A Merry Saturnalia to You

Now Halloween and Thanksgiving are gone, it’s time for earnest folks to start complaining about the commercialization of Christmas. Well I have a suggestion for solving the dilemma brought about by having the friendly practice of gift giving degenerate into disgust for crass consumerism — and my solution is ‘traditionally’ correct.

The problem started 1700 years ago, when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire and the authorities set about replacing the suddenly politically incorrect Pagan festivals with the now politically correct Christian ones. The fine old feast of Saturnalia, on December 25^th, was difficult because nothing remotely Christian happened then. So Christ’s birthday, which had obviously been in springtime when shepherds were in the fields tending their newly born lambs, was moved to replace Saturn’s day.

There was some method in this madness. Saturnalia was a happy time of gluttony and licentiousness intended to set everyone up for the barren months of winter. At Saturnalia, people got merry on the past autumn’s harvest of new wine, ate the animals that couldn’t be kept through the winter, and stocked up their fat cells. A good time was had by all — and Christ’s birthday is the nearest Christianity gets to a happy day.

The solemn Christians with their platonic version of joy were willing to let everyone have a really good time at their new festival of Christmas — with lots of thankful praying while kneeling on cold hard stone floors. It wasn’t even a pale imitation of what people wanted. So, after a couple of centuries, Saint Nicholas lightened things up by re-introducing gift giving. It  still wasn’t enough. After more centuries had passed people’s race memories of earlier, earthier, celebrations re-surfaced in singing simple Carols, which the Church authorities promptly banned, suppressing them for years — until they bowed to the inevitable and introduced them into their Church services. Gift giving, singing, and soon feasting crept back; things were looking up for the Winter Solstice holiday.

More centuries slipped by. The English burned Yule logs and decorated their rooms with branches of Mistletoe, Holly and Ivy. The efficient Germans commemorated their tree-worshipping past by bringing the whole darn tree indoors. Later still, our modern ‘Christmas’ was born, with Charles Dickens as midwife, when ghosts, elves and the newly minted luxuries of an industrial age replaced the carefully husbanded extras of poorer times. Coca-Cola even gave Santa Claus a nice red-and-white suit to replace that old brown bishop’s cloak he’d been wearing for a millennium and a half.

Since then, people have complained about commercialization destroying the spirit of Christmas — and they’re right. However, it’s Christmas that’s wrong. It shouldn’t be on December 25^th; Saturnalia should be. That’s what people want — including most Christian people. Saturnalia is growing steadily stronger with each passing century, and none more so that the last one, while Christmas grows weaker. It’s time for Christians to put Christmas where it belongs — at Easter. It would do fine there. Easter is a time for grieving over Christ’s death and celebrating his re-birth; adding his original birthday in there as well could only improve things. Let’s move Christmas out to Easter Sunday and enjoy a guilt-free Winter Solstice Saturnalia party.