"
This article was first
printed at Zenzibar on December 17, 2000.
Many of our modern Christmas
traditions began hundreds of years before Christ was born. Some of these
traditions date back more than 4000 years. The addition of Christ to the
celebration of the winter solstice did not occur ..."
This article was first
printed at Zenzibar on December 17, 2000.
Many of our modern Christmas
traditions began hundreds of years before Christ was born. Some of these
traditions date back more than 4000 years. The addition of Christ to the
celebration of the winter solstice did not occur until 300 years after Christ
died and as late as 1800, some devout Christian sects, like the Puritans,
forbade their members from celebrating Christmas because it was considered a
pagan holiday. So what is the history behind these traditions?
The Christmas tree is derived
from several solstice traditions. The Romans decked their halls with garlands of
laurel and placed candles in live trees to decorate for the celebration of
Saturnalia. In Scandinavia, they hung apples from evergreen trees at the winder
solstice to remind themselves that spring and summer will come again. The
evergreen tree was the special plant of their sun god, Baldor. The practice of
exchanging gifts at a winter celebration is also pre-Christian and is from the
Roman Saturnalia. They would exchange good-luck gifts called Stenae (lucky
fruits). They also would have a big feast just like we do today.
Mistletoe is from an ancient
Druid custom at the winter solstice. Mistletoe was considered a divine plant and
it symbolized love and peace. The tradition of kissing under the mistletoe is
Druid in origin. The Scandinavian solstice traditions had a lot of influences on
our celebration besides the hanging of ornaments on evergreen trees. Their
ancient festival was called Yuletide and celebrated the return of the sun. One
of their traditions was the Yule log. The log was the center of the trunk of a
tree that was dragged to a large fireplace where it was supposed to burn for
twelve days. From this comes the twelve days of Christmas. Even the date of
Christmas, December 25, was borrowed from another religion. At the time
Christmas was created in AD 320, Mithraism was very popular. The early Christian
church had gotten tired of their futile efforts to stop people celebrating the
solstice and the birthday of Mithras, the Persian sun god. Mithras’ birthday was
December 25...
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This article was first
printed at Zenzibar on December 17, 2000.
Mystery of the Dying God
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"Angels unable to fly" say scientists
