#192 Signs of the Season

Many years ago there was a land called Europe. Okay it wasn’t called Europe back then, but bear with me. Anyhow, back in ancient Europe the pagans and druids would get together at certain times of the year to have festivals. Theirs was a life heavily influenced by the weather and such and so in spring they danced around the maypole and colored eggs and trapped bunnies for purposes of planting and fertility. Sound familiar? In the summer, around the summer solstice, they had a big blow-out trade festival. In the fall, they did the witch and goblin and harvest thing. Around the winter solstice, as the sun reached its lowest point in the northern European skies and the days got the shortest, and knowing that the shortest day meant that the sun was turning a corner cause the runners had come down from Stonehenge, they celebrated a festival of the new year. The sun is back! The sun is back! Everybody went out, cut down a tree, and decorated it with totems, heirlooms, and other signs of good luck, well-wishing, and mystical gobbledygook. They also celebrated the Old Year with the symbol of the Old Man Winter, with long hair and flowing white beard, who was dressed in fleece-lined clothing and big black boots and other winter paraphernalia, including, I’m pretty sure, a little bottle of brown liquid with ancient arcane runes that spelled out: “The pause that refreshes.”
All was the same in paganland for many centuries. Then the Christian movement arrived from the south and went about pacifying the northern heathens at the point of a Roman sword. They found these festivals already in place and in the spirit of “if you can’t beat em totally senseless then at least join em in a party,” gradually shifted the Christian celebratory calendar to make Christmas coincide with the winter solstice and Easter to coincide with the spring equinox. Halloween? How about if we put All Saints Day the morning after? Fair enough. The people were celebrating anyway, why not join the fun, marry into their families, and generally spread your word from every direction.
Fast-forward to the mid-twentieth century. My hometown, very Christian, teaches the tale of the nativity in school every Christmas. My Jewish friend is not included but hey, at least its not as bad as Easter. He’s like the only Jew anyone has ever met and in the spring is almost always held accountable on the playground for the death of Jesus. “Christ killer!” the bullies would shout out and then hang him from the coathooks in the hall in a vaguely cross-shaped orientation.
But at Christmastime, back in my church, which is arch-protestant, the pastor is actually none too happy that the word mass appears in the word Christmas as masses are what Catholics do and, he assures us ponderously, Catholics are the spawn of the devil. Meanwhile, the local all Christian school board is complaining to the teachers that Santa Claus is a pagan symbol and a symbol of the commercialization of Christmas and needs to be removed from the schoolroom lest the true Christian meaning of Christmas be diluted. A new milestone in America is passed. Complaining about symbols enters the holiday tradition. To be continued.
America, ya gotta love it.