Holidays at the Bar Humbug

Miki said she’d like to celebrate a pagan Christmas. Well, no problem: decorate a fir tree, hang druidic holly and mistletoe, burn a Yule log, sing loudly, exchange gifts, drink and feast. I’m just not sure what a non-pagan Christmas would look like.

The early Christians in this country had a brief to adopt local festivals under Christian themes. That’s where Easter and Christmas and a host of lesser holidays, now mostly forgotten came from. (Michaelmas, anyone?)

Christmas revels enjoyed a bad reputation for centuries, and when the Roundheads gained power in the English Revolution, they banned the holiday. Cromwell even sent out patrols to compel merchants to open their shops.

The holiday became respectable only when repackaged by Dickens in A Christmas Carol and The Pickwick Papers. The Royal Family then introduced the Christmas tree, its Nordic pagan roots still intact.

It’s hard to believe that Santa Claus, that icon of Christmas, was a thin and minor saint, usually depicted in white and of doubtful connection with the holiday until the Coca Cola corporation recreated him with the help of a fat employee dressed in the corporate colours.

In short, Yule is a venerable and disreputable pagan celebration piously hijacked by arriving Christians. Since Christmas and Easter (another pagan festival) represent the limit of most people’s religious participation these days, it’s tempting to conclude that Britain's dalliance with Christianity is nearly over.

It’s certainly a challenge keeping a straight face to the plea to keep Christmas Christian.