Merry Christmas, Holiday Greetings, Happy New Year

[Elvis Hendrix]

Petrus.
This life is a short life and an unforgiving life.
The darkest mornings and the darkest evenings  come around this time of year.
We have a little window to welcome in the sun again and to us it's called
Christmas..
I am no Christian .
Let the days become longer in your life,
And from Christmas they surely will.
We have only so many days,
Raise your head up and enjoy every minute.
Happy Xmas.
Elvis.

[zorgon]

I am no Christian .
Happy Xmas.

Well we can fix this real easy...  Since Jesus was born around May 5th, 0000  not December 24th...

All we need to do is celebrate the ORIGINAL holiday, which is the PAGAN YULE

Even the Christmas Tree is stolen from the YULE TREE, a tree that had real candles in it



It is the Tree of Life...  the Yule is the celebration of the returning longer days at the Winter Solstice

The Christians just STOLE that day because people were already celebrating then.  But it has nothing to do with Jesus's birth   

So CELEBRATE LIFE... the sun is not really going away... it will return 

Here is a Yule Card for ya...



Happy now?

[zorgon]

Yule Feast a Medieval Tradition



Zorgon with Baron Aonarach (pronounced Oonrock)



Ahhhh the Goode Olde Dayes   

[ArMaP]

The commercialistic excess has become more than I want to deal with, these days.

No commercialistic excess here, we have no money for that.

No disgusting, corny movies; no pain where I can't go into a supermarket without hearing carols, as they don't play those here in Nimbin.  It's going to be great.

We always chose a movie we like to watch, we stopped watching the usual Christmas movies a long time ago, and most supermarkets here do not play carols.

I would also appreciate it if people can refrain from demonising me for expressing the above opinion, as well.

Never did, never will.

Christmas to a large extent is not a positive thing, these days.  It's a source of noise, work, and expense; and virtually all of it is both unnecessary and non-consentual.

Maybe for you, for me it has zero religious context and zero commercial context, it has always been an excuse to celebrate the fact that we are still an united family (what is left of it), even if we don't have the money to have a real feast. Also, as my father's birthday was December 24 it has always had a slightly different aspect to us, specially since his death.

I also don't need a designated day of the year where I behave like a decent human being, because I'm living in a place where I and other people help each other all the time.

True, but at least this day is a holiday.

PS: a Merry December 4, petrus4.

[thorfourwinds]

[petrus4]

PS: a Merry December 4, petrus4.

Thank you, Armap.  Just so that everyone here knows that I'm not a complete monster, it's not that I have any sort of objection to anyone else enjoying Christmas, and I especially do not object to you observing it for serious spiritual or religious reasons.  It's just that for me, Christmas has increasingly become a time when I remember the importance of frugality and minimalism, rather than excess.

So in closing, I will sincerely wish everyone here a Merry Christmas; but in terms of how I at least observe it, I will also wish you a sober, sincere, and relatively austere Christmas as well.  May you receive everything that you need, but not necessarily everything that you may have been falsely led into believing that you want.



Remember Joshua the Messiah; Jesus Christ.  While there are solitary elements of Christian theology that I have disagreed with, as an individual person, Jesus is probably still one of the best examples we've got.  If we make Christmas about him, and the real and more specific story of St. Nicholas of Greece, then that is something that I can only encourage.

[Somamech]

Xmas for me is usually pretty cool since I reunited with my Dad in the last decade

My dad's side of the family has been broken for many a year till last xmas where they abided by my then 93YO Grans rules and made themselves get along in the one spot over a feast where a truce was called, a truce which is lasting to this very day.  That day was a blast!

The reason of the celebration do not matter much, just having ONE point of celebration per year is a Grand Thing these days given all the negative output that one can consume themselves with

I've spent one xmas on my own in the past, and although it didn't bother me, it sure as hell wasn't as good as spending time with people who you should spend time with more often !

Morals... They work

[Sinny]

The Christians just STOLE that day because people were already celebrating then.  But it has nothing to do with Jesus's birth   

That's your belief, how do you know Christianity has not purposely been hijacked to make it look like it highjacked the Pagans and Mystery Cults in order to discredit the 'religion'?

Fact. You don't know 

[Sinny]

So in closing, I will sincerely wish everyone here a Merry Christmas; but in terms of how I at least observe it, I will also wish you a sober, sincere, and relatively austere Christmas as well.  May you receive everything that you need, but not necessarily everything that you may have been falsely led into believing that you want.

On behalf of us Celts, you can keep your sober wishes

[space otter]

I don't claim any religion. in my opinion they are all only temporary political systems

but the solstice returns  each year 

so I wish you all a return of the light as we slowly progress

BLESSED SOLSTICE TO ALL

http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/winter-solstice.html



Winter solstice - northern and southern


Solstices are opposite on either side of the equator, so the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere is the summer solstice in the southern hemisphere and vice versa.


Northern Hemisphere winter solstice

(North America, Central America, Europe, Asia, northern Africa)

December solstice 2014: December 21, at 23:03 UTC.

Southern Hemisphere winter solstice

(Australia, New Zealand, South America, Southern Africa)

June solstice 2014: June 21, at 10:51 UTC.

When is the Winter Solstice in my city?

First day of winter?

In the USA and some other areas in the northern hemisphere, the winter solstice marks the first day of winter. However, the official date for the first day of winter varies depending on the country's climate.

[Sinny]

Ahh, Solstice, perhaps a celebration we can all agree on.

Happy return Sky, and have some gold - I found a pot of it. 

[space otter]

ah thank you so much Sinny

ah hole pot, huh?....must've been a solstice gift...    

[zorgon]

That's your belief, how do you know Christianity has not purposely been hijacked to make it look like it highjacked the Pagans and Mystery Cults in order to discredit the 'religion'?
Fact. You don't know 

Well since there is no PROOF that Jesus was real I suppose in that sense "I do not know"  However the HOLIDAY we call CHRISTMAS was not the birthday of Jesus


Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the Church.....

The first evidence of the feast is from Egypt. About A.D. 200, Clement of Alexandria (Stromata I.21) says that certain Egyptian theologians "over curiously" assign, not the year alone, but the day of Christ's birth, placing it on 25 Pachon (20 May) in the twenty-eighth year of Augustus. ....

Natalis Invicti

The well-known solar feast, however, of Natalis Invicti, celebrated on 25 December, has a strong claim on the responsibility for our December date. For the history of the solar cult, its position in the Roman Empire, and syncretism with Mithraism, see Cumont's epoch-making "Textes et Monuments" etc., I, ii, 4, 6, p. 355.

The Catholic Encyclopedia
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03724b.htm

So yes I DO know... from the mouth of the horse

December 25th was the celebration of the 'rebirth' of  Sol... after the shortest day of the year the winter equinox

Also in May of that year there was an allignement of the planets... something wisemen would have 'seen' but not the regular public


Cards and presents

Pagan customs centering round the January calends gravitated to Christmas. Tiele (Yule and Christmas, London, 1899) has collected many interesting examples. The strenæ (eacute;trennes) of the Roman 1 January (bitterly condemned by Tertullian, de Idol., xiv and x, and by Maximus of Turin, Hom. ciii, de Kal. gentil., in P.L., LVII, 492, etc.) survive as Christmas presents, cards, boxes.


GREEN STUFF...

From this belief of the calends practice of greenery decorations (forbidden by Archbishop Martin of Braga, c. 575, P.L., LXXIII — mistletoe was bequeathed by the Druids) developed the Christmas tree, first definitely mentioned in 1605 at Strasburg, and introduced into France and England in 1840 only, by Princess Helena of Mecklenburg and the Prince Consort respectively.

The calends were Pagan/Roman dates based on the Moon. Mistle Toe was from the Druids and it was forbidden by the church

In England, Christmas was forbidden by Act of Parliament in 1644; the day was to be a fast and a market day; shops were compelled to be open; plum puddings and mince pies condemned as heathen. The conservatives resisted; at Canterbury blood was shed; but after the Restoration Dissenters continued to call Yuletide "Fooltide".

Nativity Scene... not invented till  1223

St. Francis of Assisi in 1223 originated the crib of today by laicizing a hitherto ecclesiastical custom, henceforward extra-liturgical and popular. The presence of ox and ass is due to a misinterpretation of Isaiah 1:3 and Habakkuk 3:2 ("Itala" version), though they appear in the unique fourth-century "Nativity" discovered in the St. Sebastian catacombs in 1877. The ass on which Balaam rode in the Reims mystery won for the feast the title Festum Asinorum (Ducange, op. cit., s.v. Festum).

Santa Claus

The 'original' Santa Claus story was WODEN descending on a white horse. 

The mysterious visitor

Only with great caution should the mysterious benefactor of Christmas night — Knecht Ruprecht, Pelzmärtel on a wooden horse, St. Martin on a white charger, St. Nicholas and his "reformed" equivalent, Father Christmas — be ascribed to the stepping of a saint into the shoes of Woden, who, with his wife Berchta, descended on the nights between 25 December and 6 January, on a white horse to bless earth and men. Fires and blazing wheels starred the hills, houses were adorned, trials suspended and feasts celebrated (cf. Bonaccorse, op. cit., p. 151). Knecht Ruprecht, at any rate (first found in a mystery of 1668 and condemned in 1680 as a devil) was only a servant of the Holy Child.

All this info on the origin of Christmas traditions CLEARLY taken from the PAGANS is well documented by the Roman Catholic Church themselves 

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03724b.htm

[petrus4]

On behalf of us Celts, you can keep your sober wishes

Alcohol is a poison.  Here at the farm, we have had people under the influence of numerous other substances, without incident.  The only incidents which have required calling the police, have consistently involved either methamphetamines or alcohol.  People are more likely to be violent under the influence of alcohol, than they are while under the influence of LSD.

I am not saying that alcohol does not have its' uses.  It is valuable for the creation of tinctures.  It is also an anaesthetic and sterilising agent.  I have, however, learned to regard ingestion of it for recreational purposes as a form of abuse. 

As there are good and bad people, so there are good and bad drugs.

[petrus4]

be ascribed to the stepping of a saint into the shoes of Woden, who, with his wife Berchta, descended on the nights between 25 December and 6 January, on a white horse to bless earth and men. Fires and blazing wheels starred the hills, houses were adorned, trials suspended and feasts celebrated

The end of December and the beginning of January, is the energetic transition point between the signs of Saggitarius and Capricorn.  Sag corresponds with Jupiter, which in turn corresponds with the colours of red and purple, obesity, jovial emotion, (Jove was originally an expression for Jupiter) and material abundance and excess of all kinds.

In Rome, Capricorn corresponds with celebration of a festival called the Saturnalia, running from the 17th to the 23rd of December.  It was celebrated with an offering at the Temple of Saturn, along with private gift-giving, a public banquet, (similar to modern street parties which are customary in the UK, among other places) and a generally unrestrained, carnival type atmosphere.

Incidentally, as a God, Yahweh or El (known plurally in the Bible as the Elohim) also corresponds with Binah Qabbalistically, and the planet Saturn, which again is the ruler of Capricorn.

So yes, Christmas absolutely has numerous Pagan origins and correspondences.  Mechanically speaking, Christmas is a Western equivalent of the Native American potlatch; or that is at least what it is supposed to be in theory.



As with most things, I believe that Christmas should only be engaged in, when there is a serious understanding of, and commitment to, its' fundamental purpose.  Said purpose is to remember and reinforce, the importance of compassion, altruism, and other socially beneficial behaviour.  This also need not in any way detract from, or conflict with Christian needs from the observance; Jesus Christ is one of the most powerful exemplars of desirable conduct that we have, as mentioned.

I once attracted stong applause from members of an atheists' special interest group I attended, when I said that Christmas did not need to be abolished, as much as it needed to be rehabilitated; that the pathological elements needed to be distilled out, with the constructive elements emphasised and retained.  As strange and even blasphemous as it might sound, I feel that it is more important to maintain a scientific attitude towards Christmas than most other things.  This is precisely because Christmas has the tendency to be as big, vague, noisy, and subjective as it is.  We need to really nail down the specific reasons why Christmas is important and beneficial, if we are going to maximise said benefit.