It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like... Saturnalia!

Do you celebrate Christmas? Hang lights, give gifts, bake cookies, and have a big dinner?

Than Happy Saturnalia to you, because you aren't celebrating Christmas

As is the case with most Christian holidays, Christmas was simply a way to fold an existing Roman holiday into the new religion to make it more likable/acceptable to the masses so that more people would join.

History lesson for the day: The festival known as Saturnalia was celebrated in ancient Rome between the days of Dec 17-23 and led up to the Mithraic day of Dies Natalis Solis Invicti on Dec 25.

Among other things, during this festival people would:

-Wear pointed felt hats (christmas caps)...
-Bake human shaped biscuits (gingerbread men)...
-Give gifts and poems (greeting cards) and had parties/dinners every night (soberness was frowned upon in some instances)...
-Went around the cities and door to door singing (sometimes drunk and naked)...
-Give money to their employees to help buy gifts (Holiday bonus anyone)...
-Light candles and hang lights/lanterns for decorations...
-And a whole bunch of other fun stuff we still carry-on today.

So happy holidays everyone, and Io Saturnalia.

Orgies, dont forget the orgies.

It's hardly suprising and does little or nothing to deminish the Christian concept of Christmas.

People want to carry on traditions that make them happy.

So it is important to ask what makes humans, social animals, happy?

People like to gather to eat and drink. People like to sing songs. People like to do things that makes others feel better.

The gods of Rome were replaced. The symbols were changed. All the important things are different.

The only things that remain the same are the things that people do to celebrate. Eating, drinking, singing, and giving are common in nearly all human celebrations.