A Seasonal Thought

Well, it's that time of year again - our second-most favorite (Thanksgiving being the first). I love the history of Christmas. It's a very ancient holiday that has undergone dozens of iterations over the millennia. All of them are very interesting and worth keeping in mind.

One of the oldest European versions of this holiday is the Teutonic Yuletide. This was the time of a mythic wild hunt organized by Wodin and his wolves and was the last hunt before full winter set in. A good hunt meant the difference between survival and certain death, so one imagines that it was a rather important holiday.

For the extent of the holiday, folks would take a large log that would burn for a good amount of time. They would coat it with various minerals so that when it burned, it would give off colors for at least a couple of days. This was the Yule log of song and story. It provided heat and cooked the hunting trophies, and was the last big blowout of the season before settling in for the brutal cold.

Winter was something to be feared. Vegetation died, game disappeared and the old folks had a better than equal chance of not seeing spring. It was also marked by the shortest day of the year, in the northern hemisphere. For people that didn't know about Earth's axial tilt, it was mystifying.

Thus was born various celebrations to "resurrect" the Sun, as it appeared to die (stop moving) for three days between the 21st and 24th of December. Naturally, when it started its northward movement again, it was a time of celebration. At the darkest time of the year, folks created celebrations of light to encourage the Sun to return. Bonfires, candles and all manner of lamps were lit in offering to the Sun gods. We still do this with some neighborgoods in the US going to obscene and absurd lengths to display lights, though I've always been partial to the "luminarias" - candles placed in bads of sand.

Ancient Rome took the holiday to excessive lengths, as they were prone to do. They called it Saturnalia, which was a seven day holiday of complete surrender to the party spirit. What with the Sun dying, the world may end, so why not go out with a good buzz on?

The festival featured huge public banquets and gift-giving. Frequently, master and servant would reverse roles. Folks would gamble, drink and party for a week, which probably would do the world a great deal of good about now.

In the time of Constantine, the holiday was Christianized to celebrate the Birth of the Son(Sun). Lights (German) and feasting (Roman) were combined with the tradition of gift-giving, which now was in the tradition of the Three Wise Men, rather than offerings.

In the English language, we adopted the word "tide" as a verb to wish someone good things. We bring tidings of joy. In the past few decades, the holiday has become almost entirely commercialized, so that retailers have come to depend on Christmas gift-giving to fund their entire year. In the US, folks buy more stuff for themselves than anyone else. Lighted displays have become contests and political statements. The Pope wrings his hands over the true meaning of Christmas, though methinks he has forgotten, too. Everyone wants their personal version of the holiday recognized by public displays. And not many people now worry about dying before spring.

All of this precedes the global New Year celebration, which is of course, yet another Roman/Christian creation. We celebrate it on January 1st thanks to Pope Gregpry XIII and his court astrologers. This year alone in Indonesia, we've already celebrated the Islamic, Hindu and Buddhist new years, so the event is rather arbitrary, though msot folks observe the Gregorian calendar on this occasion. January is named after the Roman god Janus, who looks backward and forward, stands at the threshold both inside and outside, at the same time. We raise our glasses to Auld Lang Syne, even though most folks couldn't tell you what that means (old long time). It's an ode to those who have been lost over the past year. Nice cheery stuff.

Regardless of when, how or what you celebrate, we here on the Far Side wish you and yours the very best of the Season and a happy and prosperous New Year. Never lose the traditions. They bind us to the past and guide us to the future.

Yule Love Saturnalia

Welcome to the Golden Age, or at least the celebration of it, called Saturnalia.  According to Roman myth, and the much older traditions on which it was based, Saturn ruled over a period when humans lived in eternal bliss, food literally dripped off the trees and things were generally pretty darned good.

From the viewpoint of the Northern Hemisphere, the Sun reaches its lowest point in the southern sky and on 21 December.  At this point, winter begins and the Sun appears to "die" for three days, as it ceases to move in any direction north or south relative to the horizon.

On 25 December, the Sun is "reborn," as it begins its months-long trip northward again, culminating in the Summer Solstice on 21 July.  As the Sun "dies," the original King of the Gods - Saturn - once again takes control of the Heavens and for a brief time, the Golden Age returns.

Saturnalia was marked by the suspension of social norms.  Wild parties ensued, with people exchanging gifts, slaves being treated like house guests, and lavish feasts that sought to recreate the Golden Age of plenty.  People disguised as Cronus/Saturn, with great white beards, would tote sacks of gifts around, tossing goodies to random children as a good luck token, since any one of the children could be the young New Year in disguise.  Special lamps were lit all night to provide the light that the dying Sun could not.

As the Roman empires spread into northern Europe, aspects of the Germanic winter festival, called Yuletide, were added to Saturnalia.  Evergreen trees symbolizing Eternal Life were cut down and set up in public areas, decorated with candles and glittery glass objects to catch and reflect the light.  Groups of people would wander around singing traditional Yule songs.  Special Yule logs coated with cobalt, copper and other minerals were tossed on bonfires to add multi-colored flames to the festivities.  Feasts eventually centered around roasted boar, a favorite of the Germanic people.

The festivities ended on 25 December, with the birth of the Sun.  The 12 days of feasting and partying gave way to the somber reality of winter, as they retreated indoors for the next three months, until the resurrection of life in the spring.

Saturnalia would then give way to the Feast of Janus, the two-faced god of thresholds, who stood on the dividing line between inner and outer, past and future.  Old man Cronus would surrender to the infant Sun, now slowly rising again in the sky.  Darkness and death would eventually become light and life once again.

The festival was so wildly popular that the emperor Constantine could not stop it in favor of his new christian religion.  Instead, the birth of the Sun became the birth of the Son.  The plethora of Roman and Germanic gods were replaced with a single deity and a Christian veneer was cast over the proceedings.

Vestiges remained and proved hard to squelch.  Old man Cronus became Santa Claus, Yule songs were replaced with Christmas carols and the evergreen trees - symbols of Eternal Life - took on more symbolic roles.  The festival proved so popular and enduring that two thousand years later it has become a global event marked with gift-giving and sparkly decorations, and even here in the tropics and in the Southern Hemisphere, the imagery of snow cannot be extricated from the celebration.

The next time someone tells you that Christmas is a sober holiday celebrating the birth of the Son, you can say with certainty that it is actually synonymous with wild parties and extravagant feasts, and that the New Year celebration is the one that is supposed to be a sullen and somber reflection on the passing of time, things lost and things to come.

In the meantime, I'll have another mug of eggnog, hold the egg, and would you mind carving off another chunk of roast boar for me?