Celebrate Your Family Christmas Holidays, Have A Happy Pagan Christmas

Christmas is a magical time. A time where people get together, feast and be merry. It is, indeed, the best family Christmas holiday, but did you know that it was orginally a pagan Christmas celebration and not a Christian?

Have you ever thought about how the yuletide came into being?

Why use this date to celebrate the birth of Christ, rather than any other and how did this celebration get adopted?

These questions may not even have entered your mind, yet alone be up for analytical query.

In this article, I will attempt to inform you of the facts pertaining to this celebration.

In short, you are celebrating a pagan Christmas!

I

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It might surprise you that Santa Claus never used to be the big red jolly bearded man that you have come to love. In true British tradition, from which the concept stemmed from, his outfit used to be depicted as green. It wasn’t until coke-a-cola adopted the figure for the American market, that he has been advertised in red.

Of course we all believe that Santa Claus exists – he is magic and is the only person that can do what he can do. However, whether he has decided to go with the status quo and change his dress to suit his young friends is rather a mystery. The fact of the matter is that he used to be a jolly green man. The green man is significant of a pagan chrismas central to the winter solstice celebrations. If you want to learn more about the green man, please click here.

The reason for this is that in the times where paganism was rife, he represented nature. Nature is often thought of as green and as the earth is the giver of life, what greater present is this to the people who were entering into the darkness of winter. This is a time where the earth rests and sleeps. As growth slows down, the availability of food becomes less.

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It is these days that nothing can afford to be wasted. The harvest has been long gone and stocks start to dwindle. Pagans, the wise men and women of the community, use this time to honour the Gods.

The 21^st December is the shortest day in the calendar. Fires are lit – a symbol of light, of hope and a wish for a good fertile year to follow. Prays, in the form of incantations and love are sent up with the flames. Singing, chanting and dancing all help elevate the vibration. This draws individuals together into unity, love and celebration of life. Good thoughts of life, fertility and peace to all men are sung bringing to each other a feeling of ‘one in the spirit’.

Wishes are made and messages from thought or word are gifted to the fire. Flames flow upward toward the ethereal. From this day forward the days will start to get longer and lighter. The fire signifies this too. This day is the Winter Solstice, one of the most important and most celebrated days in the pagan calendar. As the days become lighter, time then moves closer to the Summer Solstice.

This is the 21^st June, the longest, lightest day of the year. As you can see this time is most significant because it is about the cyclic nature of life.

As some scholars suggest, it is unlikely that Jesus was born on 25^th December. As shepherds watch their flocks by night, the weather conditions during December would have made this too cold to do this. It is thought that it would be more likely that Jesus was born in spring, during the period of lambing. Please click here for the evidence.

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Tree worship is paramount in Pagan ritual, particularly during festivals. The Christmas tree is an evergreen symbolising eternal life and is worshipped by Pagans. This idea evolved originally from the worship of the old Oak trees, however, somewhere along the line, this worship was transferred to the tree we now know and love.

In order to ward off evil spirits, Pagans and Druids place evergreen branches over their doors. This tradition has stuck within today’s Christmas celebrations.

People keep mistletoe, holly and ivy over doors and as decoration. This ritual remains with the world’s Pagans as with Christians of today.

Winter Solstice is a very mystical time of year. It has been celebrated for hundreds of years. All the left over fruits, nuts and suet, amongst other foodstuffs, was used and spiced up for the festival feast. This still goes on today. Christmas pudding, cake and mince pies has that familiar nutmeg, ginger and cinnamon taste. This helps with food preservation and contains healing properties, well known with the wise men and women of the Pagans.

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As this time of year was special and had a magical feel, Christianity adopted this as a time to celebrate the birth of Christ. It was a way of stamping out a religion that was thought of as spiritually unacceptable. Hijacking Winter Solstice, by moving the festival to the 25th, helped to change a tradition that had been long ingrained. The ordinary ‘peasant’ would not really even notice much of a change, so the behaviour modification technique worked.

So, enjoy the best family Christmas holidays ever with blessings, but understand that you are celebrating a pagan Christmas.  Blessed Be.

© This work is covered under Creative Commons License

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