A very belated reply -- sorry about the delay.
On 29 Dec 2004, at 10:37, pinco wrote:
Jens Ropers ha scritto:
I.
Christmas is the holiday previously known as Yule or Yuletide. It was
a northern European seasonal festival since time immemorial. If (and
only if) you consider Yuletide to have been a religious holiday, it
was a NON-Christian religious holiday. But AFAIK Yuletide was a
seasonal festival in the first instance -- only possibly with
associated (non-Christian) religious connotations in the second
instance.
II.
Yuletide became known as Christmas thanks to the goody old
three-E-method (of latter-day Microsoft fame): Embrace, Extend,
Extinguish. The Christian church of the day was running a major
conversion effort. They quickly found they couldn't beat old and
cherished traditions such as Yuletide. So they accepted it as a
legitimate festival into the church calendar, they added Christian
symbolism and merged it with Christian ideology (most notably the
holiday was "calculated"/defined to match Jesus of Nazareth's birth),
and finally the entire festival got usurped and monopolized by
Christianity. (Yuletide symbols/traditions such as Christmas trees
and mistletoe still remain. Even Santa Claus is based on a Yuletide
figure, I hear.)
Hi,
I'm a little surprised, I knew that Christians moved the celebration
of Jesus' birthday from January 6th to December 25th after the
Constantine's edict by which the converted Emperor decided to unify
Sol Invictus and Mithraic Sun cults of the time. with the Jesus'
birthday.
The fact that Christmas coincides with Yuletide is due
to the fact
that all over the world there were and still are Sun's rebirth
(solstice) celebrations.
I guess you could also see it that way -- interpretations differ
somewhat. However, regardless of whose Yuletide celebration Christendom
adoped, it's pretty clear that "Christmas" was not originally a
Christian celebration, and early Christians put more emphasis on Easter
anyway (though even Christian Easter vs. various other pagan spring
celebrations might be another can of worms).
There is lots of info on the origins of Christmas out there on the web,
some of it conflicting. Google for Christmas and origins (or Yuletide
or Pagan or similar). These guys:
http://www.holidayorigins.com/html/christmas.html for instance think it
was the Romans that gave the Christian church Christmas, and that this
would have predated the compromise with/assimilation of pagan Yule.
This might match the info you quoted above. Again, the one thing where
most halfway thorough sources seem to agree is that the origins of
Christmas as we know it are not really Christian.
Am I wrong?
Even about Santa Claus I knew a different story (e.g.:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11063b.htm) :(
In Germany, there are actually TWO "purveyors of gifts": Sankt Nikolaus
(aka Der Nikolaus) and Knecht Ruprecht (aka Der Weihnachtsmann). The
German "Nikolaustag" (St. Nicholas day) is December 6th, and kids get
''smaller'' gifts there. Christmas proper is celebrated on Christmas'
Eve in Germany and that's where people get the big gifts. There
definitely is some overlap between both customs and they probably more
or less got back to a single origin. US Christmas gift giving custom
actually is similar to Germans gift giving customs on "Nikolaustag",
but really as far as Germans are concerned, Knecht Ruprecht/Der
Weihnachtsmann is Santa Claus and der Nikolaus is another person.
Can someone else give me more information?
Thanks and happy new year to all people following the gregorian
calendar,
Nino
PS I, an atheist (not a pagan), believe that Christmas remains a
Christian celebration coinciding with a solstice.
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