Pre-christianity, in northern Europe, worship of two entities The Goat and The Bear took place. The celebration of the two was held from what is now known as December 25th to January 1st, in which one man representing the bear and another represented the goat. On the 7th day, the bear sacrificed the goat, and carried his corpse door to door so that each member of the village could take a relic (either a piece of the person, or an item being worn) to remember how greatful they are for the Goat. It would assure good crops and that their people would be well-fed for the year.

I only call myself "Christian" to be patriotic. Although I'm technically agnostic. I'm not gonna label myself athiest. Who knows if there's a higher power up there or not? I certainly don't know for sure?

Besides, nobody can explain how the universe came to be. How it went from absolute nothingness, to there being something. That's a small sign that there's someone pulling strings, outside of time.

So I'm guessing no one's gonna be here? How fun. I get all the bashing to myself then I guess! (Oh, and Murphy.)

I'm going to be here, since my ps2 is in my room and I can do both at the same time Muhahah! o.o oh forgot I had to go to my crummy relatives house, dang you Shiri!

I wont be on for most of next week. my fiance (Nikua's player) will be in town and I haven't seen him for 10 months. We have a couple parties, his family's on the 23rd, my extended family on the 24th, and then all of my cousins go to my grandma's on the 25th and do our own smaller thing.

I'm looking foward to spending time with Josh during the holiday, and my family. And neither one of us will forget the religous meaning of Christmas.

It's true enough that the time of year we celebrate christmas has nothing to do whatsoever with when Jesus was born. The early christians simply found it to be a clever scheme to put up a religious festival at that particular time of year, and decided it would be as important as celebrating the birth of Jesus, in order to "compete" with the other, pre-christian, traditions. Saturnalia has been mentioned, and where I live (Norway) we have very long traditions for celebrating the turning of the sun, the time when the days would begin getting longer, in midwinter. We even stick to the old word, jul, from a thousand years ago, before christianity had come here. I imagine it's been more or less like that all across the northern parts of the globe.

Yes, Santa comes from a a Dutch saint, the call him SinterKlaas (or something very similiar). Still, dutch kids get their presents at the 8th of desember or so. The legend says that Klaas was a very compassionate man, that dropped three little sacks of coins down the chimney of a man that could not afford his three daughters' dowry. And thus christmas presents were born, Santa Claus as we know him today is an invention of coca-cola's in an ad campaign from the 20's or 30's. This vision also draws inspiration from little norwegian fairy tale creatures that live in the barns of all farms. It can perhaps also be mentioned that a central part of the roman Saturnalia was the exchange of little gifts, like little dolls and candy.

Okay, my main points seem to be; the timing of christmas has nothing to do with the birth of christ, Santa has nothing to do with the birth of Jesus, Santa is primarily a product of coca-cola and giving presents is a tradition that has nothing to do with the birth of Jesus. In other words, christmas as most of us know it has very little to do with Jesus.

All that being said, I don't have a problem with anyone that primarily celebrates the birth of Jesus during christmas. Just mind the fact that you stole our old tradition and added your ideals and religious purpose to it, and let anyone celebrate what parts of christmas they like.

Okay, Saturnalia celebration with my latin class tomorrow, jul in six days!
Merry Christmas everyone!

Considering the calendar we use today wasn't around when Jesus was born, I don't doubt that we most likely celebrate a lot of religious holidays on different days than they actually happen. I believe a year wasn't even the same length it is today, but I could be mistaken.

However, I don't doubt that they DID happen, and I don't really care what day it was decided to celebrate them. Santa Claus really has nothing to do with Christian Christmas, like you said, like others have said, he's not a religious symbol, he's a Cultural symbol, so using him as an example doesn't really do anything to discredit Christmas.

Really, if you don't know when something actually happened, I don't see it as a reason to not celebrate it.

Actually, the Julian calendar was introduced by Julius Caesar in 45 BC, forty-five years before the traditional date of birth for Christ. 365 days, 366 days every four years. Sound familiar? The Gregorian was introduced in the 1500s to correct the drift due to a slight error of 1 day every 128 years, so now XX00 years are only leap years if XX is divisible by four. Apart from that, the calendar is unchanged.

Yeah, what he said.

Aye, Romans had calanders before his birth, and I am sure they were quite able to accuratly pin point the day, considering this. Those wise men would be very familier with the calander, after all it had been around for 45 years now, just about an average life time.

And have you ever wondered why the Calander had so many names that remained similar in Latin languages?

January was named after the God of Doors, Janus.
March in honour of Mars
May in honour of Maia
June in honour of Junius
July in honour of Gaius Julius Caeser
August in honour of Gaius Julius Caeser Octavius Augustus

The other months were more then likly connected to a spirit, divine or person, but the exact details at this point are lost, but were more then likely taken from the exsisting calender, which traced its roots back to Ectrusia and Greek influence in Italy.

June is from Juno, Alpha Goddess.
September = septem, Latin for seven
October = octo, Latin for eight
November = novem, Latin for nine
December = decem, Latin for ten

Since those were the numbers of the months prior to Julius and Augustus (he renamed Sextilis) wanting their own months in there.

After looking up the other names, February is from Februus or else from februa, the festivals of purification celebrated in Rome during February. April is from from aperire, "to open", theoretically because it is the month in which the buds begin to open.

April was also a common name given to daughters... so it is extremly possible that it was named after some ones daughter... (Not unlikely) And those festivels have recently been shown to happen in January, casting doubt once more on Febuaray...

And June was named after Lucius Junius Brutus shortly after the formation of the Republic, which he had a large influnce in.

edit^ Left out my reference: This is from the "Ab Urbe Condita," written by Livy c.10bc-c.20ad

(By the way Juno is a Her, so she aint an Alpha which is a male title)

The holidays....what?

You mean, everyone doesn't go and get roaring drunk by 8 am, open gifts, drink some more, eat, puke everything up, then go to bed, and wake up thinking it's Xmas again?


....

So many people are missing out!

If I were spending christmas with my family, then most likely something like that would happen (without the vomit, heh), ITS NOT RIGHT IF WE HAVEN'T HAD AT LEAST 2 GLASSES OF MAMOSA BY 8 AM (thanks to my grandmother), and possibly 2 or 3 bloody marys, depending on the mood.

And then we'd open presents, everyone would be happy, then we'd just disappear back to our individual areas of the house and not see one another til that evening, in which someone would say something about someone else, and an argument would insue, and then the whole family would be yelling and insulting one another for about 2 or 3 hours, and then everything would go back to normal like instantly and we'd play card games and monopoly til like 4 in the morning the next day.

But instead, I'm spending it with my wife's family, who are a lot better. Nobody starts arguments, which is weird. This will have been 2 thanksgivings and 2 christmases in a row. Hrm.

See, the thing with that is that my family gets roaring drunk the night before (most likely on communion wine, excess of) and doesn't wake up 'till like 2 PM, at which point they stumble downstairs, accidentally ignite the Xmas pudding, open their presents, have some of my mum's (awesome) Xmas cake, and stumble off back to bed. Puking is minimalised unless someone accidentally leaves some wrapping paper on the floor and the dog decides she likes the sparkly colours and stuff.

I just sit in my room and stuff.

Hmmm, and since my not doing anything christmas is borne from plain dislike for the holiday, and being the Grinch, humbug whatever yu call it, If you see me on lusternia give me awide berth.

Actually, I think i'll just hunt shirii for the day. Could be a lot of fun, and if I don't ruin -someones- christmas then It'll be a wasted day (ok no im not serious about ruining it for everyone else, but if i was being selfish then I would be)

Someone wanna buy me a couple of damage modifying runes? Fire ones would be nice for all those annoying aslarans and Merians and Mugwumps...

Pff, bring it on, I won't be on as Shiri, I rarely am anymore

I'll be checking in because I'll be hiding with my G/F's dad in his basement (aka his study) avoiding the rest of their family.

Oh, and Coca Cola had nothing to do with changing the color of Santa Claus' outfit. That's just a myth.

The American Santa Claus was changed by the poem "Twas the Night Before Christmas". And then the rest of the Christmas-Celebrating World fell in line.