Feeling Festive?
It’s November, the shops have got their Christmas displays out and there will be guaranteed to be someone making a statement about how it is too early for such things and how there should be a law which prohibits any mention of Christmas outside of December. It happens every year, it’s not very in the spirit, but what is the real meaning of Christmas these days? When I grew up this is how it went. I was taught that’s it the birth of Jesus Christ our apparent saviour, who was born in a barn to a virgin called Mary, who’s husband Joseph accepted this as a miracle. If Mary lived in this day and age and told Joseph why she was pregnant, he may well have beaten Mary to find out who had shagged her and may have tried to “solve” the pregnancy by failing to prevent her from falling down, then back up some stairs. Then again the Joseph of now might just walk off, or he may even have compassion and forgiveness and be prepared to stand by Mary? Even though the story is easily unbelievable, if we don’t look cynically at it, we see Joseph accepting what his wife tells him and is happy about it, we see kindness in the form of being given somewhere, though the inn-keepers could have given up their room to a pregnant woman, that aside there’s more kindness in the form of the gifts from the three wise men.
Move on several years, as I got older we learn there are various forms of Christianity some more strict than other. There were also many other religions in the world, and that some people chose to have no religion at all. I see that there are common themes running through the religions yet there are minorities from all of these religions will aggressively argue that their one is “correct” and all others are “wrong”, even some of those who choose not to believe in a religion are just as capable of behaving like this. Out of all this this I discovered that pre-Christian Germanic, Roman, and Celtic people celebrated the Winter Solstice. As Christianity was becoming more popular, they introduced their celebration which is widely believed to integrate into the existing solstice celebrations and drive a shift towards their own celebration. This was one of the more amiable interpretations, in some cases the use of phrases like “The Christians stole Yule” and implying that the aim was to wipe out the existing Pagan religion and replace it with their own. I don’t know specifically how it was implemented because I wasn’t there, and I bet you weren’t either. Though I can accept that Christmas was merged into the existing festivals in an underhand way of promoting Christianity. What is interesting however, is that the winter solstice itself survived as a festival, even though it’s greatly overshadowed, many of its ancient traditions have also survived through the ages.
From nobeliefs.com
The use of holly, mistletoe, yule logs, wassail bowls, and decorating a tree derived from early pagan customs. Many European countries still call this celebration “Yule-tide” meaning “wheel time,” the cycles of time. None of these derive from Christian origin.
That’s where Christmas and some of the traditions are rooted. To be honest I’m not always entirely sure how I should feel about Christmas. It would be easy to get annoyed to hear the hypocrisy of Christians complaining about how Christmas has become commercialised and that’s not what it’s about, especially since you could ask what right do they have to do this, since they went and tried to change an existing festival for their own means. It was however at least 1500 years ago and people now are not responsible for the actions of their ancestors.
In the eyes of many there is only one winter festival for them, for the vast majority it’s Christmas. Is Christian element of Christmas being reduced down to a fairytale and some decorative imagery? How many people believe in the religious aspect of Christmas? For the past few years, I’ve constantly heard people (of no specific religion) that Christmas is too commercial. I’d like to know what they’re doing to change it, because I don’t see them make any effort to do so. Maybe it’s because they’d be labeled killjoys for doing so? Maybe they are seeing what many can’t, that it’s become so commercial because the meaning of Christmas has become diluted over the years, and the religious aspect no longer taken as seriously?
Here’s my idea, why not have one day of the year where the world can shut down for a day, and people are nice to each other, give gifts if they want, and use it to serve as a reminder than the world is a horrible place sometimes, but it’s families, friends working together that make it a much better place, I’d like to see it incorporate every single person performing least one random act of kindness, whether it is helping that pensioner across the road, giving stuff to a charity shop, buying a Big Issue or giving it a few more days before throwing a brick through some poor bugger’s window.
Kids should be taught the real origins of Christmas. Kids love nativity, the rest of us are probably bored to tears by it. I know was bored of it by the time I was seven or eight. They should be taught about all the winter festivals, and they should also learn that Christianity was imposed on the winter festivals but it picked up a lot of traditions from them on the way. Also make sure to teach them carols, they’re fun! Everyone one loves ‘Jingle Bells’ and ‘Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer’, they tell you they don’t then they’re lying. These songs are bright and cheery and reflect that this time of year should be happy. It is also a time for embracing tolerance so no matter what religion people are they should be able to be happy, tolerant, kind and try to be less selfish. In an ideal world it would be a non-religious festival, that’s not going to change, however what’s to stop it evolving into something bigger and better? Creationists I presume, but the rest of us? We’ve better things to do than have petty beefs, let’s give an additional meaning to the winter festivals: “Look after each other and don’t be a cunt.” It’s not the catchiest, but at least it’s heartfelt and honest.
Given all the recent hoo-haa over Armistice Day, I’m wondering how many “if you don’t like Christmas, go back to yer own country” comments we see springing up between now and Christmas, and how many of these people will ever realise the person they’re telling to go home is already home because this is their country too? If you want Christmas to be religious, make it so, if you want it to be something else, go for it. All I ask is that people are united in looking out for others over the festive period and where possible to exercise a little more kindness.
