturnalia

mithra - indo-iranian god of light (the sun) from as early as the 2nd century bce
a bull-slayer and savior
3 central motifs depicting mithra's life cycle:
1. birth from a cosmic egg (winter solstice)
2. mithra slaying the bull (vernal equinox)
3. mithra's meal with sol
all are primarily seasonal and astrological

difference between mithraic cult and deus sol invictus cult
mithraic was associated with the roman army
sol invictus cult was the imperial roman religion

deus sol invictus cult imported to rome in 219ce
by 274 was the dominant religion of the state, sponsored by emperor aurelian
continued to flourish under constantine until his conversion
constantine's reign was spoken of as a sun emperorship
heart of the cult centered on the celebration of dies natalis invicti on dec 25th

by the 4th century it was universally established in the east that jesus' birth was jan 6th
the west never recognized the 6th and synchronized the christian festival with existing western traditions
in the 350s constantine established jesus' birth as falling on dec 25th
thus he incorporated saturnalia, the solstice, and mithra's birthday into christianity

christmas echoed mithraism by having a savior figure born on the solstice and enacting the sacrifice and salvation on the spring equinox


|~
ralph monday - christ, constantine, sol invictus: the unconquerable sun

shamash - sun god of babylonia and assyria. did daily battle with the forces of darkness until reemerging, reborn, at dawn

religious dualism and dogmatic moral teaching of mithraism set it apart from other roman cults
stirking parallels to christianity in mithraism:
born of a virgin birth
12 followers
killed and resurrected
performed miracles
known as mankind's savior
born on december 25
shepherds attended birth

mithra
born to anahita, previously a fertility goddess
born in a cave or grotto
born from a rock [or egg], often depicted surrounded by a coiled serpent
holds a statue and a torch

upon becoming the imperial religion, mithra became sol invictus (the invincible sun)

constantine
in 312 while preparing for battle maxentius, had a vision of the cross above the sun, and the words "in hoc signo vinces" - "by this sign, conquer." he instructed the army to paint their shields with this sign to carry into battle. he won, converted to christianity.
instantly an underground mystery cult, in danger of dying out, became the pinnacle of the world's greatest nation
constantine interpreted jesus as a war god, and quite possibly never understood the mysteries of christianity. he continued to worship sun gods.
the triumphal arch of constantine (315) depicts jupiter, mars, hercules, mithras, and suns, but no christian symbols
evidence suggests that constantine viewed jesus as one of many gods in a crowded pantheon
2 important contributions of constantine's reign are the establishment of christmas and easter, both of which are seasonal (winter solstice and vernal equinox)

before the establishment of the gregorian calendar, december 25th was the solstice

christmas was the most variable of the feasts, often confused with the epiphany
pope julius i, in the 4th century, commanded a committee of bishops to establish the date of the nativity
they chose the 25th, the day when the pagan world celebrated the birth of their sun gods
egypt - osiris
greek - apollo and bacchus
chaldean - adonis
persian - mithra
when the constellation virgo rose above the horizon (the sun is born of a virgin)

archetypal goddess - earth, nature, matter, darkness
archetypal god - domains of spirit and light

"all imagery involving light or illumination pertains to the masculine principle as opposed to the dark earthiness of the great mother" - edward edinger

archetypal halo symbolizes the sun


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mario seiglie - christmas reconsidered

not a single example in the nt of a a new religious feast day being established in jesus' honor

"whatever i command you, be careful to observe itl you shall not add to it nor take away from it" - deut 12:30-32

mithra - persian god of light and sacred contracts

aurelian established dies invicti solis, day of the invincible sun on dec 25
constantine adhered to mithraism until the time of his conversion. was probably instrumental in carrying over this major feast to his new religion

in egypt jan 6th was the birthday of osiris
in rome dec 25th was sol invictus and mithra's birthday

"in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. for laying aside the commandment of god, you hold the tradition of men... all too well you reject the commandment of god, that you may keep your tradition." - mark 7:7-9

jesus did not consider his birthday of importance, instead instructing his followers to keep the passover feast

leviticus 23


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wikipedia - sol invictus

sol invictus - undefeated sun
deus sol invictus - undefeated sun god
-term applied to 3 distinct deities: mithra, al gabal, and sol
dies natalis solis invicti - festival of the birth of the unconquered sun

elegabalus attempted to impose worship of el gabal (sun god of emesa, syria)
aurelian introduced official cult of sol invictus; possibly created dies natalis solis invicti
- earliest recorded reference to festival date of dec 25th is on 354ce

religion of sol invictus continued until abolition by theodosius i in 390


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wikipedia - mithra

mitra - proto-iranian word possibly meaning "covenant, contract, oath, or treaty" and alternately "friend"
more general meaning of "alliance"

in zoroastrianism mithra is a member of the ahuric triad, protectors of asha (truth)

in persian culture he is the progeny of anahita
temple dedicated to "anahita, the immaculate virgin mother of lord mithras" c.200bce

modern shab-e yalda is a remnant of ancient winter solstice festivals
yalda literally means birth of the sun


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wikipedia - mithras

mithraism - hellenistic mystery religion developed in the mediterranean in 2nd and 1st centuries bce
practiced in the roman empire from 1st century bce to the 5ht century ce

mithras - greek masculine form of mithra


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mystic rose - are christmas and easter pagan?

dies natalis solis invicti - nativity of the invincible sun

aurelian declared mithra/sol invictus as patron of the roman empire in 274ce

western christians were celebrating christmas on dec 25 in the late 3rd century, before sol invictus festival was widely celebrated

early christians believed that jesus was crucified on march 25 (julian calendar), celebrated that day as the feast of the annunciation; 9 months later is dec 25
eastern christians chose jan 6

Please people do not send me a friendly christmas card..or post about it.
if you send it to me i will deny the post

i dont celebrate christmas cause its a pagan hoilday...read the post
and the history on where it came from and why people celebrate this pagan festival.

thank you

I. HOLIDAYS AND SUN-WORSHIP

Among all peoples of the world, the most common times for celebration are the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. Considering that the austerity and bleakness of Winter (in contrast to the relative abundance and warmth of Summer) would be so impactful upon the lives of primitive peoples living in temperate climates these festival times -- and even Sun-worship -- should come as no surprise. Stonehenge and hundreds of other megalithic structures throughout the world were constructed to receive a shaft of sunlight in their central chamber at solstice dawn.

December feasts were common in Europe because it was necessary to slaughter cattle that could not be fed during the winter and because the meat could be preserved by the cold weather. With the completion of the harvest and snow on the ground, farmers were loaded with provisions. There was not much work that could be done, so there was time to relax, to feast, to celebrate and to engage in social activities.

The word Yule may come from the Anglo-Saxon word geol (feast), applied to December (geola, feast month). Or it may come from a Norse-Saxon word meaning wheel, referring to the seasonal cycles of the sun. Or it could have come from the Scandinavian Jule (Jul), who was the god of sex and fertility. ("Tide" as in "yuletide" may have come from an Old English word meaning time, occasion or season.)

Midwinter sun festivals were celebrated in ancient Britain & Scandinavia. In Germanic & Scandinavian countries a huge log was carried into the house to serve as the foundation for holiday fires. The Yule log at Jultid (Yuletide) would burn for twelve days, and a different sacrifice would be made on each of the twelve days. Lighted candles and winter fires were used by sun-worshippers to encourage the rebirth of the Sun. Similarly tying fruit to the branches of trees was intended to encourage the coming of Spring.

During the midwinter festival Makar Sankranti, Hindus bathe in rivers such as the Ganges (Ganga) and offer water to the Sun god. Makar (Makara) means Capricorn and Sankranti means transition, so the festival celebrates the transition of the Sun from Sagittarius to Capricorn, and the ascendency of the Sun god into the Northern Hemisphere. It is the Sun god who transcends time and who rotates the Wheel of Time. Hindus believe that bathing in the Ganges can result in forgiveness of sins and help in the attainment of salvation.

In the Northern Hemisphere, the Winter Solstice occurs around December 21st, when the Sun is at its greatest distance below the celestial equator. The Spring Equinox occurs around March 21st when the sun crosses the celestial equator and days have the same duration as nights ("equinox" comes from a Latin word meaning "time of equal days and nights"). The Spring Equinox marks the beginning of Spring, and for the ancient Mesopotamians was the beginning of their new year festival. The constellation (Zodiac sign) visible at dawn on the day of the Spring Equinox has been regarded as of special significance (currently changing from Pisces to Aquarius due to the 26,000 year precession of the Earth -- the advent of "the Age of Aquarius").

The ancient Egyptians celebrated the passion (suffering before fatal dismemberment) of the god Osiris, and celebrated his resurrection in the Spring, coinciding with the flooding of the Nile (and rebirth of vegetation). The Greek god Dionysus was also a god of fertility whose resurrection was celebrated in the Spring. In the ancient Mediterranean Osiris-Dionysus mystery religions celebrated life, death and rebirth through secret rites involving sacramental wine.

The chief holiday for the ancient Hebrews was celebrated at the first full moon after the Spring Equinox. Although this holiday was originally a celebration of Spring, it was later celebrated in remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt and was called Passover. The holiday entered Christian celebration by the fact that Christ was reputedly arrested and crucified at Passover. Because Christians insisted that Easter should be celebrated on a Sunday, the Council of Nicea decreed that Easter be the first Sunday after the fourteenth day of the moon (which is approximately the full moon) following the date of the Spring Equinox (which is assumed to be March 21st). In the first centuries of Christianity Easter was by far the most significant Christian holiday (holy day) and Christmas was not a holiday at all.

The word for "Easter" in most of the Romance Languages is a variant of the Hebrew "Passover", but the English word is unrelated to these forms. Possibly, the English word "Easter" is derived from the name of an Anglo-Saxon goddess of Spring, "Eostre". Or it may have come from "Ishtar/Astarte" the Babylonian/Chaldean Venus who was the consort of the sun-god. Or it may have come from the same root as "east", associating the source of the rising sun with the resurrection ("rising") of Christ. Sunrise service, painted eggs and rabbits have all symbolized rebirth and fertility in Spring celebrations from ancient times. Celebration of motherhood (mother's day) is also most often in the Spring, another possible association with fertility.

The Summer Solstice was widely celebrated with late June "midsummer festivals" throughout ancient (pagan) Europe. The celebration of the Nativity of John the Baptist at that time is believed by some scholars to be another example of attempts by the Catholic Church to assimilate pagan holidays for the purpose of converting pagans to Christianity during the first millenium A.D.

The Autumn Equinox occurs around the 23rd of September, but it is over a month later that the impact of falling leaves and dying vegetation is most noticeable. Ancient Aztec autumn celebrations of the memory of their deceased ancestors resembles European pagans honoring the souls of the dead and their ghosts at the end of October. The Roman Catholic Church may have assimilated pagan traditions by declaring November 1st to be All Saints' Day (revering saints & martyrs) and November 2nd to be All Souls' Day (revering all faithful deceased). Halloween is believed to have originated from the Celtic belief that the spirit world is closest to the world of the living on October 31st. The Armistice that ended the first World War was signed on November 11th, giving rise to another occasion to honor the dead in mid-Autumn.

Possibly because desert nomads preferred to travel by night rather than under the oppressive fiery Sun, the primary god of the ancient Arabians was the moon god Hubal. Mount Sinai was reputedly named after the semitic lunar deity Sin. The crescent associated with Islam originated from Artemis (Diana), who displaced Selene as the goddess of the moon, and who was the patron goddess of the city which became Constantinople. Emperor Constantine added the star symbol (representing the Virgin Mary). The Ottoman Turks later spread the star and crescent symbol of Constantinople over the Islamic world.

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II. DIVINITY AND VIRGIN BIRTH

Claims of divinity were commonly associated with virgin birth in the ancient world. The Hindu god Krishna, the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, Gautama Buddha and Zoroaster were reputedly the product of virgin births. Alexander the Great, Constantine and Nero claimed to have virgin births. Admirers of Plato, Socrates, Aristotle and Pythagoras claimed virgin births for these sages. In the ancient world virgin birth was a sign of distinction.

In ancient Egypt, Osiris and his wife Isis were reputed to have been divine secular rulers of Egypt until Osiris was murdered by his jealous brother Seth. Seth cut the body of Osiris into 14 pieces and strew them about the land. Isis gathered up the pieces -- with the exception of the genitals, which had been eaten by a fish -- and restored Osiris to life. Osiris then dwelled in the underworld as the king & judge of the dead. Isis nonetheless gave birth to the divine child "Horus the younger" (presumably a virgin birth). In fourth-century Alexandria, "Madonna" could have been a reference to the mother goddess Isis or Saint Mary. The last Egyptian Temple of Isis was converted to a Christian Church in the sixth century AD.

Some claim that the Old Testament prophecy in Isaiah 7:14 that "the Lord himself shall give you a sign: Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son" is a Greek mistranslation -- that the original Hebrew reads "young woman"(alma), not "virgin"(bethulah). Mark 6:3 and Matthew 13:55-56 refer to the brothers & sisters of Jesus, which some find difficult to reconcile with the idea that Mary remained a virgin. Either they were not the literal siblings of Christ or the commandment to "be fruitful and multiply" implies that procreation is not sinful. Luke 1:36 can be interpreted to imply that Mary's cousin Elizabeth also had a virgin birth.

In the first chapter of Matthew and in the third chapter of Luke there are lengthy genealogies of Christ, possibly to show that Jesus fulfilled the prophecy of being descended from David. The genealogies differ, even concerning the ancestors of David. Luke calls Jesus the son of Joseph. According to Matthew, Joseph is the husband of Mary, rather than the father of Jesus. Insofar as both writers declare a virgin birth, the ancestry of Jesus based on the ancestors of Joseph can only be symbolic.

Mary is described in the Gospels in connection with the Nativity or as the mother of Christ, and is mentioned only in passing in the Gospel of Mark, the oldest of the gospels. The rise of the prominence of Mary after the first centuries of Christianity may have contributed to the acceptance of the observance of Christ's birthday. The mother of Constantine, who searched for religious relics in the Holy Land, promoted the importance of Mary and the Nativity. The Council of Ephesus was called in 431 A.D. to resolve the dissention caused by the Patriarch Nestorius, who said that Mary had given birth to the human part of Jesus rather than the divine part. Nestorius called Mary the "Mother of Christ". The Council declared Mary to be "Mother of God" and Nestorius was exiled. Notably, Ephesus was the location of one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: the Temple of Artemis -- the site of the cult of goddess-worship honoring the Greek virgin goddess Artemis (Diana to the Romans) who was the protector of both chastity and childbirth. In Rome the Vestal Virgins served the virgin goddess Vesta.

By the 8th century European churches were celebrating March 25th as the Annunciation, the date when the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would conceive a child by the Holy Spirit. Sainthood originally was only conferred upon martyrs who had died for Christ, but early in the second millennium the Blessed Virgin Mary became the chief saint of the Roman Catholic Church. (Canonization was not formalized in the Catholic Church until the end of the first millennium.) The Immaculate Conception does not refer to the virgin birth of Christ, but is a Catholic doctrine published in 1854 by Pope Pius IX that the Virgin Mary was born immune from original sin and remained free from sin her entire life. The Immaculate Conception, December 8th, is a Holy Day of Obligation in which Roman Catholics are required to attend mass. In 1950 the Pope made an infallible declaration affirming the Assumption of Mary: that the body of Mary went directly to Heaven upon her earthly death. The Branch Davidian Seventh Day Adventists elevate Mary to an even higher position by identifying her with the Holy Ghost (Holy Spirit), making her the feminine principle of the Holy Trinity. But according to Matthew 1:20 Mary had been impregnated by the Holy Ghost.

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III. THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM AND THE WISE MEN

The birth of Christ is described in only two of the four gospels: Matthew and Luke, which were written independently not long after the year 60 A.D. Both Matthew and Luke evidently borrowed from the writings of Mark, but had no knowledge of each other. The common features of the two accounts of the birth of Jesus are the location in Bethlehem, the father named Joseph and the virginity of Mary. Both of the evangelists probably wrote in Greek. The birth of a Godly Father who would be the Prince of Peace was prophesized by the Old Testament (Isaiah 9:6). The birth of Christ in Bethlehem was said to fulfill an Old Testament prophecy (Micah 5:2), but the "Bethlehem Ephratah" referred to in Micah was a person (1 Chronicles 4:4), not a town. Luke and Matthew agree that "Jesus of Nazareth" grew up in Nazareth, but give different explanations for the Bethlehem birth.

According to Matthew, after Joseph discovered his betrothed was pregnant he was visited in his sleep by an angel who informed him that his wife would give birth to a son named Jesus (Matthew 1:21-23). The angel told Joseph that his wife had been impregnated by the Holy Ghost and that he should go ahead with the marriage. Joseph and Mary may have been living in Bethlehem as their city of residence. Only Matthew mentions wise men and the Star of Bethlehem. Matthew 2:11 describes the wise men as entering a house rather than a stable, and finding a child rather than an infant. The wise men were apparently not present at the time of birth. King Herod ordered the execution of all children under the age of two (not just newborns), so Joseph and Mary flee to Egypt with Jesus. After Herod died, the couple relocated to Nazareth because they did not think it was safe to return to the Bethlehem area again. There is no mention of a census.

According to Luke Mary was visited in her sleep by the angel Gabriel, who informed Mary that she would give birth to an infant named Jesus (Luke 1:26-38). Joseph may have also been visited by an angel, as reported by Matthew. Joseph and Mary were living in their home in Nazareth at the time, but were required to go to Bethlehem because of a census for taxes. They could find no inn in Bethlehem, so Jesus was born in a stable and visited by shepherds, not wise men. Then they returned to their home in Nazareth. There is no mention of a flight to Egypt, of wise men or of a massacre of babies.

Matthew does not mention the number of wise men or their means of transport (by camel, by foot, etc.) to Bethlehem. The idea that there were three Magi evidently came from the third century theologian Origen, possibly associated with the three gifts. The Syrian church claimed there were twelve Magi. Sometimes the Magi are described as "kings". Not only may have there been more or less than three Magi, but some or all of them could have been women. The reference to three kings could be a fulfillment of Psalms 72:10, but this would not be consistent with the ancient Persian words, Majusian = Magi (priest of Zarathustra).

Magi were a class of Zoroastrian priests in ancient Persia who practiced astrology, medicine and magic -- and were renowned in the ancient world for their wisdom. A legend of wise men honoring the baby Jesus was the equivalent of academic certification, despite the fact that astrology was forbidden among the Jews. The wise men gave to the Christ child gold, frankincense (a tree resin producing fragrant smoke when burned) and myrrh (a tree resin perfume with antiseptic & pain-killing properties) -- the first Christmas presents. All were luxury items that only the rich could afford. This was a partial fulfillment of the prophecy in Isaiah 60:6 of the Gentiles coming with camels to bring "gold and incense in praise of the Lord." The revelation of the Divinity of Christ to the Gentiles (the Wise Men) was an Epiphany (a word now associated with a sudden realization of a fundamental truth). Epiphany is now widely celebrated in many Western countries as "Three Kings Day" or "The Twelfth Day" based on the tradition that the Magi found Jesus twelve days after his birth. (Joseph and Mary might not be expected to remain in a stable for 12 days.)

Early in Medieval times legends arose of the Three Wise Men in art & literature which described them in detail. These legends are the product of artistic imagination without grounding in historical documentation, but are treated as seriously as other Christmas traditions. Melchior was an elderly Arabian king with a long white beard who brought gold. Balthasar was a young Moor (North African from the Algeria/Morocco area) who brought myrrh. Caspar (or Gaspar) was a man from the Far East bringing frankincense. Sometimes Caspar represents Europe, Balthasar represents Africa and Melchior represents Asia. There is a huge variation in the identities of these three, as to which one symbolizes a particular race, age or culture. This romantic image could symbolize that Christ was a gift to all Gentiles of the known world. But according to Matthew 2:1, they all came to Jerusalem from the East.

In the 4th century AD the mother of Constantine brought bones purportedly belonging to the three wise men to Constantinople. In 1158 A.D. three bodies were found in an ancient chapel in Milan, Italy, which were believe to have been come from Constantinople and assumed to have been the remains of the Magi. Because Milan was part of the Holy Roman Empire, the archbishop of Cologne, Germany took possession. The bones currently reside in a Cathedral in Cologne. Some relics were returned to Milan in 1903.

The Star of Bethlehem has been presumed to be a fulfillment of the prophecy in Numbers 24:17 of a "Star out of Jacob". Stars had also signalled the birth of Krishna, Lao-Tze, Moses and Abraham. Several attempts have been made to give explanations for the Star of Bethlehem. In the 14th century Albert Magnus (teacher of Thomas Aquinas) noted that the constellation Virgo rose above the horizon at midnight on December 24th at the reputed time of Christ's birth. In 1606 the German astronomer Johann Kepler suggested that the "star" was the conjunction of Jupiter & Saturn on May 22nd, October 6th and December 1st, 7 B.C. But Jupiter & Saturn would have been separated by a relative distance greater than two diameters of the moon -- so they could not have appeared as a single star. Jupiter & Venus actually overlapped on June 17th, 2 B.C., but this would have been after the estimated 4 B.C. death of King Herod. A supernova explosion occurred in the constellation Capricorn in 5 B.C. and Halley's comet was visible in 11-12 B.C. Chinese astronomers of the Han Dynasty recorded a comet visible for seventy days in 5 B.C.

Natural explanations cannot account for a star being directly above a 20-meter radius on the surface of the earth such that it could be followed to such a specific location, unless the star was not high above the earth: "... and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was." (Matthew 2:9). A natural explanation for a supernatural event may undermine the claim that there was anything supernatural about the event at all.

If shepherds near Bethlehem were watching their flocks at night during the birth of Jesus, then the birth would not have been in a winter month like December. If John the Baptist (cousin of Jesus) was really born in late March and Christ was six months younger, then Jesus would have been born in September.

It was the 6th century monk Dionysius Exiguus who created the B.C./A.D. system of dating based on the birthdate of Christ. His calculations were not very good. Dionysius had Christ born on December 25, 1 B.C., seven days before January 1, 1 A.D. (no year zero). Luke 3:23 says that Christ was age 30 in the 15th year (about 27 A.D.) of the reign of the Roman emperor Tiberius (Luke 3:1). Modern scholars now date Christ's birth between 7 BC and 4 BC. Few historians believe that the census for taxation described in Luke 2:1-5 is a reliable guide to the date of Christ's birth. Roman Emperor Augustus Caesar had a census in 28 B.C., 8 B.C. and 14 A.D. -- but these were only for Roman citizens. There is a record of a census in Judea in 6 A.D. If the Bible is taken as written by fallible human journalists (who misremember & embellish) rather than the literal Word of God, then such information can only be regarded as possible clues.

Some historians doubt that the story of Christ in the New Testament is really a description of the activities of a single man. There were likely many, perhaps even hundreds, of individuals claiming to be saviors and prophets during that period. Thus, the Gospels could have been a compilation of stories and folklore that arose around the activities of many such persons.

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IV. CHRISTMAS IN ANCIENT ROME

Harvest festivals are typically celebrated later in warmer countries. Thanksgiving is celebrated in October in Canada, in November in the United States and was celebrated in December in ancient Rome. Saturn was the Roman god of agriculture, after whom Saturday is named. Saturnalia was the most popular of Roman holidays, with "Mardi-Gras"-like street celebrations. Originally it began with a celebration on December 17th (birthday of Saturn), but this was later extended to a week (December 17 to 23), and finally extended to end with feasting on December 25th (Sol Invictus). Halls were decked with evergreens. There was an exchange of gifts, principally wax candles and little clay dolls. Authority figures, however, were given tribute in the form of urns, jewelry, coins or gold. Romans parading in the streets wearing masks and animal skins during Saturnalia began a tradition which continued later in Europe in the form of "mummers".

Similar celebrations were held at Kalends, the Roman new year festival held January 1st to January 5th. People stayed up on Kalend's Eve to celebrate the new year with drinking and singing. Gambling was normally illegal in Rome, but was permitted and enthusiastically practiced during these festivals. People spent lavishly on gifts for others as well as for self-indulgence. Slaves were relieved of their duties and partied as equals with their masters. Social inversions ("mock rulers") were part of the entertainment.

In 64 AD the Roman emperor Nero is believed to have started a fire in Rome, which conveniently cleared ground for the expansion of his palaces. Nero blamed the Christians for the fire, beginning a Roman policy of persecution that lasted more than two centuries. To avoid persecution the Christians decked their homes with holly and the second bishop of Rome (circa 130 AD) declared that the Nativity of Christ should be celebrated during the Saturnalia period. (It was a "movable feast", a single day was not specified.)

The ancient polytheistic religions of Egypt, Persia, Babylonia and eventually Rome increasingly consolidated their pantheons of deities under a single primary god, usually a Sun-god. The Egyptians believed in a transubstantiation of their Sun-god Ra into a disk-shaped wafer that could be eaten in a sacred ritual. The Persian Mithra (Roman Mithras) held special prominence as god of day (light) and the only son of the God of Heaven. But some time before the 5th century B.C. the Persian prophet Zoroaster (Zarathustra) taught a dualism based on the conflict between the God of Heaven and the God of Evil. Humans could choose between good (light) or evil (darkness) and on judgment day be sent to Heaven or Hell based on their choices. Mithras was identified as the redeemer prophesied by Zoroaster: the sun-god who would appear as a human being at the end of time.

Mithras was a divine being borne of a human virgin on December 25th (the Winter Solstice by the Roman Julian calendar), his birth watched and worshipped by shepherds. As an adult, Mithras healed the sick, made the lame walk, gave sight to the blind and raised the dead. Before returning to heaven at the Spring Equinox Mithras had a last supper with 12 disciples (representing the 12 signs of the Zodiac). Mithraism included Zoroastrian beliefs in the struggle between good & evil, symbolized as light & darkness. This militaristic black-and-white morality (including a final judgment affecting an afterlife of heaven or hell) probably accounted for the popularity of Mithraism among Roman soldiers. Mithraism was like an ancient fraternity: a mystery cult open only to men which had seven degrees of initiation -- including the ritual of baptism and a sacred meal of bread & wine representing the body & blood of Mithras. Late in the second century AD Commodus became the first Roman emperor to be initiated into Mithraism. The priests of Mithraism were called Father -- Christians at the time were forbidden to use "Rabbi" or "Father" in reference to church leaders based on the admonition in Matthew 23:8-9.

In 270 AD a professional army officer named Aurelian rose to be emperor and was able to reunite the Roman Empire through military might. In 274 AD he attempted to unite the religions of the empire under the state cult of Sol invictus ("unconquerable Sun"). Aurelian's new temple enshrined the Sun gods of Babylonia (Baal, Bel or Marduk). Although Mithras was not formally acknowledged, Natalis solis invicti ("birth of the unconquered sun") was, nonetheless, on December 25th. By the time of the reign of the military despot Diocletian (284-305 AD) ten percent of the Roman Empire was Christian. The attempts by Diocletian to impose the state religion on everyone led to the last and most terrible of all persecutions. But many people saw the state as a greater enemy than the Christians, who were respected for their willingness to die for their beliefs. Slaves & upper-class women (who were excluded from other religions) were drawn to a god with a human face who espoused justice & love.

Despite the intense persecutions of Christians in the Roman Empire, Christianity continued to win many converts from paganism. Many of the former pagans were unwilling to relinquish their traditional winter solstice celebrations. When Constantine replaced Diocletian as Emperor of the Western Roman Empire in 305 AD he ended all of the persecutions. Constantine was said to have accepted Christianity in 312 AD on the eve of a battle when he had a vision of a cross of light superimposed upon the sun. Persecution of Christians ended in both the Eastern & Western Empires in 313 AD when Constantine & Licinius issued the Edict of Milan. Constantine sought to unify Sun-worship and Christianity into a single monotheistic state religion. (Although Constantine was baptized on his deathbed, this was not an indication of his insincerity -- it was a common practice of early Christians to delay baptism so as to die without sin.)

Although the Bible sanctifies Saturday as the Sabbath, many Christians regarded Sunday (the day of the resurrection of Christ) as the new holy day -- especially because this distanced Christianity from Judaism. In 321 AD Constantine made Sunday rather than Saturday (Saturn's Day) the weekly holiday of the state religion of Sun-worship. The revolt of the Jews & the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, the rejection of the Hebrew calendar and the increasing pre-eminence of the bishop of Rome were all part of the Romanization of Christianity which accompanied the Christianization of Rome.

Constantine regarded himself to be the supreme spiritual leader of both the Sun-cults and of Christianity. Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to Constantinople, a city he immodestly renamed after himself. Constantine called himself "first of the apostles" and he did not recognize the papacy of the bishop of Rome. In 325 AD Constantine called the first Council of Nicea (Nicaea) to resolve controversy and establish Christian orthodoxy. The Council established the Unity of the Holy Trinity, the date of Easter and a doctrinal statement of Christian belief (the Nicene Creed). The Council of Nicea was the first ecumenical conference of Christian bishops, the nucleus of the institution which was to become the hierarchical Roman Catholic Church, dominated by celibate male priests. (Celibate priests had not been part of the teachings of Jesus -- many of his apostles, including Peter, were married.) The Council sanctioned the efforts of Irenaeus, Eusebius and others who were establishing certain scriptures as the infallible canon of the New Testament, while declaring other scriptures to be heresy -- notably Gnostic Gospels such as the Gospel of Mary and the Gospel of Thomas, which support the idea that Mary Magdalene was an apostle and that salvation is possible without a church. With orthodox Christianity incorporated into the monolithic state religion Christian "heretics" were heavily persecuted.

Also in 325 Constantine declared December 25th to be an Immovable Feast for the whole Roman Empire. The bishop of Rome may have accepted December 25th as the date of birth of Jesus Christ as early as 320 AD, but historical documents provide no evidence for a date earlier than 336 AD. The Church was pushed by political forces and pulled by the desire to co-opt a popular pagan holiday, despite a lack of evidence that Christ was born in December. Constantine built the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, one of the oldest continually operating churches in the world (currently administered by a coalition of Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox clerics).

In Egypt, January 6th was the birthday celebration of the child-god Aeon, borne of the virgin goddess Kore -- celebrated in the Temple of Kore at Alexandria. Egyptian Gnostic Christians celebrated January 6 as the date of Christ's baptism ("spiritual birth"). (Gnostics believed that spiritual is more important than physical, that the knowledge Christ brought to the world is far more important than his physical birth or crucifixion and that direct personal experience of God is of greater importance than churches or other institutions.) Later the Eastern Christian Churches celebrated January 6th as the date of both the Nativity and the Epiphany (Greek for manifestation) -- the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles (the wise men) as well as Christ's baptism by John the Baptist. (The rebirth of the Greek god Dionysus had been celebrated on January 6th.)

In the 4th century, the Eastern Orthodox Churches began to accept December 25th as the date of Christ's birth and the Roman Church began to introduce the January 6th feast of Epiphany. (Only the Armenian Orthodox Church refused to abandon January 6 as the date of the Nativity.) Epiphany for Western churches means the visit of the Magi, whereas for the Eastern churches Epiphany is the anniversary of Christ's baptism. The 567 AD Council of Tours proclaimed the duty of Advent feast and established the period between December 25th and January 6th as a 12-day holy festival -- the Twelve Days of Christmas (if the first day is the day after Christmas, the twelfth day of Christmas is Epiphany).

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V. FROM SAINT NICHOLAS TO SANTA CLAUS

A wealthy orphan whose parents died in an epidemic, Saint Nicholas became a bishop at age 17. At age 30 he became the bishop of Myra (now the city of Demre on the south coast of Turkey) near the beginning of the fourth century. Soon after his appointment, the government of the Eastern Roman Empire jailed all Christian bishops who did not publicly sacrifice to the gods of Rome. Nicholas remained in prison for nearly ten years until Constantine conquered the East -- ending the persecution of Christians. So many Christians had defected that the sacrament of confession was created, so that the "traitors" could cleanse their souls before re-entering the Christian Church.

Nicholas was a vigorous opponent of Arianism, the belief of the Alexandrian bishop Arius that Christ was created by God and therefore independent of God and inferior to God -- a form of polytheism intended to explain how Christ could be both human and divine. According to Arius, Jesus Christ had not existed before God created Him, and Jesus prayed to his Father in Heaven, to whom He was subordinate. Constantine wanted the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. to resolve the bitter conflict in the Eastern Church over Arianism. Nicholas reputedly not only attended Nicea, but physically accosted Arius there. The Nicene Creed supported the unity of God, Christ and the Holy Ghost as a single Being (with God and Christ equally divine, but of the same divine substance), thereby affirming the monotheism of Christianity. Constantine exiled Arius and ordered his books to be burned.

Saint Nicholas became the subject of many legends. A sailor who fell overboard was reputedly saved by Nicholas when the saint walked on water, retrieved the sailor and carried him back to the ship. After an innkeeper had robbed & dismembered some students, Nicholas reputedly re-assembled them and restored them to life. Nicholas took pity on a poverty-stricken family with 3 daughters who faced the threat of being forced into prostitution because they had no wedding dowries. For two daughters he crept-up to their house at night and threw bags of gold through a bedroom window. For the last daughter, he threw a bag of gold down the chimney -- which landed in a stocking she had set by the fireplace for drying. The traditional association of chimneys & stockings with Santa Claus comes from this story. Nicholas was also noted for his generosity with children -- he would reward them with treats if they had studied their catechism & behaved well. Nicholas was therefore patron saint of schoolchildren & sailors.

The bones of Saint Nicholas lay in his tomb in Myra until 1087. Because the Turks had taken Antioch in 1084, and Myra was no longer Christian, three ships of sailors & merchants raided the tomb, confiscated the bones and took them to the Italian seaport of Bari. In 1089 Pope Urban II consecrated a shrine for the relics of Saint Nicholas in a newly constructed crypt. The Basilica di San Nicola was completed in the middle of the 12th century where the crypt was located.

The legend of Nicholas made him so popular that more European churches bore his name than that of any of the apostles. He was made patron saint of Greece and Russia. He was also made patron saint of banking & pawnbroking at a time when the two trades were closely related. The 3-ball symbol of pawnshops represents the three bags of gold he threw as dowries. On February 14, 1969 the Pope removed Nicholas from the calendar of saints -- there are no records of Nicholas ever having been canonized. The Eastern Orthodox Church continues to recognize the sainthood of Nicholas.

The date of Nicholas's death -- reputedly on December 6th, 326 AD -- was widely celebrated as the feast of Saint Nicholas. The fact that the date coincided with the completion of farmwork, the slaughtering of animals for the winter and a period of idleness, abundant food and celebration may actually be the real reason why it was celebrated with such enthusiasm. But the feast of Saint Nicholas was abolished in many European countries as part of Martin Luther's effort to stop the veneration of saints. In keeping with the idea that Christ is the source of all good things, German Protestants had a tall Christ child (Christkindl) distributing presents on December 25th. In English-speaking countries Kris Kringle became another name for Santa Claus.

But in the Netherlands celebration of Saint Nicholas Day (December 6th) continued, despite the rise of Protestantism. Amsterdam has historically been a great seaport, and Saint Nicholas (Sinterklaas) as the protector of sailors has been its patron saint. Saint Nicholas -- with his long white beard and wearing his red & white bishop's robes -- would ride down streets on his white horse distributing gifts to children. Even today, December 6th is the day children in Holland receive their gifts -- although Saint Nicholas travels from Spain rather than the North Pole and may be accompanied by one or more assistants ("black Peters", who are either Moors or people who were blackened by climbing up and down chimneys). (In Germany the assistant of St. Nicholas was Knecht Ruprecht, a "wild man" who was condemned as a manifestation of the devil by the Catholic Church.)

The transformation of Saint Nicholas to Santa Claus happened largely in America -- with inspiration from the Dutch. In the early days of Dutch New York, Sinterklaas became known among the English-speaking as "Santa Claus" (or "Saint Nick"). In 1809 Washington Irving, a member of the New York Historical Society (which promoted a Dutch Saint Nicholas as its patron saint), created a tale of a chubby, pipe-smoking little Saint Nicholas who road a magic horse through the air visiting all houses in New York. The elfish figure was small enough to climb down chimneys with gifts for the good children and switches for the bad ones.

The 1823 poem "The Night Before Christmas" ("A Visit from Saint Nicholas", reputedly by Clement Moore) replaced the horse with a sleigh drawn by eight flying reindeer. (Moore may have been inspired by the Finnish legend of Old Man Winter, who drove reindeer down from the mountain, bringing the snow.) Following Irving's example, Moore's St. Nick was more an elf than a bishop. Unlike the earlier St. Nicks, this one brought no birch switches, only presents. And it was Moore who established that St. Nick brings presents on the night before Christmas rather than on Saint Nicholas Day or any other time.

Thomas Nast -- head cartoonist for Harper's Weekly magazine (the man who invented both the Democratic donkey and the Republican elephant) -- depicted Santa Claus from 1863 to 1886 as an unaging, jolly, bearded fat man who lived at the North Pole and wore a furry suit & elfish sleeping cap. Nast transformed Santa into a full-sized human who somehow retained the ability to climb through chimneys, but who had a team of elf assistants. By 1881 Nast had drawn Santa as a large man with a white beard in a red suit trimmed with white fur. Although other artists continued to use more elfish depictions, red-suited Santas continued the long tradition inspired by the red & white bishop's robes of Saint Nicholas.

The standardization of Santa's image was probably due to Coca-Cola artist Haddon Sundblom who (in 1931) depicted Santa as a portly, jolly grandfatherly figure with a ruddy complexion and white-fur-trimmed red coat & cap -- replacing the pipe with a bottle of Coke. Thirty-five years of annual advertising by the Coca-Cola company using Sundblom's Santa solidified the contemporary image of Santa Claus (but without the Coke). (It was a fortunate coincidence that the red & white colors matched those used by Coca-Cola.)

The first department store Santa Claus was at J.W. Parkinson's store in Philadelphia in 1881. Kriss Kringle dramatically came down a chimney for the children and Parkinson's became "Kriss Kringle Headquarters". The second department store to feature a Santa was in Massachusetts in 1890. By 1900 dozens of American department stores had Santas.

In 1905 Eaton's department store sponsored its first Santa Claus Parade in Toronto, Canada, which remains the largest in North America. In the 1920s Gimbel's department store in Philadelphia, Macy's in New York, Hudson's in Detroit and many other department stores sponsored Thanksgiving parades that featured Santa Claus. In response to lobbying by department stores President Franklin Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving from November 30 to November 23 in 1939 to extend the shopping season. "Franksgiving" was observed in about half the states. As a compromise, a 1941 act of Congress established Thanksgiving as the fourth Thursday in November.

Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer was invented in 1939 by a staff copywriter for Montgomery Ward. The story was patterned after The Ugly Duckling, turning a genetically defective glowing nose into a foggy-night navigation asset. Originally distributed to children as an illustrated story, a decade later it became the theme of a song which was sung by Gene Autry, the "Singing Cowboy".

Katherine Lee Bates (who wrote the song "America the Beautiful") is credited with the invention of Mrs. Santa Claus in a poem written in 1899. Since that time Mrs. Claus has often been depicted as a cheerful portly woman who spends her time at the north pole preparing Christmas foods.

In England, as elsewhere, many churches had been dedicated to Saint Nicholas, but with the elimination of Catholicism "Father Christmas" reverted to associations with a Green-clad elfish figure associated with pagan mid-winter festivals. Father Christmas did not distribute gifts and he was often the master of ceremonies for mummer's plays. Although "Father Christmas" rather than "Santa Claus" is still the name of choice in the United Kingdom, his appearance & conduct has become indistinguishable from his American counterpart. Similarly, France has a "Pere Noel" and Brazil has a "Papai Noel".

In the fall of 1897 an 8-year-old girl named Virginia O'Hanlon wrote a letter to the New York Sun asking if Santa Claus really exists. Francis Church, one of the Sun's editorial writers wrote a "Yes, Virginia" reply which has become a classic example for adults fostering children's belief in Santa Claus.

According to one study, 85% of 4-year-olds believe in Santa Claus. Belief drops to 65% by age 6 and to 25% by age 8. As children begin to question how Santa can visit every house, how a large man can fit in a chimney, how Santa can be in so many shopping malls at the same time, etc -- many parents resort to increasingly strained explanations to maintain the fiction. The uncritical belief of children can be touchingly cute. The temptation to build a poetic fantasy-world in formative minds -- removed from the harsh realities of life -- can be great. Potential damage can result from erosion of trust when parents seriously try to convince their children that Santa Claus is a fact rather than a fairy tale. But if a parent can experience sentimental enchantment and love attached to the "game" of Santa Claus it would be hard to find much intention to deceive when no effort is made to mislead a child who begins to question.

Some Christians can become uncomfortable with the God-like qualities of Santa Claus. He is all-knowing, has magical powers and distributes reward or punishment (but nearly always reward, irrespective of how good or bad the child has been). For parents to lie to children to encourage them to believe in a false god in a red suit is viewed as a blasphemous substitute for recognition of the true God.

Men interested in playing Santa Claus at Christmas-time are coming under increasing scrutiny. Some municipalities & organizations (such as the Rotary Clubs) have issued regulations or guidelines concerning Santa hygiene and behavior. In some cases Santa is prohibited from being in the company of a child without a third adult (apart from the parent) being present. Santa must not make promises to a child. Santa must keep both hands in plain view at all times. And Santa must not straddle a child on the knee -- or perhaps not touch a child at all. Background checks and sensitivity training for aspiring Santas are increasing. Schools have been instituted to train those who wish to be professional Santas.

Children all over the world can send letters for Santa to: Santa Claus; North Pole H0H 0H0; Canada. The boundaries of Canada extend to the Geographic North Pole, but there is no land at that location -- only sea ice. The letters are delivered to Montreal where they are answered in over 20 languages with replies printed in "Santa's handwriting" on "Santa's personal stationary".

Letters for Santa are also sent to Finland: Santa Claus Park; Arctic Circle; 999 Finland; Europe. Children in Finland believe that Father Christmas lives in Lapland, part of Finland north of the Arctic Circle. There is a theme park called "Santa Claus Village" in Korvatunturi, Lapland which tourist agencies promote as being Santa's home.

The Danes have Santa living in Greenland, where his letters are forwarded. In Norway Santa has a postal station in the city of Drobak. Austrian children send their mail to the village of Christkindl, whereas letters to the German Christ Child go to the "Celestial Post Office" in Augsburg. The Santa Claus World Congress is held annually in Denmark in July. Santas come to the Congress from over a hundred different countries (excluding Finland, which does not recognize the authority of the organization).

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VI. FORBIDDEN CHRISTMAS

Celebration of birthdays -- even including that of Christ -- was rejected as a pagan tradition by most Christians during the first three hundred years of Christianity, but the matter became increasingly controversial. Partly in reaction to the claims by Gnostics that Jesus had not been mortal, Christians began to emphasize the Nativity. The Incarnate God as a lovable infant born to a holy mother evoked powerful instinctive emotions. The third century Christian writer Tertullian supported observance of Christ's birthday, but condemned the inclusion of Saturnalia customs such as exchanging of gifts and decorating homes with evergreens. Chapter 10 of the Book of Jeremiah begins by condemning the heathen practice of cutting a tree from the forest to "deck it with silver and gold".

The Protestant Reformation in 16th century Europe was associated with a profound rejection of the Roman Church and a return to scripture as the ultimate source of spiritual authority. There was no scriptural support to be found for celebration of Christmas, no commandment that Christ's birthday be observed and no date of birth had been given that could be used for the celebration. Martin Luther called Rome a modern "Babylon" -- parallels could be drawn with the mother-goddess worship of the ancient Babylon. The birthday of Mithras and the festivals of Saturnalia for the celebration of Christ would be symptoms of the paganism upon which the Romans had built the Catholic Church.

In 1583 the Presbyterian Church suppressed the observation of Christmas in Scotland because there are no biblical references to Christmas celebrations nor any biblical commandments to celebrate the birthday of Christ. The Church of Scotland continued to discourage the celebration of Christmas, which remained a normal working day in Scotland until 1958. Hogmanay (December 31) was the main day of Scottish celebration.

English Puritanism was probably the most extreme manifestation of the Protestant reaction against the Roman Church. Exodus 20:4 could be taken to indicate that God does not want to be worshiped the way pagans worship their gods -- with idolatry such as Christmas trees and Nativity Scenes (much less revelry, drinking and gluttony). Oliver Cromwell campaigned against the heathen practices of feasting, decorating and singing, which he felt desecrated the spirit of Christ. Christmas was called such names as "the Papist's Massing Day" and "Old Heathen Feasting Day". Cromwell's government abolished English Christmas celebration by an act of Parliament in 1647, and the ban was not lifted until Cromwell lost power in 1660. But the tradition of caroling at Christmastime did not resume again in England until the 1800s.

Massachusetts Pilgrims (Congregationalists) passed a similar law forbidding Christmas celebration in New England in 1659 (repealed in 1681). Thanksgiving was the most important festivity for the Puritans. Wassailing (a door-to-door visiting of neighbors, drinking at each stop) was condemned as a source of public disorder. Wassail is a hot spiced wine punch with tiny roasted apples or clove-studded oranges floating on top. "Wes hal" is Saxon/Old English for "be hale" or "be of good health". The fact that toast sometimes floated in wassail bowls has been given as an explanation for "toasting to health".

Although Christmas was not widely celebrated in New England until 1852, it was popular in the American South beginning with the Anglican settlement of Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. The Virginian colonists were the first to establish eggnog as a holiday beverage. ("Nog" may come from the word grog, meaning any drink made with rum.) Dutch influence in the settlement of New York City (New Amsterdam) helped make New York a mostly pro-Christmas state, although there was still an anti-Christmas New England influence. In 1836 Alabama became the first State to recognize Christmas, which finally became a federal holiday in 1870.

Modern Jehovah's Witnesses and other fundamentalists still regard Christmas to be an un-Christian pagan holiday, which they do not celebrate. Such groups note that Christ did not admonish Christians to celebrate his birthday in his Sermon on the Mount. In Boston, a fundamentalist religious group has run advertisements in the subway proclaiming that early Christians did not "believe in lies about Santa Claus, flying reindeer, elves and drunken parties."

The very word Christmas is regarded by some fundamentalist Christians as using the Lord's name in vain (Exodus 20:7) or, at least, an invocation of the "popish" idolatry of the Catholic Church ("Mass of Christ"). According to one fundamentalist group: "Santa Claus is a pagan mockery of God the Father with white hair, grandfatherly image..., omniscient of children's behavior..." And some fundamentalists -- aware that Christ could not have been born in December and that that the timing is rooted in sun-worship -- invoke such scriptures as Deuteronomy 17:3 against the December 25th sun-worshipping holiday.

Christmas was discouraged in the officially atheist Soviet Union, but a Festival of Winter was celebrated. "Grandfather Frost" and the "Snow Maiden" would bring gifts to children at the New Year. (Many Slavic countries have had a long tradition of Grandfather Frost riding a sleigh drawn by three horses to deliver gifts to children.)

Fidel Castro declared Cuba to be atheist in 1962, but did not prohibit the celebration of Christmas until 1969. Castro restored the holiday in December, 1997 preceding January 1998 when Pope John Paul II was permitted to visit the country.

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VII. CHRISTMAS TREES AND OTHER PLANTS

Ancient Egyptians used palms in their Winter Solstice festivals -- and the Romans used firs -- in anticipation of the lush greenery of Spring with the return of the Sun. Bringing an evergreen tree into the house during winter solstice festivals was a tradition among the Germans from at least 700 AD. According to legend, Martin Luther added candles to the tree decorations. Like the Christmas tree, the Advent wreath and its candles are of German origin -- although candles were common gifts during Saturnalia and candles have a long tradition in pagan rituals.

"Miracle (Mystery) plays" depicting biblical stories performed during medieval times probably also contributed to the use of Christmas trees. One of the most popular of these plays featured Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The only prop would be an evergreen tree (the "Paradise Tree") to which was affixed a red apple. Most commonly the Paradise Play was performed on December 24th, because this was the feast day of Adam and Eve on the old Christian calendar. Because "immoral behavior" sometimes occurred during this play, it was forbidden by the Church in the fifteenth century, but many continued the practice of having a Paradise Tree in their home on December 24th.

Victoria became Queen of England in 1837 at age 18. She proposed to the German Prince Albert and married him in 1840. Albert provided the first Christmas tree, well decorated, to his family at Windsor Castle for the Christmas of 1841. Albert distributed Christmas trees to schools and army barracks to foster his childhood love of the seasonal tree in his adopted country. Newspaper illustrations in 1848 showing the royal family with a Christmas tree decorated with glass-blown ornaments, candles and ribbons in Windsor Castle excited the popular imagination in Britain, a sentiment not shared by Americans.

German immigrants to eastern Pennsylvania ("Pennsylvania Dutch") were decorating Christmas trees in their homes at least as early as the 1820s. (Christmas trees were limited to the Strasbourg area of Germany prior to 1750, and only became popular throughout Germany in the 19th century.) In 1851 when some Pennsylvania Germans placed a Christmas tree outside their church, others in the community told the minister to remove the pagan symbol. The first printed image of a Christmas tree in the Unites States was in a 1836 Gift Book. Christmas trees did not gain popularity in the US until late in the 19th century. The German song "O Tannenbaum" became translated into the American "O Christmas Tree" (and is the melody for the state songs of Maryland, Iowa, Michigan and New Jersey).

The placing of tinsel on Christmas trees began in Germany -- originally as beaten silver strips. According to legend a poor woman's tree was covered with spiderwebs and this saddened the Christ Child so much that He turned the webs into silver. The Germans also decorated their trees with fruits, pastries, candies, colored paper figures, tin angels and other ornaments. In the United States F.W. Woodworth unexpectedly made a fortune in the 1880s selling German-made Christmas tree ornaments which he had reluctantly stocked in his five-and-dime stores.

In 1882 Edward Johnson, a colleague of Thomas Edison, became the first person to light a Christmas tree with electric light -- using a string of 80 small bulbs. Because they are such a fire hazard, candles were traditionally only placed on a tree on Christmas Eve. With electric lights trees could be illuminated safely for longer periods, but they were only affordable by the wealthy until 1903 when the Ever-Ready Company offered the first string of ready-made lights. Lighting trees outdoors was made practical by electricity. Decorating houses & landscapes with strings of multicolored lights at Christmastime became popular early in the 20th century. Candles had traditionally been placed in windows to help Christmastime travelers to find and identify houses -- and to create holiday cheer.

The first American President to have a Christmas tree in the White House was Franklin Pierce in 1856. Theodore Roosevelt interrupted the tradition in 1900 out of concern over national consumption of evergreen trees, but Woodrow Wilson presided over the first national Christmas tree in 1913. About 20% of American homes had decorated Christmas trees at the beginning of the 20th century and about 85% had decorated trees near that end of that century.

Mistletoe is a parasitic plant that attaches itself to trees, never touches the ground and can bear fruit in the winter. The Druids regarded mistletoe as sacred. The Scandinavians associated it with the goddess of love. Ancient Babylonian legend regarded mistletoe as a divine branch from heaven which was grafted to earthly trees. Mistletoe was a token of peace & reconciliation -- with a kiss symbolizing pardon. Kissing under mistletoe was a Roman custom. The unholy & pagan associations with mistletoe (and the adulterous temptations) caused the church to ban its use and substitute holly wreaths, which could represent Christ's crown of thorns (with the blood-red berries). (Puritans later condemned holly wreaths as a pagan symbol of sun-worship -- the shape symbolizing the sun.)

With its large red & white leaves (the colored upper leaves are often mistaken for flowers), the poinsettia has become the Christmas "flower". Eighty-five percent of potted plants sold at Christmastime are poinsettias. Poinsettia leaves can turn from green to brilliant red in the month of December. The flowers were brought to the United States by physician, statesman and botanist Joel Roberts Poinsett upon his return as American Ambassador to Mexico in 1828. Poinsett cultivated the Aztec plants in his South Carolina greenhouse. In Mexico the poinsettia is called "flower of the Holy Night".

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VIII. CHRISTMAS MUSIC

Organ music and church hymns sung only in church were probably the first examples of Christmas music. Some of this music was sung outside of church and became intermingled with folk music (carols) having a religious theme. Wassailing carols (Christmas drinking songs) had secular Christmas themes. Christmas music now includes classical pieces, oratorios, popular tunes, rock music -- every form of music.

The word carol derives from the Middle English carole (ring) -- a ring-dance with a song. The medieval church discouraged dancing to music. Originally carols were primarily folk songs for celebrations. Christmas became the holiday of carols in the 16th century, but condemnation of caroling by the Puritans in the 17th century dampened the tradition in England for over 160 years. Carols can include both religious songs, such as "Silent Night" & "Oh Little Town of Bethlehem" as well as the nonreligious "Jingle Bells" & "White Christmas", although some distinguish between carols and popular songs.

Early hymns written for church use that became popular as carols included "Joy to the World" and "O Come All Ye Faithful". Early secular carols included "Deck the Halls" and "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen".

The "Twelve Days of Christmas" is a fanciful English folk song without hidden symbolic meanings. It was probably used to teach children how to count. A legend holds that the song was symbolic for English Catholics when their religion was forbidden in England (prior to the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829).

Handel's Messiah is an oratorio (musical composition with orchestra and thematic singing, but lacking in the costumes and acting of an opera) that is performed primarily at Christmastime. The oratorio is primarily concerned with the birth and crucifixion of Christ. Handel composed the piece for Easter performances before Christmas became the predominant Christian holiday.

"Silent Night" (the most popular of all Christmas carols) was first written as a poem in Germany in 1816 by a young priest named Joseph Mohr who was assigned to an Austrian pilgrimage church. The church organ was too rusted to play for the 1818 Midnight Mass so Mohr asked his friend Franz Gruber (a local teacher) to compose a tune. Mohr and Gruber sang the song together, with Gruber playing a guitar. The piece might been forgotten except that a visiting musician took the music and it grew in popularity as it was played throughout Austria & Germany.

"Oh Little Town of Bethlehem" was written as a poem by Phillip Brooks, a Philadelphia pastor who ministered to Union soldiers during the Civil War. The poem was set to music three years later in 1868 and was sung by a children's choir in Brooks's church, but was unknown outside his parish for a decade. "Jingle Bells" was composed in 1857 by James Pierpoint, who became a Confederate soldier in the Civil War. Although Pierpoint never rose out of poverty, his nephew James Pierpoint Morgan (J.P.Morgan) became one of the wealthiest businessmen in America.

Nutcracker Ballet is a traditional Christmas performance which was set to music by the Russian composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky. It represents the Christmas Eve dreams of a girl whose nutcracker doll leads a squadron of toy soldiers against an army of mice around a Christmas tree. She also dreams of snowflakes, the Kingdom of Sweets and a Sugarplum Fairy. The dreamy fantasy setting allows for the creation of fantastic costumes, dancing and special effects -- making it the most popular ballet in the world.

In 1938 a Melbourne, Australia radio announcer organized a Christmas Eve sing-along concert which became a radio sensation. "Carols by Candlelight" has become an annual tradition all over Australia as well as in other countries.

The song "White Christmas" was composed by Irving Berlin, a Jew, early in World War II. Bing Crosby sang the song to troops who were moved by memories of what their homeland was before the war -- and would be after the war. Sentimental association of snow with Christmas has long been a tradition of the season.

From the late 1920s Hollywood Boulevard has been renamed Santa Claus Lane every December for a Christmas Parade that includes many movie stars. In 1946 singing cowboy Gene Autry rode his horse in the parade and was thereby inspired to write "Here Comes Santa Claus (Right Down Santa Claus Lane)".

Other popular Christmas songs that would not be called carols include "Frosty the Snowman", "Silver Bells", "Jingle Bell Rock", "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" and "All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth".

Mumming arose from a pagan tradition where men & women swapped clothes, dressed in animal skins, wore masks and visited neighbors for merry-making (a tradition still observed in rural Newfoundland) -- although the mummers also trace their origins to the Roman Saturnalia & Kalends festivals. Plays were sometimes performed with masked, costumed mimes (who could be "mum"). Mummers' costumes sometimes provided opportunity to disguise malicious mischief and criminal acts. The drinking, rowdiness and often unwelcome visits of mummers did much to give Christmas a bad name. Philadelphia repeatedly attempted to ban mumming until 1901 when the first New Year's Mummers' Parade tamed the energies of the noisy revelers into a more manageable form.

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IX. CHRISTMAS FOOD

From the time of the ancient Egyptians, goose was the main course of Winter Solstice feasts. Henry VIII of England is credited with replacing goose with turkey, which is more meaty & flavorful. Turkeys were first introduced to Europe in 1519 by the Spanish, who learned of turkeys from the Aztecs (who domesticated the birds). Fruit from an exotic American plant -- the cranberry -- was also added to Christmas dinners.

Christmas ham may originate from Norse traditions of eating wild boar in midwinter feasts. The ancient Romans ate boar during Saturnalia in honor of the the god Adonis who was slain by a boar and whose birthday was December 25th. The oldest existing printed Christmas carol is "The Boar's Head Carol" (printed 1521), which was sung in England at Christmas dinner while a boar's head was carried on a platter. The custom is still observed every Christmas at Queen's College, Oxford -- a possible relic of the Roman occupation of Britain.

Humble pie was made from the "humbles" of deer (heart, liver, brain and other organs) by the servants of nobility who feasted on the more choice cuts of meat. By the 17th century humble pie had become such a traditional Christmas dish that it was outlawed by the Puritan Cromwell government in England.

Mincemeat pie was originally mainly minced meat preserved with sugar & spices. Fruits were often used as a less expensive preservative and flavoring agent than sugar. Meat was increasingly omitted (except for beef fat) and additional fruits were included.

Plum pudding was originally a soup made by boiling beef & mutton with dried plums (prunes), wines and spices. The prunes & meats were later removed, raisins added and the pudding was thickened with eggs & breadcrumbs to be more like a steamed or broiled cake. So "plum pudding" is not a pudding and contains no plums.

In the 17th century the word "plum" was commonly used to refer to any dried fruit. A "sugarplum" was any candied fruit (dried & sugared) -- and could be a plum, apricot, cherry, etc. Prior to the age of chocolate children yearned for sugarplums, which is why "visions of sugarplums" danced through the heads of children in Clement Moore's poem -- and why the Sugarplum Fairy was a prominent character in "The Nutcracker".

Apples were a tempting ornament of the first Christmas trees in Germany, later augmented with cookies, nuts and other fruits. Americans added strings of popcorn. Children looked forward to dismantling the Christmas tree and gobbling-up the treats.

Candy canes are edible ornaments which originated in Germany in the late 1600s. Originally made as straight white sticks, a German choirmaster bent the sticks so as to represent a shepherd's staff -- and distributed them to children during Nativity services (at least partly to keep them quiet by giving them something to suck on). Not until the year 1900 did candy canes become striped with the red-and-white Christmas colors or become flavored with peppermint or wintergreen. Some people have the idea that the J-shape is a reference to J-esus and that the red & white symbolize the blood & purity of Christ.

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X. OTHER CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS

The 567 AD Council of Tours proclaimed Advent, a season from November 11 to December 24 characterized by the spirit of anticipating the birth of Christ. ("Adventists" are Christians who prepare for the imminent Second Coming of Christ.) The faithful were forbidden from being absent from regular church attendance during the period and were to fast as strictly as during Lent. Although the Orthodox Church still begins Advent on November 11, near 600 AD Pope Gregory I shortened the season to the four Sundays before Christmas. Later the requirements for fasting & abstention were relaxed, but Advent remains a season of spiritual preparation.

The Advent wreath is decorated with four candles, one of which is to be lit on each of the four Sundays. Advent is observed festively in Nuremberg, Germany where the season is begun with a gala opening of the Christkindl Markt (Christ child shopping market) on the Friday before the first Sunday of Advent. Christmas markets of stalls selling Christmas specialties in open plazas are popular not only in Germany, but in Italy and Belgium.

Los Posados is a Mexican custom that has spread to several central American countries as well as to the Philippines. During the nine days preceding Christmas a nightly procession ("los posados") enacts Joseph and Mary searching for shelter in Bethlehem. According to tradition they must be refused at least once before an innkeeper lets them in.

Midnight Mass is the first of three masses held at Christmas by the Roman Catholic Church, each mass characterized by a distinctive liturgy. For many people Midnight Mass is the most important of Christmas masses because of a popular belief that Jesus was born at midnight. Midnight Mass from St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome and from the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is broadly televised.

St. Stephen's Day (December 26th) commemorates the first Christian martyr Stephen, who was stoned to death for his religious beliefs in 35 A.D. In the Middle Ages priests opened the church alms-box on St. Stephen's Day to distribute deposited coins to the needy. St. Stephen's Day became Boxing Day in Britain and is a recognized holiday not only in Britain, but in Australia, Canada and New Zealand. In British tradition, Christmas was a day of exchanging gifts whereas the day following Christmas was a day in which people of less fortunate station (servants, tradespeople and the poor) received gifts from the more fortunate -- often in boxes -- without the expectation of anything being given in return. The custom declined, partly because tradespeople became too demanding of their annual "tips".

Holy Innocents' Day (December 28th) commemorates the slaughter of the boy babies of Bethlehem by King Herod. In England this day was the occasion for ritual beating of children, but in continental Europe it was more common for children to be given license to whip adults. The English did allow "boy bishops" to deliver sermons on December 28. In Spain and in many Latin American countries Innocents' Day is celebrated like April Fools' Day -- the victims of the practical jokes are the "innocents".

The time between the holy season of Christmas and the holy season of Lent (the 46 days before Easter Sunday, in remembrance of Christ's 40 days in the wilderness) is sometimes called carnival (Latin for "farewell to meat", in reference to the fasting of Lent). Starting on the day after Epiphany, the peak day of partying with abandonment is the day before Ash Wednesday (the first day of Lent), namely Mardi Gras (French for "Fat Tuesday") -- although the days of celebration can include the entire carnival period.

Christmas Cards were introduced in 1843 (the same year A CHRISTMAS CAROL was first published) by Sir Henry Cole, an English businessman and patron of art. He printed a thousand cards and sold them as a means to simplify the sending of Christmas greetings. Postage for the cards was one penny in the 1840s. Within a few years after the introduction of the halfpenny rate for mailing cards in the 1870s, the British Post Office was flooded with annual card mailings. Christmas cards in the United States were first produced for businesses to send to their customers as a form of advertising.

Christmas Island was named on December 25, 1643 by the British East India Company captain who arrived there on that Christmas. The island is a self-governing Territory of Australia located 1,466 miles northeast of Perth in the Indian Ocean. Postage stamps have been issued since 1958.

The first Christmas stamp was printed by the Canadian post office in 1898, but another national Christmas stamp wasn't produced until Austria issued two in 1937. The practice of regularly issuing Christmas stamps was begun in Australia and a few other countries in the 1950s. The United States began the practice in the 1960s, also issuing stamps commemorating Hanukkah, Eid and Kwanzaa.

The first Christmas Seal (which has no postage value) was issued in Denmark at the turn of the 20th century to raise money for tuberculosis. Christmas seals in the United States raise money for the American Lung Association. (Although tuberculosis is not common in the United States, drug-resistant strains have emerged. Tuberculosis remains one of the most common deadly infectious diseases in the world, with 1.7 million deaths in 2004.)

El Niño (Spanish for "the small boy", ie, the Christ child) was originally a term used by peoples of the west coast of South America to describe the warming ocean countercurrent which occurs annually during the Christmas season. But every 3 to 7 years the effect is abnormally strong and is associated with dramatic climactic effects all over the world, including drought in some areas, flooding in other areas and unusually warm or cold winter temperatures. The most severe El Niño on record was in 1982-1983, but the phenomenon has not been studied by scientists for much longer than fifty years.

St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals and founder of the Franciscan Order (clerics for the masses rather than for the aristocrats), is said to have been the first to depict a Nativity Scene (creche, crèche) in Greccio, Italy, around 1223 AD -- using life-size wooden figures of Mary, Joseph, Jesus and the shepherds. The word "creche" comes from the French word for "manger", which in turn comes from the Italian word "Greccio", the name of the town having the first nativity manger scene.

The Greek transliteration of the word Christ is Xristos, the first letter which is the Greek letter "chi". The shortening of Christmas to Xmas by educated persons who knew Greek has been common since the sixteenth century, with the "X" often symbolizing a cross. "Xmas" was an ecclesiastical abbreviation used by churchmen in tables & charts. More recently the use of "X" has been associated with irreverent commercialism, leading to the saying "Put the 'Christ' back into Xmas". The American profanity "Jesus H. Christ", may come from the second letter of "chi" ("Christos" for "Xristos"), and has been in the use in the United States at least since 1850.

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XI. CHRISTMAS AROUND THE WORLD

Christmas is called Noel in France, which is why "Joyeux Noel" is the season's greeting in French. The word "noel" may come from "les bonnes nouvelles", meaning "the good news" (gospel is Greek for "good news"). (The "First Noel" was the proclamation of the news of Christ's birth.) In France children put their shoes in front of the fireplace so Pere Noel (Father Christmas) can fill them with gifts. Adults exchange gifts on New Year's Day.

In Spain Navidad (Christmas) is a season that lasts nearly a month, beginning December 8th with the feast of the Immaculate Conception (the Virgin Mary is the patron saint of Spain) and ending January 6 with Epiphany. The season emphasizes religious rather than the secular traditions celebrated so much elsewhere. Much time is spent in church. Most homes have mangers. Festive aspects include special dances, bonfires and a Christmas dinner (featuring seafood). On Epiphany Eve children fill their shoes with grass, straw or grain for the camels of the Wise Men and place them on the doorstep. On the morning of Epiphany (Three Kings Day) the children find the gifts left by the Wise Men. The Wise Men play a role similar to Santa Claus -- they visit hospitals, appear in parades and children write them letters requesting special gifts. The Christmas lottery in Spain is the largest in the world. The winning numbers are sung by orphan schoolchildren on December 22. Another lottery, the Christ Child, is drawn on January 7th.

In Sweden the Christmas season begins with St. Lucia's Day on December 13. "Lucia" is Latin for "light", and the "festival of lights" probably has its roots in pagan solstice celebrations. Saint Lucia is said to be a third century Roman Christian woman who refused to marry a pagan nobleman. The nobleman reported her adherence to the illegal Christian faith to the authorities, who killed her in prison as a result of her intransigence. Swedish girls dress in bridal white to honor Saint Lucia. St. Lucy's Day is also observed in Finland & Italy (especially in Sicily).

Italy, like Spain, emphasizes Nativity scenes and religious aspects of the season in its Christmas observances. People fast and pray prior to Christmas dinner. Epiphany is similarly the day for gifts, but the gifts are left by an elderly woman (La Befana) who had intended to help the wise men find the young Jesus -- but had been busy cleaning. Children write letters to La Befana requesting toys. Dressed in black she flies on the broom she had been using for sweeping and slides down the chimney on Epiphany Eve to fill the good children's stockings with gifts and to leave a lump of coal in the stockings of bad children. A large Christmas tree is ceremoniously presented at the Vatican by the Pope, much the way the National Christmas tree presented by the American President.

In Russia Babouschka is the name of the elderly woman who failed to provide food & shelter to the Wise Men. She wanders searching for the Christ child, leaving gifts for children. Christmas dinner is a meatless meal eaten on January 6th (Christmas by the Julian calendar) following a period of fasting. In Ukraine the meatless Christmas dinner is served in twelve courses to honor the 12 apostles.

In Egypt Christians belonging to the Orthodox Coptic Church constitute about 7% of the population. Religious holidays are determined by the Coptic calendar, which puts Christmas at January 7th. Christmas is preceded by a 43-day Advent fasting period which prohibits eating between midnight and 3pm, and in which meals are vegetarian or fish. Advent ends at Midnight Mass at Christmas. A basilica is built on a cave in which the Holy Family were believed to have stayed upon fleeing Bethlehem.

The Armenian Orthodox Church (the world's oldest national church) not only refused to move the Nativity from January 6 to December 25, it continues to use the Julian calendar as the basis for determining religious holidays. Thus, Christmas in Armenia is celebrated on January 19th. Armenians fast on the week preceding Christmas, avoiding meat, eggs and dairy products. On Christmas Eve children climb to rooftops where they sing Christmas carols.

Bethlehem is five miles south of Jerusalem in the Israeli-held Palestinian West Bank. There an Eastern Orthodox Shrine, the Church of the Nativity, is built on the site where Jesus was reputedly born. A cave underneath the church (the "Grotto of the Nativity") has a large silver star on the floor marking the spot where Mary was said to have given birth. The Grotto is shared by the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Armenian Church, which celebrate the Nativity on December 24, January 7 and January 18, respectively. (Although the Eastern Church accepted December 25 as the date of the Nativity in the first millennium AD, it retained the Julian calendar for calculating religious holidays, which places the Nativity on January 7th by the Gregorian calendar.)

In Latin America Nativity scenes rather than Christmas trees are the decorative centerpiece of Navidad -- often containing elaborate ornaments, figurines and electric lights (although Christmas trees are popular in Argentina). In Chile Old Man Christmas climbs through open summer windows with his bag of toys. In Brazil Papai Noel arrives in a helicopter at a large soccer stadium in Rio wearing a fir-trimmed red suit. In Mexico children break cardboard or paper mache pinatas hung by rope to be rained-upon with candies & small toys. In Guatemala Midnight Mass is followed by a Christmas dinner featuring tamales, and the occasion is marked by firecrackers.

People in the British West Indies have a Christmas celebration called Jonkonna, which is a combination of English mumming and African traditions. The festival involves elaborate costumes, music, dancing and mumming.

Christmas in Australia & New Zealand is celebrated with beach parties & outdoor barbecues -- along with caroling and other religious observances. Christmas marks the beginning of summer holidays at the end of the school year, so students have an additional reason to celebrate. The Christmas tree in New Zealand is the Pohutukawa, which has brilliant red flowers prior to Christmas.

Christmas is a national secular holiday in India, where the Hindus & Muslims celebrate in the secular traditions. Poinsettias & tropical plants are used for decoration and mango & banana trees receive Christmas ornaments. Tribal Christians in the Northeast & West go to church & sing carols. In the South clay oil lamps are lit on roofs and the tops of walls in the evening.

The Philippines is the only Asian nation with a Christian majority. The five-pointed Star of Bethlehem (parol) is seen everywhere at Christmastime. At the San Fernando lantern festival some parols are so large they are transported on trucks. Philippinos follow the Hispanic tradition of pranks on Holy Innocents' Day and the Mexican tradition of Posados.

In most Middle Eastern countries signs of fellow Muslims celebrating Christmas are viewed with scorn, so forms of Christmas celebration are rarely found among the non-Christians. Christians from all over the world come to Israel & Palestine to visit the Church of the Nativity in the West Bank town of Bethlehem and other sacred sites of historical significance to Christians. The St. Nicholas festival is celebrated in Myra, Turkey.

The Ethiopian Orthodox Church follows the Coptic calendar in celebrating Christmas on January 7th and Epiphany twelve days later. About 40% of Ethiopians are Christian. Christmas is celebrated by playing genna (a game resembling hockey) rather than by exchanging gifts.

In Zimbabwe Kisimusi (Christmas) church services feature feasts & the singing of gospel songs. Fathers give gifts to wives & children, usually clothes & candy. Wearing new clothes to church on Christmas day is a common tradition among African Christians.

About one-tenth of the population of Vietnam is Roman Catholic. Catholic children enact Nativity scenes at Christmastime.

Christmas is increasingly celebrated in China, where coastal factories are the largest suppliers of Christmas paraphernalia to the American market. In China, the Communist Party does not regard Christmas as a religious threat because it is celebrated entirely as a fun occasion for exchanging gifts and for partying with family & friends -- against a backdrop of Christmas trees, greetings, and melodies. China is adopting Christmas in much the way it has adopted Western music, clothing and videos.

The Japanese traditionally celebrated oseibo, a gift-giving season in December, but the main holiday season is around the New Year. Although gifts were given to friends, coworkers and relatives, expensive gifts were given to bosses, seemingly as tribute. Less than 1% of Japanese are Christian, but many of the secular aspects of Christmas celebration have become increasingly popular, especially in cities. Images of Santa Claus & decorated Christmas trees have become very common, along with Western Christmas holiday music. Christmas gift-giving is less family-oriented and more romantic, like Valentine's Day (possibly related to the fact that younger people are quicker to adapt foreign customs as a fad).

Conveniently, December 25th was the date of the signing of the Constitution of the Republic of China in 1947, so December 25th is an official holiday in Taiwan -- which is celebrated like Christmas.

Hanukkah (Chanukah, the Festival of Lights) is not a major Jewish holiday like Passover (celebrating the Exodus) or Yom Kipper (celebrating God's forgiveness in the second Tablet of Commandments). In 167 BC the Jewish people were horribly oppressed by a descendent of a general of Alexander the Great. Observance of Jewish faith was punishable by death and Jews were forced to adopt Greek names & practice Greek culture. Although greatly outnumbered, the Jews rebelled (led by Judah Maccabee) and by 165 BC were able to capture Jerusalem. The Temple of Jerusalem (which had been defiled with the sacrifice of pigs on a pagan altar) was rededicated to Judaism. Although there was only had enough oil to burn for one day, their lamp miraculously burned for eight days. Hanukkah is celebrated for eight days conveniently close to the Christmas season -- involving exchanging of gifts, house decorations and family feasting. The exact dates are determined by the Hebrew calendar, so the first day of Hanukkah varies year-to-year on the Gregorian calendar -- ranging from November 25 to December 26. The most distinctive ceremony is the lighting of an additional candle on the menorah (candelabra) each evening of the holiday. Increasing numbers of municipal court cases have been fought over the right of Jewish organizations to place a menorah in public places alongside Christmas trees and other holiday displays. Less orthodox Jews have attempted to merge Christmas and Hanukkah into "Chrismuuka". (The pressures & temptations of Jews to celebrate Christmas might be reminiscent of the pressures & temptations of early Christians to celebrate Saturnalia.)

Eid (Eid Ul Fitr) is a time of feasting, celebration and gift-giving (to children or the needy) that is sometimes taken as an Islamic equivalent of Christmas. The date of the holiday, however, is not constant on the Gregorian calendar because it is celebrated on the first three days following the ninth Islamic month (ie, following Ramadan, when Muslims fast from dawn to dusk to honor the month in which the Koran was revealed). The Islamic calendar year consists of 12 lunar months and is therefore about 11 days shorter than the Gregorian calendar year. The holiday only begins when the crescent of the new moon of the tenth month is sighted -- and this can be a matter of regional difference or controversy among Muslims. (The crescent only became became a symbol of Islam with the founding of the Ottoman Empire and the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453. The crescent had appeared on the city's flag from before the time of Christ, but the symbol was adopted by the Ottoman's and subsequently by all Muslims.)

In the 1960s an activist California professor of Black Studies created the holiday of Kwanzaa in reaction against Christmas as an institution of commercialism & exploitation not relevant to African-Americans. The word "Kwanzaa" comes from a phrase meaning "first fruits" in Swahili, the most widely spoken African language. In the seven days from December 26th to January 1st the seven communitarian African values are strengthened & celebrated: Unity, Self-determination, Collective Work and Responsibility, Cooperative Economics, Purpose, Creativity and Faith.

Some non-religious people have attempted to combine conformity and rebellion by celebrating Isaac Newton's birthday -- Newtonmas (emphasizing apple decorations, particularly for people who have outdoor apple trees). Newton was born on December 25, 1642 according to the old Julian calendar, but by the Gregorian calendar (the one in current use) his birthday was January 4, 1643. Both calendar systems were in use during Newton's lifetime. As a birthday gift, Newton was made Master of the British Mint on December 25, 1699/January 4, 1700. (According to one legend Isaac's Anglican parents listed December 25th on the birth certificates of all their children as a protest against the anti-Christmas Cromwell government.) The selection of Sir Isaac Newton as an icon for atheism has a certain irony insofar as Newton read the Bible every day and wrote more about scripture than he did about science. Some secularists have suggested the word "Giftmas".

Other non-Christians who celebrate the Winter Solstice are Pagans -- including Wiccans (witches), Druids and followers of Norse traditions -- honor Solstice celebrations. (But the most important Pagan ceremony is the new year at Hallowe'en.) Some pagans protest that Christians have stolen their seasonal festivities.

(See also Christmas Greetings from Around the World.)

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XII. CHRISTMAS SPIRIT

Christmas as celebrated by Catholics and early Protestants a few hundred years ago was not the secular holiday we recognize today. It was a "Christes Maesee" (Old English for Christ's Mass) or Nativity service.

In 18th century England & America non-puritans who celebrated Christmas did so by churchgoing, holly in windows, caroling, mumming, some dancing, adult visiting and dinner parties featuring mince pie, fruitcake & other seasonal foods. Children and exchanging of gifts were not featured in Christmas celebration. Charles Dickens and the transformation of the Dutch Saint Nicholas into Santa Claus changed the spirit of Christmas.

Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in 1843. This popular book had an extremely powerful influence on undermining opposition to Christmas, especially among those influenced by Puritans in England and New England. Dickens used Scrooge to symbolize the idea that those who don't celebrate Christmas are uncharitable, twisted, mean-spirited and socially isolated. Dickens depicted Christmas as a one-day family event held in the home rather than a 12-day public holiday -- thus contributing to changing the way Christmas was celebrated. Central to the Dickens Christmas celebration was a lavish family dinner.

In 1957 Dr. Seuss reinforced the negative image of those who don't want to celebrate Christmas with his picture-book How the Grinch Stole Christmas. The Grinch -- a nasty mountain hermit -- steals Christmas paraphernalia and plans to destroy it. But his heart is touched by the sound of Christmas carols, and he becomes transformed (as happened to Scrooge).

The World War I Christmas Truce of 1914 has often been romanticized as an example of how Christmas love can triumph over the savagery & killing of war. But it is no exaggeration to say that the occasion of Christmas evoked shared sentiments, empathy and goodwill among the British & German troops who enjoyed the relief of fraternizing from the stress of shooting & dodging shells.

Gallop polls have shown that over 90% of Americans regard Christmas to be their favorite holiday. Many love the fun of giving and receiving presents. Christmas has become, above all, a celebration of family. For most, the feelings of sharing, togetherness and love experienced at Christmas-time is a special joy. But the expectations some family members project upon other members often have the character of "familial moral duty". The season thus frequently occasions reopening old hurts and conflicts. This forces many people to re-examine their lives, especially because Christmas is a period which interrupts routing daily living. Resolutions for the New Year are often the result.

Perhaps no modern institution apart from Christmas elicits such ritualistic behavior from so many people. And the pressures to conform to these rituals can be very great. When others are celebrating with friends & family, those without friends & family (especially due to death of a loved-one) can feel their loss intensified. But Christmas can also be a time of great social support. Popular magazines frequently report high suicide rates at Christmas, but scientific studies have consistently shown that suicide as a cause of death declines immediately prior-to and on Christmas day -- only becoming higher than normal on the days after Christmas [ARCHIVES OF GENERAL PSYCHIATRY 38(12):1377-1381 (1981) and AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRY 142(6):782 (1985)].

Many Christmas parties are held in the weeks of early December. Hard liquor sales are 30% greater in December than in September. Although toasting with alcoholic beverages is part of the holiday tradition, a large number of consecutive non-working days appeals to some people as a drinking opportunity. (There is not historical support for the claim that America may owe its independence to Christmas drinking because George Washington was able to cross the Delaware on Christmas of 1776 and catch the drunken German Hessian soldiers by surprise.)

The modern celebration of Christmas tends to emphasize commercial and other non-religious aspects of the holiday. The time to Christmas is measured by "shopping days" rather than "prayer days". For retailers, it is "the season to be jolly" (except when their expectations are too high). An estimated one-sixth of retail sales in the United States are Christmas purchases.

Gift-giving at Christmastime was rare in Europe or America prior to the 19th century. The first advertisements for Christmas gifts in the United States were primarily for children's books. In the 19th century gifts tended to be made by the giver and were practical (eg, mittens or food), but modern gifts tend to be more frivolous, fun or luxurious. Half of the year's sale of diamonds, furs and luxury watches happen in December.

The greatest shift from homemade to manufactured Christmas gifts in America occurred between 1880 and 1920, mostly as a result of the "industrial revolution" in manufactured goods. In 1880 retailers began wrapping Christmas presents in decorative paper to emphasize gift status, and this gimmick was very effective in boosting sales.

SCROOGE (Society to Curtail Ridiculous, Outrageous and Ostentatious Gift Exchanges) is attempting to reduce Christmas spending to less than 1% of income and to promote the giving of smoke alarms, first aid kits and other practical gifts. The Christmas Resistance Movement is dedicated to opposing the "holiday hysteria" of "compulsory consumption".

Many Christian groups now object to retailers who use the terms "Holidays" and "Holiday Season" rather than "Christmas" in their Christmas season advertising. In an ironical twist to the protest that a religious holiday is being commercialized, the American Family Association advocates a boycott of retailers who do not use the word "Christmas" in their seasonal advertising. American politicians who use the word "Holidays" where they could say "Christmas" have faced similar criticisms. Although the replacement of "Christmas Trees" with "Holiday Trees" is clearly a secularization, retailers and politicians have defended themselves by saying that they simply were seeking to use a generic term which encompasses Christmas, New Year's, Hanukkah and other seasonal celebrations.

In reaction to commercial advertising at Christmas a coalition of British religious denominations formed the Christian Advertising Network to increase church attendance. One advertisement showed the Three Wise Men along with the caption, "You're a virgin, you've just given birth, and now three kings have shown up -- find out the happy ending at a church near you."

Christmas.com claims to be the world's largest Christmas Internet portal. The site features its own "Christmas.com store" and other commercial links along with some links related to more secular aspects of Christmas culture. The christmas.org and christmas.net websites are strictly commercial with no obvious connection to Christmas.

Christmas shopping is increasingly procrastinated. Since 1990 the busiest shopping day of the year has shifted from the day after Thanksgiving to the Saturday before Christmas. The average American adult with a credit card adds about $1,000 in debt at Christmas-time ($2,000 per 2-parent family). Holiday sales in the week prior to Christmas increased from 24% in 1999 to 34% in 2001. A 2002 American Express survey found that 22% do not complete their shopping until Christmas Eve. The gift-certificate industry has grown 15-20% per year, increasing the number of post-Christmas shoppers with vacation time who are able to benefit from the price markdowns.

Some people restrict their Christmas gift-giving to children, who are usually the most enthusiastic and uncomplicated gift-recipients. Gift-giving can be a way of expressing love, gratitude or of having fun, but it can also create feelings of obligation -- often with no such intention on the part of the giver. Sometimes there is an intention to create obligation, however, because some people give in order to motivate, manipulate, "suck-up" or otherwise have influence on others.

Deciding who amongst cousins, in-laws, friends, co-workers and other associates to give a gift, the expense of the gift and the appropriateness of the gift can be a daunting task. Knowing how to graciously receive an inappropriate gift can be as worrisome as deciding what to give. Young relatives can be given the uncomplicated (and invariably welcome) gift of money.

Workplaces often attempt to adopt formalized rituals to make the process of gift-giving simpler and less burdensome. Giving a gift to a randomly-selected person makes the process more of a task and less of an expression of feeling -- the cost of simplification.

Even in otherwise egalitarian families with two married, opposite-sex, working adults the chores of shopping and gift-selection still usually falls on the woman (who usually has more willingness to do the task). With the increasing trend toward single adult or unmarried adult households, there is an increasing tendency to pare-down the number of gift recipients.

Greater social diversity, reduced pressure to conform to out-dated norms and more open expression of individual preferences increasingly relieves people of unwanted & unnecessary duties that might be associated with Christmas. Increasingly there is open communication & negotiation concerning how to handle expectations of the season -- when this does not undermine the fun that can be experienced from the element of surprise. The sending & receiving of cards (and e-mails) remains a less stressful and more popular means of keeping in touch with a network of friends, relatives and associates -- although it can be more superficial, mechanical and be done out of nothing more than reciprocity.

In 1984 the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 (Lynch v Donnelly) that a city-owned Christmas display including a Christian nativity scene was not a violation of separation of Church & State as required by the First Amendment of the Constitution ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..."). The court ruled that the symbols served a secular purpose by depicting the historical origins of Christmas. In 1999 a U.S. District Court dismissed a suit by a Jewish lawyer claiming that observance of Christmas as a holiday by the federal government violates the First Amendment. The ruling was based on grounds that "the Christian holiday has become largely secularized."

A Christian legal group called the Alliance Defense Fund has a large number of cooperating attorneys who have volunteered to handle complaints about "improper attempts to censor the celebration of Christmas in schools and on public property." The American Civil Liberties Union has appeared to some people to be on different sides of the issue, in some cases fighting displays with religious themes on public property and on other occasions defending the "right of religious free speech". The ACLU has taken the position that schools may celebrate secular aspects of Christmas and "objectively teach about their religious aspects", but not observe them as religious events.

Growing numbers of non-Christian immigrants exposed to Christmas traditions find it easier to adapt when the religious aspects of Christmas are de-emphasized. As all elements of society become increasingly politicized -- with particular emphasis on acknowledgement of ethnic diversity -- it seems probable that the non-religious aspects of Christmas will predominate and that the holiday will become increasingly standardized and internationalized.

well people please do not send me happy Holloween comments!!!

i do not celebrate the dead!!! God forbid...just cause my nick name is boo
does not give you the right to send holloween comments


CHECK THIS OUT...


history of halloween History of Halloween, like any other festival's history is inspired through traditions that have transpired through ages from one generation to another. We follow them mostly as did our dads and grandpas. And as this process goes on, much of their originality get distorted with newer additions and alterations. It happens so gradually, spanning over so many ages, that we hardly come to know about these distortions. At one point of time it leaves us puzzled, with its multicolored faces. Digging into its history helps sieve out the facts from the fantasies which caught us unaware. Yet, doubts still lurk deep in our soul, especially when the reality differs from what has taken a deep seated root into our beliefs. The history of Halloween Day, as culled from the net, is being depicted here in this light. This is to help out those who are interested in washing off the superficial hues to reach the core and know things as they truly are. 'Trick or treat' may be an innocent fun to relish on the Halloween Day. But just think about a bunch of frightening fantasies and the scary stories featuring ghosts, witches, monsters, evils, elves and animal sacrifices associated with it. They are no more innocent. Are these stories a myth or there is a blend of some reality? Come and plunge into the halloween history to unfurl yourself the age-old veil of mysticism draped around it.
halloween history

bobbingBehind the name... Halloween, or the Hallow E'en as they call it in Ireland , means All Hallows Eve, or the night before the 'All Hallows', also called 'All Hallowmas', or 'All Saints', or 'All Souls' Day, observed on November 1. In old English the word 'Hallow' meant 'sanctify'. Roman Catholics, Episcopalians and Lutherians used to observe All Hallows Day to honor all Saints in heaven, known or unknown. They used to consider it with all solemnity as one of the most significant observances of the Church year. And Catholics, all and sundry, was obliged to attend Mass. The Romans observed the holiday of Feralia, intended to give rest and peace to the departed. Participants made sacrifices in honor of the dead, offered up prayers for them, and made oblations to them. The festival was celebrated on February 21, the end of the Roman year. In the 7th century, Pope Boniface IV introduced All Saints' Day to replace the pagan festival of the dead. It was observed on May 13. Later, Gregory III changed the date to November 1. The Greek Orthodox Church observes it on the first Sunday after Pentecost. Despite this connection with the Roman Church, the American version of Halloween Day celebration owes its origin to the ancient (pre-Christian) Druidic fire festival called "Samhain", celebrated by the Celts in Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Samhain is pronounced "sow-in", with "sow" rhyming with cow. In Ireland the festival was known as Samhein, or La Samon, the Feast of the Sun. In Scotland, the celebration was known as Hallowe'en. In Welsh it's Nos Galen-gaeof (that is, the Night of the Winter Calends. According to the Irish English dictionary published by the Irish Texts Society: "Samhain, All Hallowtide, the feast of the dead in Pagan and Christian times, signalizing the close of harvest and the initiation of the winter season, lasting till May, during which troops (esp. the Fiann) were quartered. Faeries were imagined as particularly active at this season. From it the half year is reckoned. also called Feile Moingfinne (Snow Goddess).(1) The Scottish Gaelis Dictionary defines it as "Hallowtide. The Feast of All Soula. Sam + Fuin = end of summer."(2) Contrary to the information published by many organizations, there is no archaeological or literary evidence to indicate that Samhain was a deity. The Celtic Gods of the dead were Gwynn ap Nudd for the British, and Arawn for the Welsh. The Irish did not have a "lord of death" as such. Thus most of the customs connected with the Day are remnants of the ancient religious beliefs and rituals, first of the Druids and then transcended amongst the Roman Christians

To all my friends and fans who would Love to buy
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1-Old Strictly jaz unit mixes..only volume 2..3..4..5,
2 -New Strictly jaz unit series...part 1&2
3-Deeper then Deep
4-massive Heart Attack
5-Playin the music
6-Musical Growth
7-Inside your soul
8-deep Groove
9-A Trip back to the 90's
10-Disco for the heads
11-Disco is my roots
12-Back to the 70's



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