Merry Christmas, and all that jazz

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Firstly in all seriousness, I wish everyone on CF a hearty and healthy festive season, and a rip-roaring start to the New Year.

I wanted to start my own topic on this, after reading a comment in another thread on the dating of Christmas.

Being newly converted towards the Christian faith myself, and well-rehearsed in ancient history thanks to the tireless ministrations of my Latin teacher, the debate on the date of the birth of Christ is an interesting one.

As already mentioned, the birth of Christ is attributed to be around the 6th January.

I think common belief moved the date to the 25th December, to coincide with the Winter Solstice on the Julian Calendar.

A lot of people think that Christmas is now celebrated on 25th December to coincide with the Roman feast of Saturnalia, worshiping the god Saturn (surprisingly). I don't think this is true, as Saturnalia was (I think) celebrated in the week leading up to the 17th December (or a week from/after 17th). A quick rumble on Wikipedia showed me 25th December was infact the feast of Sol Invictus, which supplanted Saturnalia.

Hmmm... I'm not sure if the thread has a point now. I was trying to explain to myself how commercial "Christmas Day" itself had become - away from the religion, and more towards the grasping profit-mongerers in the high street - and whether or not anyone else observed any different days.

Possibly, you can all ignore me completely. But I put too much thought into remembering the details of Saturnalia to delete everything I've written.

Merry Christmas!

 

Merry Xmas