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.
Am I wrong?
Even about Santa Claus I knew a different story (e.g.: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11063b.htm) :(
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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