![]() The Real Reason for the Season...the history of Christmas and it's icons...A Story by Brad![]() so...i can be serious once in awhile..right?![]()
First of all, Christ's birth was no where near December 25th. In fact, the New Testament doesn't even mention when the date was as the date was not important back in the days Jesus and shortly after his death. Biblical scholars have tried to pinpoint the date by several means. One of them is using the New Testament as a historical guide as to who was in power at that time, which was Herod. Also, by calculating back to when the "star of
in some roman precincts, they would pick a name by lottery before the festival. that person's name, man or woman, would be labelled an "enemy of the state". for the week of saturnalia they were allowed as much food, wine, and sex as they wanted. Then on December 25th, they were killed, usually poisoned by the fruit of mistletoe. this was the way the romans used to think they would rid themselves of the "bad spirits" in their precinct. In 4th century A.D., christians tried to conform Saturnalia into some form of christian celebration and convert the roman pagans into christians. the agreement the church made with the new converts was this: still practice Saturnalia, but the last day, December 25th, is to be kept holy to recognize the Christ's birth who was born to forgive them of their week long debauchery. It was for this reason (the Church meshing Saturnalia with the Christ's Birth) that the Puritans who settled
![]() Saturnalia followers would use the mistletoe fruit to poison the sacrifices on Dec. 25th. the Church used the "kissing under the mistletoe" practice to lighten up the festival orgies going on around them, hoping to quell their followers (converts) to just kissing.
Pre-Christian Roman Emperor's used to make the most despised Roman citizens give them gifts at the end of Saturnalia (Dec 25th). After the Christians came into
![]() After his death he was given Sainthood. Jesuit followers of St. Nicholas moved his bones to
as the St. Nicholas cult moved northward, the Norse and Celtic Pagans adopted the St. Nicholas beliefs and melded his image with their god Woden. St. Nicholas shed his mediteranean look, grew a long white beard, wore winter clothing and flew through the night on his flying horse, on December 6th to deliver gifts to people. After the Catholic Church took back the icon of their Saint, they changed his flight plan to December 24th.
from the 1860's to the 1880's a Bavarian illustrator for Harper's Weekly, drew cartoons of St. Nick. it was this illustrator that gave Santa his north pole address, his workshop and elves, the nice or naughty list, all of his ideas were sprung from Dr. Moore's poem.
© 2010 BradAuthor's Note
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