Anyone who insists on everyone calling this season “Christmas” because of their own beliefs is sadly mistaken. It is not really about Christ, in fact; it has been adapted over the years. So when someone confronts you because you said “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” they need to do a bit of research. Most of the celebrations and symbols are direct adaptations of past traditions, and the Midwinter celebration of fire, light and long life is much older than the pastiche of Midwinter revelry it became later on.
It’s the season known by some as Christmas, a time when people often think back to the late Bronze Age science fiction sagas of Mary, Joseph, a donkey, and an impending humble birth. But of course, Christmas was not the original name for the almost two-week period starting on the night of 24 December. It took a great deal of time, planning and slow conversion of symbolism, but many very ancient traditions remain. It wasn’t always about that humble birth, but that particular symbolism served a very useful purpose.
The early Church had a problem on its hands: there were so many
huge festivals around the winter solstice that got in the way of its rising influence
and threatened its authority. By using the symbolism of the season, it managed to legitimise the hijacking of the Midwinter festivities for itself and turn people away from their original purposes. It seems, though, that we are slowly coming full-circle and that we are abandoning the religious accessories. How many similarities are there between the traditions of today's Midwinter and those before the Christian interval, and what type of festivals were there?
Saturnalia:
There was the week-long Saturnalia that covered
the solstice period, where gifts were exchanged, slaves were served by their masters, people swapped their clothes, and lots and lots of drinking and eating took place. Because of its midwinter
setting, candles were given to symbolise light and warmth, and there were even
post-Saturnalia sales where younger family members were given some money to go
out and spend there. This particular festival was a prevalent feature
throughout most of the Roman period, and was such an important event that only
a handful of Roman emperors dared bring any changes. Some of the madder ones
tried to reduce it to five days, or even to just one evening, but most people carried
on regardless for the entire week, or even longer.
Brumalia:
This was also a Roman festival that carried
on in one form or another until at least the 10th century in some parts
of the empire, mainly in the east, but had all-but died out by the end of the
time of Justinian in 565 CE. It celebrated the Earth and all things to do with hunting
and farming, such as sacrifices of pigs and goats, as well as the downing of
wine.
These revels took place because it was the saddest,
darkest time of the year and it was important to remember that the light was
about to return. The celebrations meant people could say goodbye to the
increasingly darker days and welcome in the longer evening light. Different
parts of Europe had variations of these events, but they all pointed to the
main tenets of the darkness leaving and the light returning, the finishing off
of the autumn fruits that had by now turned into strong alcohol, and being with
close friends and family.
Yule/Jul:
Further north, the winter festivities were not that different. The god Odin had various other titles, including Jölnir, from whom the name of the festival comes. Various toasts were made, such as for the success of the coming year's harvest, the rulers, the gods and the ancestors. The culmination of that festival in Anglo-Saxon England was known as Modraniht, or Mothers' Night, and was a night of fire and sacrifice. What they all had in common was that folk brought along the food they had left and shared it all out. The food, especially the meat, was blessed by the most senior chieftain and they all participated in the debauchery until nothing was left.
Adapting the old for the new:
And it was these types of festivals that
got in the way of any form of coherent building of Christian societies.
What to do?
This was an easy question to answer, and one
that Rome had a great track record of: adapt these pagan festivals through
their symbolism, and absorb them into Christianity without too many drastic
changes. The people had to be coerced into this acceptance rather than have
their already centuries-old celebrations banned to introduce this novel idea.
So although many early Christian thinkers were rather critical of all the winter excesses, they set out to make the period both holy and at the same time jolly. And so the great Midwinter festivals carried on but over time they carried more of an air of religiousness and formality.
(By the way, the word jolly was at one time thought to have come from Jul, but it is most probably from the Old French, meaning pretty or nice.)
The symbolism and the adaptation of traditional
behaviour had to be perfect to convert the midwinter festivals into somehow
representing Christian beliefs, and it was telling the story of the birth of
Jesus and overlaying the imagery of his appearance that made it the most
appropriate way of coaxing people away from their original beliefs.
Symbolism
1. Decorating
houses and halls with winter foliage was a way of demonstrating that there
was still life around, despite the regression of nature. Mistletoe, holly and ivy
had different connotations: mistletoe was the symbol of peace and love, hence
the kissing; the Green King’s crown and garments were made of holly, and ivy
was the representation of death, the death of the past year. Being an
evergreen, winter-hardy plant, holly was also the symbol of fertility and long
life, but it came to represent Jesus’s crown of thorns and the red berries of
his blood, and inevitably eternal life promised in his story. In order to substantiate
people’s roles in the world, the holly was a male symbol of fertility, and ivy the melancholy female representative of death. These days, of course, that would be understandably unacceptable, but the two were and are synonymous with the season.
2. Wreaths,
always round, symbolised the circle of life:
winter-to-spring-to-summer-to-autumn and back to winter, as well as the life
cycle of people and families. These wreaths had nothing to do with anything concerning God or infinity, and the
candles in an advent wreath (or crown) were added to provide a visual countdown to
Christmas. Midwinter was seen as the birth of the sun deities, such as Mithras
and Sol, so it was just a matter of converting this into the coming of Jesus.
3. Midwinter singing and drinking took place to drive away the evil spirits. As Christmas was supposed
to be a celebration, it was easy to incorporate this, although it was toned
down a lot from the originally-intended decadent blowout that the Romans put
on. The Anglo-Saxon Modraniht mentioned earlier was easy to incorporate, as it meant Mother's Night, and Mary was always going to be given the role of the venerated and highly-favoured lady.
4. Even the candles are pre-Christian in origin, symbolising the rise of the sun. Many traditions around
the world have candle festivals to bring human light to the darkest time of the
year, but the idea of Christ’s light (the people sitting in darkness seeing the
light, as Matthew and Luke wrote) was too convenient a symbol to drop.
5. Gifts were
given at Saturnalia at an event called Sigillaria. They were generally small wax
or earthenware figurines of particular deities that would represent different
things to different people. Again, the gifts the Three Wise Men brought to the
manger would serve perfectly to subsume this tradition into this new hybrid
festival.
6. Dressing up and theatrical
performances were the norm at Saturnalia. Traditional
roles, like masters and slaves, were reversed; men and women swapped
stereotypical clothing; later on in the Middle Ages, mummers, or guisers,
groups of actors, musicians and singers, would pass round houses and perform folk
plays. And things like carols and wassailing also took place at other times of
the year, and were greetings of the season. It was also easy to Christianise
these traditions, like creating plays that told the story of Jesus’s birth, and
carols that moved away from evoking paganistic aspects like holly, ivy, midwinter
and snow, and instead talked of angels, virgin births, stars and a plethora of miracles.
7. Fasting was not the monopoly of Christians: the period before the great feast was given over to fasting so that it would be a much more rewarding celebration. This of course sat very well in the new Christian narrative to get people in the mood and looking forward to the coming festivities, even if they were now about something totally different.
One of the reasons there are a lot of fruity, unctuous dishes, often a prized part of an animal to eat, and a log to burn, were all to do with the season – something to look forward to in the middle of the darkness.
Continuity of pre-Christian traditions
Many of these traditions carry on today in some form or another:
1. Pigs are big: In the UK and Ireland, North America and parts of
northern Europe, it is common to eat a Christmas Ham. This came directly from
the ancient sacrifice of the Yule Boar. Even in Sweden there are cakes shaped
like pigs, all evidence of how far we have come since those days, but still a continuous line from two or three millennia ago.
2. Happy music: Carol singing and wassailing were for the entertainment of the guests, and this tradition of seasonal merriment in music is not exclusive to the English-speaking world in the form of Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer and The Twelve Days of Christmas. Other traditions have the same idea, such as the Czech/Moravian Bodejž se zbrunčila bába and Petit Papa Noël in France. There are plenty of non-Christian carols that have transcended the unsubtle Christian overtones and are staples of the period of the year.
3. Dressing up: Also in parts of Europe it is still common
to cross-dress and enact stories to audiences, such as in the UK with
pantomimes, where the main character is a girl dressed as a boy and his/her
opposite number is often a mature man dressed up as a lady.
4. Cosy by the fire: The Yule Log was actually a whole tree that
was cut up to provide warmth during the Midwinter festivities so that people didn’t
get cold and could enjoy themselves in warmth. The fermented fruit would have
helped...
5. Puddings and cakes: A lot of that fermented fruit was also
mixed with the leftover ingredients, nuts, and any spices to disguise any dodgy
flavours. It slowly transformed itself into something more “gentrified”, such
as Plum Pudding in the UK, Julekake in Norway, Stollen in Germany, and
Panettone/Pandoro in Italy. Some have alcohol or nuts in them, some not, but
what they all have in common is the dried fruit and of course being served as
dessert.
In the end, the meaning of this season is
by far more complicated than I have laid out here, but one thing we can all say
is however you reach this time of year, we should all try not to force our ideas of the festival on others, no matter which beliefs you have: relax, celebrate, enjoy the company of
your friends and family, sing, eat, get drunk, and dress up how you want – so greet
people in your own way and live and let live!
