So far, with our 6-year old and our 3-year old, we have one believer and one non-believer. We haven't gone out of our way to dispel our 3-year old's illusions in Santa. Like Christmas or Hate it. It's here for now. This Christmas in the USA some 2o million trees will be cut down for living rooms, 2 billion christmas cards will be sent and retail sales will likely spike about 50% over November. Its current consumerist shape is not sustainable. But the survival and strength of Christmas is that it has constantly evolved and adapted. Even before it was Christmas.
For probably 3,000 years norse people have been putting up trees and decorating them with apples and color. Rural winter life needed a party to break the boredom. Probably, like today, a lot of booze was consumed and a lot of story telling was done.
In the pre-industrialized world, there wasn't too much to do in the winter. Today people, under the capitalist economy, work all the hours god sends, as they say. Work weeks are now commonly anywhere within the 24-7 range. Common time off for people is disappearing in the US into a couple of holidays. Some people even work on Christmas day! Godforbid! And while 15 to 25 million Americans may have no work during this winter, the modern form of Christmas is not for them, to break their boredom.
Christmas today is for those with cash in their pockets. When it falls on a weekend (No!) those working may not even get a day off! So the original intentions of the founding "fathers of Christmas" for a 12-day holiday has been turned on its head into a busy retail period of 60-days shopping and a short morning of exchanging commodities.
Northern European pagans would burn the huge Yule log at their (pre-)Christmas celebration. The log would need to be big enough that when set on fire it would burn for 12-days. Twelve days of hanging out at the log, likely eating meat, as vegetables were few and far between, and drinking anything that could be stored for long periods.
Human culture in the northern hemisphere has most likely always celebrated the winter solstice. Being the longest night and shortest day, the solstice is also the day that marks the start of longer days. It marks the rebirth of the sun. Hence it was associated, pre-Christian, with Babylonian, Egyptian and other Middle Eastern traditions of a time of the birth of the Son of Man, the Light of the World traditions, and a time for Saviours.
The Roman's winter celebration that raged long into Christianity was around the Festival of Saturn. This along with other Sun-based December holidays, co-existed with the new Christian religion, or to put it another way, the pagan tradition was impossible to extinguish. So it was usurped. The religious establishment took it over. Jesus' birth, which for the first couple of hundred years AD was celebrated around May 20th, was switched by the Roman Christian leaders to coincide with Saturn's Day for December 25th. This was about 400 AD.
Today, some cities in Britain in an effort to evolve Christmas away from its Christian base are promoting Wintervals, as an attempt to make the holiday less exclusionary. But how Christian is it really? Like all dominant festivals and culture in a given society, they follow the values of those that rule in that society. Today, Christmas is an utterly Capitalist event, where we work ourselves to death, where we raise hopes, where material things are equated with happiness, and after the wrapping is thrown out, there is the disappointment and debt.
With a democratic socialist society, we'll have a shorter work week and more time for celebrations, more time for people to hang out, more time for with our kids and more time for the really valuable things in life. Bring that on.
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