atheostic reblogged
My man, what the fuck does this even mean.
Christmas is like, 90% a syncretized pagan holiday made up of a mishmash of pagan traditions and celebrations.
- Christmas Day (December 25th) wasn’t officially decided upon until 336 CE, and the date chosen was that of both the birthdate of the god Mithra (who was super popular with Roman soldiers) and the Sol Invictus celebration shortly after the Roman festival of Saturnalia.
- Gift-giving likely stems from Saturnalia, where gifts were exchanged. For the first two centuries of Christianity, gift-giving was taboo on Martyrs’ and Jesus’ birthday.
- Christmas trees have several Pagan origins, with their modern popularization being thanks to Prince Albert bringing the tradition to England from his native Germany. It’s such a Pagan tradition, in fact, that the Bible explicitly tells people NOT to bring trees into the home because it’s a Pagan tradition (“The customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest ... with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold.” – Jeremiah 10:2-4).
- The Yule Log is directly from, well, the Nordic-Germanic Pagan celebration of Yule. It’s even in the name and everything.
- Wreaths have several Pagan origins (most notably Druid, Celt, Egyptian, and Greco-Roman).
- Santa Claus likely has Nordic and Germanic roots via Odin/Wotan’s Wild Hunt as well as the Yule tradition of putting boots near the chimney to receive gifts (Iceland’s Yule Lads do much the same except the boots are on the windowsill; the lads, who look very Santa-like, leave treats for good kids and rotten vegetables for naughty children).
And if memory serves, caroling originates from wassailing, which is also a pagan tradition.
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P.S. I'm a woman, not a dude. :)