Spring Break
Column: Holidays celebrate new life
Jeff Sullivan
Issue date: 12/3/08 Section: Editorial/Opinion
12/03/08 -When the night becomes its darkest and the winter chill really sets in, almost every ancient culture on the face of the planet held a festival.
We call it the winter solstice in our "civil" society, but one can wonder as to the reason of its proximity with Christmas and many other major religious festivals and holidays.
New life is the main theme of Christmas, the promise of tomorrow, etc.
Hanukkah, as Adam Sandler so aptly put it, is the festival of lights. Rome and the Vikings had varying winter festivals depending on which god they had selected for the year.
Many other traditions have melded into the major celebrations through the past and are still practiced today. The Christmas tree is a great example, as originally it was a Celtic druid tradition to hang red ornaments on a pine tree to resemble a type of spotted red-green mushroom.
Dec. 25 is borrowed from many other cultures as well, as many religious scholars believe Jesus to have actually been born sometime in the spring.
They surmise shepherds and wise men would have frozen to death in the winter. The climate is just a bit warmer today than it was back then.
The idea of winter solstice is based on ancient cultures noticing the shortening of the sun's appearance in the sky, just as the weather was getting colder.
Many anthropologists say that this is because originally, either they thought the world was ending or they thought another ice age was on the way. In any case, they thought they were going to die.
So, does it come as a shock to anyone that nearly all the major religious holidays of our modern age celebrate light and/or associate it with renewed life?
And with the historical significance of these holidays, it's depressing to think about the people that take advantage of the lucrative spirit.
This is not to say that Bill O'Reilly is right and there really is a war on the holidays.
This would be foolish, as the overcommercialization of Christmas is a religious tradition dating back to millions of other faiths: trying to make a buck off of religious tradition, feeling and belief.
If O'Reilly's serious about the media's war on Christmas, he'd just stop talking about it and actually do something about it. But, instead he's doing the exact same thing retailers do the second Thanksgiving is over: try to make money off of people's feelings and beliefs.
Except for a few crazies, nobody before O'Reilly has had such a large media outlet, audience and single mindedness about culture to defend the helpless holiday of Christmas, and why? There is no war on Christmas. There never was.
Holidays are what they've always been: a celebration of simply being alive.
Any holiday celebration is just what you make of it with your family and friends, not the stuff you accumulate or even the stuff you give away.
It's about remembering that those close to you might not be around next year to see the days brighten, and reminding yourself that neither might you. Take advantage of as many of these moments as you can.
We call it the winter solstice in our "civil" society, but one can wonder as to the reason of its proximity with Christmas and many other major religious festivals and holidays.
New life is the main theme of Christmas, the promise of tomorrow, etc.
Hanukkah, as Adam Sandler so aptly put it, is the festival of lights. Rome and the Vikings had varying winter festivals depending on which god they had selected for the year.
Many other traditions have melded into the major celebrations through the past and are still practiced today. The Christmas tree is a great example, as originally it was a Celtic druid tradition to hang red ornaments on a pine tree to resemble a type of spotted red-green mushroom.
Dec. 25 is borrowed from many other cultures as well, as many religious scholars believe Jesus to have actually been born sometime in the spring.
They surmise shepherds and wise men would have frozen to death in the winter. The climate is just a bit warmer today than it was back then.
The idea of winter solstice is based on ancient cultures noticing the shortening of the sun's appearance in the sky, just as the weather was getting colder.
Many anthropologists say that this is because originally, either they thought the world was ending or they thought another ice age was on the way. In any case, they thought they were going to die.
So, does it come as a shock to anyone that nearly all the major religious holidays of our modern age celebrate light and/or associate it with renewed life?
And with the historical significance of these holidays, it's depressing to think about the people that take advantage of the lucrative spirit.
This is not to say that Bill O'Reilly is right and there really is a war on the holidays.
This would be foolish, as the overcommercialization of Christmas is a religious tradition dating back to millions of other faiths: trying to make a buck off of religious tradition, feeling and belief.
If O'Reilly's serious about the media's war on Christmas, he'd just stop talking about it and actually do something about it. But, instead he's doing the exact same thing retailers do the second Thanksgiving is over: try to make money off of people's feelings and beliefs.
Except for a few crazies, nobody before O'Reilly has had such a large media outlet, audience and single mindedness about culture to defend the helpless holiday of Christmas, and why? There is no war on Christmas. There never was.
Holidays are what they've always been: a celebration of simply being alive.
Any holiday celebration is just what you make of it with your family and friends, not the stuff you accumulate or even the stuff you give away.
It's about remembering that those close to you might not be around next year to see the days brighten, and reminding yourself that neither might you. Take advantage of as many of these moments as you can.
