Hi Everyone,
This is my first Christmas on Steemit. So today I will focus on Christmas. Some of my readers will know that I live in Australia. Therefore, I will not experience a white Christmas this year. In fact, I will not even experience a cold Christmas. The weather, here in Brisbane, is about 32 Degrees Celsius. I don’t mind the hot weather but it is funny to see people sending each other Christmas cards with pictures of Snowmen and Santa Claus riding on a sleigh through the snow.
I could talk about the consumerism and materialism linked to Christmas. After all, it is the time of year people spend the most money. Some will regard Christmas expenditure as a welcome boost to the economy while others will consider it wasteful spending. Today I will not challenge the usefulness or the wastage that Christmas brings. Instead I will write about Christmas as a holiday. I will write about some of the origins of some of our Christmas traditions and how many pagan traditions are embed in our current Christmas traditions.
Before Christmas
Christmas beautifully coincidences with the winter festivals in the North Hemisphere. The shortest day of the year in the Northern hemisphere is either December 21 or 22. This is known as winter solstice. ‘Sol’ is the ancient Latin word for ‘Sun’, and ‘Stice’ means ‘standing still’.
Source: http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/everything-you-need-to-know-december-solstice
Before December 25 was claimed as the birth day of Jesus, it was recognised as winter solstice or the day the sun stands still. It signified the end of shortening days and the beginning of longer warmer days. Many ancient civilisations celebrated this day as the birth of the sun or sun god. The pre-Christian Romans celebrated Saturnalia between December 17 and 23 in honour of the god Saturn. Saturnalia was followed ‘Dies Natalis Solis Invicti’ (birthday of the unconquerable sun), which was celebrated on December 25. The ancient Egyptians also celebrated December 25 in honour of Ra and/or Horus the sun child of Isis and Osiris. The ancient Persians celebrated December 25 as the birth date of their sun god Mithra. There were many other ancient civilisations that celebrated this day or period such as the Aztecs, Nordics, and Greeks.
Statue of Liberty and Colossus of Rhodes
First Christmas
The first recorded celebration of Christmas on December 25 was not until 336, which happened during the reign Roman Emperor Constantine, the first Christian Roman Emperor. Several years later Pope Julius, declared December 25 the date that the birth of Jesus would be officially celebrated. Christmas eventually replaced the existing pagan holidays and festivals.
It can be argued that placing Christmas on December 25 was a strategy to eliminate the pagan religions and beliefs. It can also be argued that Christmas is covertly keeping many pagan traditions alive in the guise of purported Christian tradition.
Origins of the Christmas tree
The origin of the Christmas tree takes us back to Pagan rituals prior to modern Christmas celebrations. The romans used evergreen trees to celebrate the arrival of the coming warm weather. While the Vikings believed that evergreen trees were used to honour their sun god, Balder. The ancient Egyptians would bring green palm rushes into their homes to celebrate the victory of life over death or the light over the dark (days getting longer).
I have a Christmas tree in my house every year. The tree I have had for the last 12 years is an artificial tree. This tree has fibre optic branches. We have a household tradition of adding a new tree ornament to the tree each year. I also put a Christmas wreath outside my door evert year; this is also artificial and I have had it even longer than the tree.
Wreaths are believed to have been hung outside doors by the ancient romans to signify victory. The Christmas wreath, which is circular, is meant to symbolise the eternity of life as a circle has no beginning or end.
Gifts at Christmas
Gifts were not traditionally given out as part of Christian Christmas tradition. Christmas gifts were given out on January 6 to celebrate Epiphany. The twelve days of Christmas are from December 25 to January 6. Eventually gift giving switched to December 25. It was not until the 19th Century that Christmas gift giving was considered an essential part of celebrating Christmas. Gift giving was frowned upon by the church.
Gift giving during winter solstice was practiced by pagans. The ancient romans gave each other gifts as part of Saturnalia. Children were often given toys. Gift giving during the winter solstice is also a Celtic tradition. Gifts of oranges and apples were placed in baskets and taken to neighbouring houses by children. The oranges and apples represented the sun and I presume signify the rebirth of the sun.
Christmas for me
I personally like Christmas. As a child it was one of only two occasions I received presents (the other being my birthday). It was also the longest school holiday of the year. When I worked for the government it was the longest work holiday of the year.
I now work for myself so I don’t have to be confined to Christmas holidays. I’m also vegan, so I don’t eat all the festive meats and sweets. Christmas is still a great time of year for me. I enjoy having the Christmas decorations out. I like gift giving but I keep it simple. I only buy gifts for close family members and generally my Christmas expenditure is only moderately higher than normal. Being vegan is also not a problem. I had an amazing Christmas lunch today with mock turkey, roast potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mint sauce, vegan gravy, corn-on-the-cob, broccoli, cauliflower, and vegan Yorkshire pudding.
I also like to have a bit of fun mucking around as well. I pulled out the Christmas train set and set up my little clay winter village with the little plastic people and then I turned it into a gif. I also removed the clay village and replaced it with the Avengers and Rocket Raccoon. I just needed an excuse to bring out my action figures. I’m still a child at heart.
This brings me to the end of my Christmas post. I hope you enjoyed the read as well as my experimentation with gifs. I will visit the consumerism and materialism aspect of Christmas and other holidays another day.
I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Sources of Christmas facts and information used in this blog:
http://www.worldbulletin.net/history/125609/christmas-before-christ-december-25-and-paganism
https://www.whychristmas.com/customs/25th.shtml
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Invictus
http://www.history.com/topics/christmas/history-of-christmas-trees
http://www.homemakerscorner.com/christmas-tree-history.html
https://www.christmasforest.com/christmas-wreaths/christmas-ideas
http://theweek.com/articles/441360/brief-history-christmas-present
http://www.thelaboroflove.com/articles/why-do-we-give-gifts-at-christmas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturnalia
https://wicca.com/celtic/akasha/yule.htm
Merry Christmas, I'm in the southern hemisphere so it's summer here.... Christmas is so hotttt lol
Great warm weather, have fun and enjoy.
Your post had been curated by the @buildawhale team and mentioned here:
https://steemit.com/buildawhale/@buildawhale/buildawhale-curation-digest-12-25-17
Keep up the good work and original content, everyone appreciates it!
Thank you very much @nicnas. I appreciate the support from the @buildawhale team.
Even here in Chicago it was looking like we weren’t going to have a white Christmas but it finally snowed here the morning of Christmas Eve!
Honesty it is overrated and I would kill to have some warm weather right now :). It is also my first Christmas on Steemit so Merry Christmas to you!
All the way with you up here in Indiana when the snow hits and the days get shorter it gets depressing lol being by a beach on Christmas would always be the best present for me.
Merry Christmas to you too, @snrm.
a very good post @ spectrumecons, please visit my blog.
It’s also my first Christmas on steemit because I have only 2.5 weeks here!!
Good looking Christmas tree you have there! And nice toys! Heheheh
Thanks @dedicatedguy. I always try and make the Christmas tree just a little bit fancier each year. The marvel action figures are good for a bit of fun.
As a follower of @followforupvotes this post has been randomly selected and upvoted! Enjoy your upvote and have a great day!
Thank you @followforupvotes.
This post has received a 6.17 % upvote from @buildawhale thanks to: @spectrumecons. Send at least 1 SBD to @buildawhale with a post link in the memo field for a portion of the next vote.
To support our daily curation initiative, please vote on my owner, @themarkymark, as a Steem Witness
.Nice one merry xmass to you too
Thank you @etilda.
Haha. I laughed a little with those last .gif's...
Also, amazing explanation of the pagan origins of Christmas...
Nonetheless, I still believe whatever reason it was chosen for, it still signifies the birth of Jesus the Christ to me and many others.
Pope Julius probably also took into account that nights were
shorterlonger (edit) and probably more peaceful (with the cold or Rome and Europe in general), and also wars were halted and paused for a while...Happy birthday of Jesus to him and to you, friend. :D May the last week of the year be merry and 2018 a year of hope and good things coming our ways...
Thank you for the nice Christmas message, @dialsamai. Let's have a great 2018 here on Steemit.
Hello @spectrumecons, I have nominated you for the #sevendaybnwchallenge. I hope you will find time to look at the link and add your favorite black and white photos too.
https://steemit.com/sevendaybnwchallenge/@mbiedabasi/seven-days-of-black-and-white-day-6
Thank you
Let's.
Merry Christmas man
Merry Christmas to you too.
Merry christmas :)
Merry Christmas to you too.
Good post
Thank you.
@originalworks
The @OriginalWorks bot has determined this post by @spectrumecons to be original material and upvoted it!
To call @OriginalWorks, simply reply to any post with @originalworks or !originalworks in your message!
Good job! Thanks to @vegoutt-travel you have planted 0.13 tree to save Abongphen Highland Forest in Cameroon. Help me to plant 1,000,000 trees and share my Steem Power to the others. Selfvoting is prohibited, but that should be the reason to spread the world to protect our precious environment. Check out profile of our conservation association @kedjom-keku and the founder/coordinator @martin.mikes to get more information about our conservation program. My current SP is 14449.58. Help me to plant more trees with your delegated SP.
Thanks a lot,
your @treeplanter
www.kedjom-keku.com
14.47% @pushup from @spectrumecons
Hello...
...............................🌟
.............................o🌕o
............................🌲o🌲
...........................🌜🌲🌛
.........................🌞o🔅o🌞
......................o💡o🌲o💡o
.....................o❄oo✳oo❄o
..................💮oo💖oo💮oo💖
................o🌟oo🎋oo🎋oo🌟o
..............🌲oo🎆oo🌟oo🎆oo🌲
............o💫oo💖oo🎉oo💖oo💫o
..........💖oo💫oo🔅oo🔅oo💫oo💖
........o🍭oo🔖oo🌲oo🌲oo🔖oo🍭o
.......MERRY X-MAS TO ALL FRIENDS!!!
.................................🌌
.................................🌌
Thanks for the very cool tree @kyawsantun.
I'm in Sydney. It's been a cold one. Possibly the coldest day since winter.
It's been a hot one in Brisbane. I'm keeping cool under the fan.
@spectrumecons 5.20$ added
Merry Christmas :) wish you all the best. Upvoted and followed you. You could checkout our decoration here. https://steemit.com/christmas/@vicky-vick/christmas-mood-3
Merry Christmas to you too @vicky-vick.
Hi, I hope you have a happy Christmas, I'm from Venezuela, the country where the economic situation is strong, I wish you all the best for this 2018 ...
Have a happy Christmas, wonderful new year, and a great 2018.
Thanks for the education. Hope you had a good day with your sister and the boys :)
We had a pretty good Christmas day. I hope everything is going well in the UK.
It is true that the early Christians did not celebrate Christmas, since the central message of the religion is their belief in a resurrected god. Easter was the high holy day for Christians, and extant records of early Christian writers bemoan their fellow believers participating in Io Saturnalia, or festival of Calends.
It's interesting how perceptions change over time. Easter should be treated as the more significant Christian event.
Perception differs not only across generations, but also across localities. It was fortuitous (or perhaps divinely predetermined?) that Christ was crucified in the month of Nissan, modern March-April time frame. The Western civilized world (Hellenes) considered April 1 to be the beginning of a new year, as Selucids imposed this arbitrary date across their vast realm at the height of their power; Rome considered March 15 to be the beginning of a new year. Christ's crucifixion and resurrection, thus, coincided/correlated well with the civilized perception of new beginnings, renewal, etc. Incidentally, supposed date of C.Julius Caesar's assassination, March 15, may be a literary license of the poets to indicate his famous Julian "luck" running out.
As modern day convention of a "new" year pushed back to winter solstice, it may be inevitable that the message of renewal and resurrection also shifts towards Christmas over Easter. The regional and generational conventions are secondary to the underlying message and truth of Christ, despite the religious purists' clamors for "preserving" traditions. It some perspective, the secularization of Christmas into modern day material-worship festival returns the prominence of Easter as religious high holy day for Christians, since the Pillsbury bunny was not as an effective propagandist as the Coca Cola Santa.