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Christmas, Odin, and Me
Dec. 9th, 2007 04:17 pm(this one's re-posted from my old blog, so you might have already read it. ;) )
I wrote this as a response to an article that Ron posted on my message board, called Santa, Yule, and Me from the Wittenburg Door, which I've never really visited and am not completely sure that I want to (particularly after seeing one article call Eve a "bitch". For what, having an opinion? Uneducated jerk.)
At any rate, I adapted my response to the original article and am posting it here. I thought that it would be a good way to share some of the thoughts that I've had lately on Christmas (and why I've been more in the "holiday spirit" than I have been in years.)
To be honest, this is as much a letter to my old self as it is a response to someone else's thoughts.
Christmas is a pagan holiday with a Christian name.
It isn't Jesus' birthday. It may be when you CELEBRATE his birthday, but it isn't the day that he was born, and we all know that. Why get up in arms about it? It isn't when his parents went to a manger because there was no room in an inn, and btw, when's the last time you saw snow in a desert town? You don't own the holiday. Someone with a religion that shared the same name as yours, borrowed it, and revamped it, a long time ago, for whatever reasons they might have had for doing so, whether they were benign or malevolent.
That was then, and this is now. And I wonder how much it really matters anymore.
Christmas is a Pagan holiday with a Christian name. There is no putting the "Christ" back into Christmas... Christ wasn't in the holiday in the first place. December 25th was a pagan holiday called Saturnalia, a festival to brighten up cold days in the mid-winter, to think about the spring that would come within just a few months. It was a holiday that everyone looked forward to in Rome, when lots of people gave each other gifts, drank a lot, and had lots of sex. And the early Church went, "Yeah... we've got to give them something else to do. This is tearing them, and us, apart." So it adapted the holiday, and boom. You've got Christmas.
Okay, so there may have been more to it than that. But really, is it that deep?
We're more educated now than we were when we were peasants under the thumb of a hierarchical church-system that was responsible for things like, I dunno, the Inquisition. We don't feed human sacrifices to mother Rome anymore. And we've learned to be civilized and share.
We KNOW that Christmas is a Pagan holiday with a Christian name. Or, at least, it was.
Let's be real. Jesus was born at some point, right? And the Pagans had a holiday on December 25th that Jesus' people thought was a problem, so they stole it. And then the Pagans came up with Santa Clause and stole it BACK. Are we going to keep up this family feud forever?
Because at this point, it doesn't particularly matter how Christmas BEGAN. It's NOT a Pagan OR a Christian holiday anymore. It's the world's holiday.
No matter where the traditions come from, can anyone argue with traditions like loving, giving, and redeeming? And can anyone argue that they are part of the Christian tradition in itself? AND of a variety of PAGAN traditions?
Uh oh, look out kids, we just MIGHT have something in common. *gasp*
We could get mad at the Pagans for trying to put the Pagan BACK into Christmas. We could get mad at the Christians for stealing it in the first place. OR, we could COME TOGETHER in our SIMILARITIES instead of using our DIFFERENCES as an excuse to be ticked off at one another. Christmas is a holiday that is made up of the blending of SEVERAL cultures. It's a holiday of compromise and peace. Some folks have a problem with that. Okay, I get that... that's your perogative.
The answer is NOT to get grabby with Christmas. I think that that kinda misses the point.
So, what is the point? What IS Christmas about?
Well, you watch all the Christmas movies and the Christmas specials. It's about celebrating giving, grace, belief, redemption, and forgiveness. For some people, it's about Jesus. Okay, and? Let it be about Jesus for them. For other people, it's about Odin, or Yule, or celebrating the New Year. Okay, and? Is that hurting anyone? Then let it be about those things for them. For some, it's about going out to a Chinese restaurant and seeing friends they haven't seen in years, celebrating their OWN culture, which has nothing to do with Christ. And? We're gathering. We're sharing. We're loving. We're giving.
And perhaps, that's the essence Christmas.
What if it doesn't matter what name you give to it? What if it doesn't matter if you call it "Yule" or "X-mas" or "National Jews-go-to-the-movies Day"? Because it seems to me that no matter where we come from, no matter what we believe, we are STILL celebrating the SAME THINGS.
Why don't we be about what we have in common? No one "owns" Christmas. It belongs to neither the Christians nor the Pagans. Why not be, in the spirit of Christmas, about sharing a holiday with the whole world?
Why does it need to be about complaining about Santa Clause?
He's the archetype of Christmas, the modern embodiment of giving, grace, and redemption. If you want to call him St. Nick or Papa-Odin, what matters is what the archetype means to YOU. There's nothing inherently evil about an archetype. An archetype is all about what it makes YOU think and feel. And if the feeling behind that one is love and peace and acceptance and giving, and if you feel that you religion (be it Christianity or Islam or Judaism or a Pagan religion) is about peace and love and acceptance and giving... then Santa is as much a symbol of your religion as he is of any other.
Love, peace, kindness, giving, redemption.
They belong to everyone, not just one particular religion. And if you feel that they STARTED in your religion? Okay, I can accept that. But the problem is, so do several other people.
You get to share. Merry Christmas.
And for Goddess' sake, quit finding excuses to be pissed off at Pagans. Geez, let it go.
Love,
Crystal
I wrote this as a response to an article that Ron posted on my message board, called Santa, Yule, and Me from the Wittenburg Door, which I've never really visited and am not completely sure that I want to (particularly after seeing one article call Eve a "bitch". For what, having an opinion? Uneducated jerk.)
At any rate, I adapted my response to the original article and am posting it here. I thought that it would be a good way to share some of the thoughts that I've had lately on Christmas (and why I've been more in the "holiday spirit" than I have been in years.)
To be honest, this is as much a letter to my old self as it is a response to someone else's thoughts.
Christmas is a pagan holiday with a Christian name.
It isn't Jesus' birthday. It may be when you CELEBRATE his birthday, but it isn't the day that he was born, and we all know that. Why get up in arms about it? It isn't when his parents went to a manger because there was no room in an inn, and btw, when's the last time you saw snow in a desert town? You don't own the holiday. Someone with a religion that shared the same name as yours, borrowed it, and revamped it, a long time ago, for whatever reasons they might have had for doing so, whether they were benign or malevolent.
That was then, and this is now. And I wonder how much it really matters anymore.
Christmas is a Pagan holiday with a Christian name. There is no putting the "Christ" back into Christmas... Christ wasn't in the holiday in the first place. December 25th was a pagan holiday called Saturnalia, a festival to brighten up cold days in the mid-winter, to think about the spring that would come within just a few months. It was a holiday that everyone looked forward to in Rome, when lots of people gave each other gifts, drank a lot, and had lots of sex. And the early Church went, "Yeah... we've got to give them something else to do. This is tearing them, and us, apart." So it adapted the holiday, and boom. You've got Christmas.
Okay, so there may have been more to it than that. But really, is it that deep?
We're more educated now than we were when we were peasants under the thumb of a hierarchical church-system that was responsible for things like, I dunno, the Inquisition. We don't feed human sacrifices to mother Rome anymore. And we've learned to be civilized and share.
We KNOW that Christmas is a Pagan holiday with a Christian name. Or, at least, it was.
Let's be real. Jesus was born at some point, right? And the Pagans had a holiday on December 25th that Jesus' people thought was a problem, so they stole it. And then the Pagans came up with Santa Clause and stole it BACK. Are we going to keep up this family feud forever?
Because at this point, it doesn't particularly matter how Christmas BEGAN. It's NOT a Pagan OR a Christian holiday anymore. It's the world's holiday.
No matter where the traditions come from, can anyone argue with traditions like loving, giving, and redeeming? And can anyone argue that they are part of the Christian tradition in itself? AND of a variety of PAGAN traditions?
Uh oh, look out kids, we just MIGHT have something in common. *gasp*
We could get mad at the Pagans for trying to put the Pagan BACK into Christmas. We could get mad at the Christians for stealing it in the first place. OR, we could COME TOGETHER in our SIMILARITIES instead of using our DIFFERENCES as an excuse to be ticked off at one another. Christmas is a holiday that is made up of the blending of SEVERAL cultures. It's a holiday of compromise and peace. Some folks have a problem with that. Okay, I get that... that's your perogative.
The answer is NOT to get grabby with Christmas. I think that that kinda misses the point.
So, what is the point? What IS Christmas about?
Well, you watch all the Christmas movies and the Christmas specials. It's about celebrating giving, grace, belief, redemption, and forgiveness. For some people, it's about Jesus. Okay, and? Let it be about Jesus for them. For other people, it's about Odin, or Yule, or celebrating the New Year. Okay, and? Is that hurting anyone? Then let it be about those things for them. For some, it's about going out to a Chinese restaurant and seeing friends they haven't seen in years, celebrating their OWN culture, which has nothing to do with Christ. And? We're gathering. We're sharing. We're loving. We're giving.
And perhaps, that's the essence Christmas.
What if it doesn't matter what name you give to it? What if it doesn't matter if you call it "Yule" or "X-mas" or "National Jews-go-to-the-movies Day"? Because it seems to me that no matter where we come from, no matter what we believe, we are STILL celebrating the SAME THINGS.
Why don't we be about what we have in common? No one "owns" Christmas. It belongs to neither the Christians nor the Pagans. Why not be, in the spirit of Christmas, about sharing a holiday with the whole world?
Why does it need to be about complaining about Santa Clause?
He's the archetype of Christmas, the modern embodiment of giving, grace, and redemption. If you want to call him St. Nick or Papa-Odin, what matters is what the archetype means to YOU. There's nothing inherently evil about an archetype. An archetype is all about what it makes YOU think and feel. And if the feeling behind that one is love and peace and acceptance and giving, and if you feel that you religion (be it Christianity or Islam or Judaism or a Pagan religion) is about peace and love and acceptance and giving... then Santa is as much a symbol of your religion as he is of any other.
Love, peace, kindness, giving, redemption.
They belong to everyone, not just one particular religion. And if you feel that they STARTED in your religion? Okay, I can accept that. But the problem is, so do several other people.
You get to share. Merry Christmas.
And for Goddess' sake, quit finding excuses to be pissed off at Pagans. Geez, let it go.
Love,
Crystal
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