In looking at the posts on my Facebook this morning, I found a post expressing great outrage about greeting people with “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas”. Really??!!! On Labor Day of all days??!! The Winter Solstice is still four months away. Why speak about that bitterly cold, miserable time of the year at the end of summer? Here is my response to that post.
I read a post this morning by “Bikers for Whatever (their nom de plume largely forgettable)”. It was post basically stating that anyone who refuses to say “Merry Christmas” and instead insist on saying Happy Holiday sometime around the Winter Solstice is a jerk and they should be deported from the United States. One might be surprised that I truly do not care whether someone greets me with Merry Christmas or Happy Holiday at that time of the year. I suppose one might assume that I being an ordained Roman Catholic Deacon might take great umbrage (anger mixed with insult for the vocabulary deprived) at being greeted with a “Happy Holidays!” It matters not one iota to me.
First, you have to understand that Christmas is a manufactured feast day. Theologians, astronomers, and biblical scholars have stated that scientifically, Jesus was NOT born on December 25th. Our current calendar was not adopted till the time of Pope Gregory centuries long after the birth of Jesus. He was probably born 4 years prior to the year we give him. (Note: that in historical research the BC/AD (Before Christ/After the birth of Christ) no longer are used in historical study because of its historical inaccuracy. The BCE/ACE, Before the Common Era and After the Common Era are now used for more historical accuracy). He was also born at approximately the birthing of the lambs, sometime in March/April. So clearly, in terms of science and historical research, December 25th was not the day in which Jesus was born.
Why was December 25th chosen? Ancient societies chose to have great celebrations at the Winter Solstice. In Roman society there were huge drunken/sex orgies (bacchanalias) celebrating the shortest day of the year. Many early Christians loved pagan drunken, sex orgies (they would have a certain allure), so in order to control the more primal urges of the faithful, the Church “Christianized” the pagan festival, in a sense, rebooting the festival from unwholesome debauchery into something a wee bit more wholesome e.g. without the rampant sex and drunkenness. In truth, the Church did not celebrate the birth of Jesus for over 3 centuries. The first of Christian feasts is Easter, followed by Pentecost. It was not until about 3 ACE that Christmas began to be celebrated as a feast day. This is not the first of major Church feast days treated this way. All Saints Day was a “Christianizing” of the pagan holiday we know as Halloween. (As I recall, the Baptist Church does not celebrate Christmas because of its connotation with the pagan Winter Solstice holiday)
The other reason that December 25th was chosen was primarily theological. The Church chose to place the celebration of Jesus’ birth at a time of the year for symbolic purposes. Because the Winter Solstice is the darkest time of the year, it symbolized the darkness into which humanity had descended. The days begin to get longer immediately after the Winter Solstice, so by placing the celebration of Jesus’ birth immediately following the darkest day of the year, it symbolized that into the darkness of humanity, God introduced into the world the Divine light that will save humanity from its own darkness.
Flip all this forward to our present time. December and early January are filled with a number of different holidays religious and cultural. As Christians we seem to want to impose our religious holidays on all people whether they are Christian or not. We forget that the Christian religion is only one of many world religions. The Hindus, the Buddhists, the Muslims, and many other religions do not impose their religious holidays upon Christians. They quietly celebrate them as should we, if we are truly to remain faithful to the intent of the Holy Day.
Also note, that the Christmas holidays that the United States celebrate are anything but Christian. Christmas in the United States has very little to do with the birth of Jesus. It is all about cutthroat consumerism in which retailers hope to make up the losses they suffered during the rest of the fiscal year. Greed, licentiousness, drunkenness etc are just as rampant in the United States (note the Christmas parties that are celebrated in corporate America and within family units) as they may have been in ancient Rome. Perhaps the leg lamp displayed in the picture window of Ralphie’s home, “electric sex” as it is referred to in the movie “The Christmas Story”, is an apt description of what Christmas has become in the United States.
So instead of looking askance when someone greets you with a “Happy Holiday” during the Christmas season and telling them to get the hell out of the United States for failing to recognize whatever Christmas you think it to be, greet them instead with a return, “Happy Holiday.” If they greet you with Happy Hannukah, return the salutation and so forth. It is time for Christians and so-called Christians (note: Fox Cable News, religious neo-cons, and trump) to quit being horses rosettes about this whole subject. Instead of flipping people off when they greet you with Happy Holiday, instead spread the good will and peace of Jesus, which we Christians purport to say we believe, and greet them in kind with joy.
