[Saint Nicholas] was only named a saint in the 19th century.Huh? Whether or not you're a Christian, it's pretty-well established that his relics have been housed in a Basilica in Bari since 1087, having been taken from an earlier shrine built in his honor in Myra. His sainthood dates back to the days before the schism between the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. Sheesh.
c.1250, from O.Fr. solstice, from L. solstitium "point at which the sun seems to stand still," from sol "sun" (see sol) + pp. stem of sistere "to come to a stop, make stand still"Whenever the holiday comes, it should be longer than a day. People should be guaranteed two weeks off at least once a year to forget work. So how about a mandatory two weeks (or more?) off with at least one of those days being the winter solstice?
... In the King of the Saturnalia at Rome, as he is depicted by classical writers, we see only a feeble emasculated copy of that original, whose strong features have been fortunately preserved for us by the obscure author of the Martyrdom of St. Dasius. In other words, the martyrologist’s account of the Saturnalia agrees so closely with the accounts of similar rites elsewhere which could not possibly have been known to him, that the substantial accuracy of his description may be regarded as established; and further, since the custom of putting a mock king to death as a representative of a god cannot have grown out of a practice of appointing him to preside over a holiday revel, whereas the reverse may very well have happened, we are justified in assuming that in an earlier and more barbarous age it was the universal practice in ancient Italy, wherever the worship of Saturn prevailed, to choose a man who played the part and enjoyed all the traditionary privileges of Saturn for a season, and then died, whether by his own or another’s hand, whether by the knife or the fire or on the gallows-tree, in the character of the good god who gave his life for the world.Frazer's assumption here has not been supported by subsequent research - anthropologists have not found other citations or field-collected evidence of human sacrifice at Saturnalia.
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Still, there's some interesting stuff presented.
I've always understood that Santa Claus is a relatively modern development in Christian tradition. This article suggests that it wasn't really codified until well into the 1800's. How was Christmas celebrated prior to this? How did, say, George Washington celebrate Christmas with his family?
posted by aladfar at 12:00 PM on December 17, 2005