Wishing You a Happy… erm…

I’m guessing that it won’t have escaped your notice that this weekend is December 25^th, and for many people around the world it’s a very special occasion. I don’t mean the overindulgence on dried fruits and eggnog (though be honest - have you ever even seen eggnog?) nor the excited kids severely depleting the world’s stock of gaudy wrapping paper and batteries.

Worldwide over two billion Christians will have a holy-day  for Christ’s-mass and celebrate the birthday of Jesus, or at least the date that sometime in the early 4^th century the Roman Catholic church decided would be the day allocated to this feast. Research shows that dates in April and May would appear to be much more likely contenders for the birth date of the baby Jesus but the Roman church, like the British press, never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Nor did the first Christian Roman Emperor, Constantine the Great, who made the date official throughout his empire.

Of course, those ancient Romans loved a good mid-winter bash, so to them this time of year was already party time for the feast of Bacchus and the festival of the unconquered sun, or ‘Dies Natalis Solis Invicti’. The 25^th of December also conveniently matched up to, and eventually assimilated, not only the end of their  festival week of Saturnalia, but also the Greek honouring of Dionysus , the old calendar Winter Solstice Brumalia celebrations  and the feast days for celebrating the birth of the Persian god Mithra, the Syrian feast of Elahgabal and Sol the Sun God. In this way the spread of Christianity meant that those who didn’t really fancy changing their favoured flavour of worship could still enjoy their old festivals at the darkest time of the year.

The Christians won’t be the only ones celebrating this weekend though. For the Taiwanese people December 25^th is important as it’s their Constitution Day. The Vainakh people of the North Caucasus celebrate their Malkh festival on that date too, and Pakistanis will be partying as it’s the birthday of their country’s founder,  Quaid-e-Azam  Muhammad Ali Jinnah Baba-e-Qaum; the great leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah, father of the nation. Hindus too will be taking to the streets for the brilliant orange day of Pancha Ganapati, a celebration of Lord Ganesha.

Others prefer to go down more unconventional routes. Some may have no religion at all but still want to join in the mid-winter fun, so they’ve affiliated themselves with such unlikely holidays as Snowflake Day (from the ‘Clone High’ cartoon series), Wintersday (from the game Guild Wars), Feast of Winter Veil (World of Warcraft), Holiday Number 11 (TV series ‘Quark’) or Refrigerator Day (TV show ‘Dinosaurs’). And of course, all good Star Wars geeks will know that this is the time of year that the Wookies celebrate Life Day. Honest.

Non-believing humans who don’t want to be left out have invented alternative holidays such as Agnostica or Frostival too, but surely there’s no need for these? Don’t non-Christians have as much right to a celebration on Christmas Day as non-Norse folks have to enjoy every Wodensday and Thorsday?

As long as nobody gets hurt who doesn’t want to, then I’m not going to knock anybody’s beliefs or indeed complete lack of. Wouldn’t it be nice if we really could have peace on Earth and goodwill to all men at this time of year? Just a few days when the devout refrain from fatwas, jihads or crusades, and non-believers abstain from pointing out that anyone with a religious belief is probably a little too old to have an invisible friend?

However you spend it, have a fantastic weekend and for those of you still using the Julian Calendar, read this again in a couple of weeks. I hope you have a great celebration on January 7^th.

© Shaun Finnie 2011