No, Virginia, there is no Santa Claus!

I feel like one of the greatest gifts I've ever given my punks is honesty. They have always known that there is no Santa, Easter Bunny, or Tooth Fairy. And if you ask them, an allowance is a myth as well. The punks know that the only reason for the season is Jesus Christ. The punks understand that he wasn't born on December 25th and can show you where scripture supports that truth as well. What the punks do know is that a lie can do damage that can never be undone and that it destroys trust. That's not to say that we don't celebrate by giving gifts. You see the punk's CHRISTmas wish list is comprised of gifts to give others. We will spend CHRISTmas day by serving food to the homeless, as the gift of charity is another thing they've learned is important. Don't get me wrong, the punks get gifts but they've learned the important of giving to others, as the GREATEST gift we as Christians have ever received is the gift of life!

If you’ve wondered, “What is the history of the Christmas traditions?”… well, here you go.

Many of our modern Christmas traditions began hundreds of years before Christ was born. Some of these traditions date back more than 4000 years. The addition of Christ to the celebration of the winter solstice did not occur until 300 years after Christ died and as late as 1800, some devout Christian sects, like the Puritans, forbade their members from celebrating Christmas because it was considered a pagan holiday. So what is the history behind these traditions?

The Christmas Tree

This is derived from several solstice traditions. The Romans decked their halls with garlands of laurel and placed candles in live trees to decorate for the celebration of Saturnalia. In Scandinavia, they hung apples from evergreen trees at the winder solstice to remind themselves that spring and summer will come again. The evergreen tree was the special plant of their sun god, Baldor.

Gift Exchanging

The practice of exchanging gifts at a winter celebration is also pre-Christian and is from the Roman Saturnalia. They would exchange good-luck gifts called Stenae (lucky fruits). They also would have a big feast just like we do today.

Mistletoe

Mistletoe is from an ancient Druid custom at the winter solstice. Mistletoe was considered a divine plant and it symbolized love and peace. The tradition of kissing under the mistletoe is Druid in origin.

Yule log

The Scandinavian solstice traditions had a lot of influences on our celebration besides the hanging of ornaments on evergreen trees. Their ancient festival was called Yuletide and celebrated the return of the sun. One of their traditions was the Yule log. The log was the center of the trunk of a tree that was dragged to a large fireplace where it was supposed to burn for twelve days. From this comes the twelve days of Christmas.

December 25th

Even the date of Christmas, December 25, was borrowed from another religion. At the time Christmas was created in AD 320, Mithraism was very popular. The early Christian church had gotten tired of their futile efforts to stop people celebrating the solstice and the birthday of Mithras, the Persian sun god. Mithras’ birthday was December 25. So the pope at the time decided to make Jesus’ official birthday coincide with Mithras’ birthday. No one knows what time of year Jesus was actually born but there is evidence to suggest that it was in midsummer.

Roman pagans first introduced the holiday of Saturnalia, a week long period of lawlessness celebrated between December 17-25.  During this period, Roman courts were closed, and Roman law dictated that no one could be punished for damaging property or injuring people during the week long celebration.  The festival began when Roman authorities chose “an enemy of the Roman people” to represent the “Lord of Misrule.”  Each Roman community selected a victim whom they forced to indulge in food and other physical pleasures throughout the week.  At the festival’s conclusion, December 25^th, Roman authorities believed they were destroying the forces of darkness by brutally murdering this innocent man or woman.

Santa Claus

Nicholas was born in Parara, Turkey in 270 CE and later became Bishop of Myra.  He died in 345 CE on December 6^th.  He was only named a saint in the 19^th century.

Nicholas was among the most senior bishops who convened the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE and created the New Testament.  The text they produced portrayed Jews as “the children of the devil” who sentenced Jesus to death.

In 1087, a group of sailors who idolized Nicholas moved his bones from Turkey to a sanctuary in Bari, Italy.  There Nicholas supplanted a female boon-giving deity called The Grandmother, or Pasqua Epiphania, who used to fill the children’s stockings with her gifts.  The Grandmother was ousted from her shrine at Bari, which became the center of the Nicholas cult.  Members of this group gave each other gifts during a pageant they conducted annually on the anniversary of Nicholas’ death, December 6.

The Nicholas cult spread north until it was adopted by German and Celtic pagans. These groups worshiped a pantheon led by Woden –their chief god and the father of Thor, Balder, and Tiw. Woden had a long, white beard and rode a horse through the heavens one evening each Autumn.  When Nicholas merged with Woden, he shed his Mediterranean appearance, grew a beard, mounted a flying horse, rescheduled his flight for December, and donned heavy winter clothing.

In a bid for pagan adherents in Northern Europe, the Catholic Church adopted the Nicholas cult and taught that he did (and they should) distribute gifts on December 25^thinstead of December 6^th.

In 1809, the novelist Washington Irving (most famous his The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle) wrote a satire of Dutch culture entitled Knickerbocker History. The satire refers several times to the white bearded, flying-horse riding Saint Nicholas using his Dutch name, Santa Claus.

Dr. Clement Moore, a professor at Union Seminary, read Knickerbocker History, and in 1822 he published a poem based on the character Santa Claus: “Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.  The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in the hope that Saint Nicholas soon would be there…”  Moore innovated by portraying a Santa with eight reindeer who descended through chimneys.

The Bavarian illustrator Thomas Nast almost completed the modern picture of Santa Claus.  From 1862 through 1886, based on Moore’s poem, Nast drew more than 2,200 cartoon images of Santa for Harper’s Weekly.  Before Nast, Saint Nicholas had been pictured as everything from a stern looking bishop to a gnome-like figure in a frock.  Nast also gave Santa a home at the North Pole, his workshop filled with elves, and his list of the good and bad children of the world.  All Santa was missing was his red outfit.

In 1931, the Coca Cola Corporation contracted the Swedish commercial artist Haddon Sundblom to create a coke-drinking Santa.  Sundblom modeled his Santa on his friend Lou Prentice, chosen for his cheerful, chubby face.  The corporation insisted that Santa’s fur-trimmed suit be bright, Coca Cola red.  And Santa was born – a blend of Christian crusader, pagan god, and commercial idol.

So, if you are celebrating any of the western traditions of Christmas this year, remember that you are actually enjoying the rituals and activities of several ancient religions whose traditions have been borrowed by the Catholic Church (and most Christian Churches) over the years for the celebration of the birth of Christ.   

So let it be known that there should only be one reason for the season: 

JESUS CHRIST!

Thursday Thirteen: Daddy's Hands....Adult Content!

Today's Thursday 13 courtesy of Sh*t My Dad Says:

*"No one gives a shit about all the things your cell phone does. You didn't invent it, you just bought it. Anybody can do that."

*"Sometimes life leaves a hundred dollar bill on your dresser, and you don't realize until later that it's because it f*cked you."

*"The punk will talk when he talks, relax. It ain't like he knows the cure for cancer and he just ain't spitting it out."

*As told to the oldest punk, "That woman was sexy...Out of your league? Son. Let women figure out why they won't screw you, don't do it for them."

*As said to the lil punk, "I'm sorry if your brother doesn't want you to play with his sh*t, then you can't play with it. It's his sh*t. If he wants to be an asshole and not share, that's his right. You always have the right to be an asshole- you just shouldn't use that right very often."

*"Snausages? I've been eating dog treats? Why the f*ck would you put them on the counter next to real food? F*ck it, they're delicious. I will not be shamed by this!"

*"Don’t focus on the one guy who hates you. You don’t go to the park and set your picnic down next to the only pile of dog sh*t."

*"They're offended? F*ck, sh*t, asshole, sh*tf*ck; they're just words...Fine. Sh*tf*ck isn't a word, but you get my point."

*Said to my brother, "Stop trying so hard. He doesn't like you. Jesus, don't kiss an ass if it's in the process of shitting on you."

*"Waking up when you got a baby, you feel like you drank a bottle of whiskey the night before, except the sh*t's in someone else's pants."

*"HIDDEN roaming charges? Jesus, Sprint has 'f*cking people' down to a science, like they practice it in a fucking lab on mice first."

*"A parent's only as good as their dumbest kid. If one wins a Nobel Prize but the other gets robbed by a hooker, you failed."

*"There's a word for people like that...No, I'm saying, there's a word and I don't know what it is. I'm not being f*cking poetic."

And a bonus this was said to me, upon finding out I was pregnant with the oldest punk, "It's never the right time to have kids, but it's always the right time for screwing. God's not a dumbsh*t. He knows how it works."

I Want Wednesdays: I Want You To Want Me

I want kissing in the snow, knowing glances, and whispered promises.

I want forvever, the one who gets me, my other half.

I want inside jokes, snuggling, and movies to keep me warm.

I want to hold hands and see penguins at the zoo.

I want a weekend spent in bed. No, not for sleep.

I want hot and sweaty sometimes. And making out in the shower to cool off.

I want to know better how to touch in ways that won't be forgotten.

I want to share funnel cakes, friends, and live music.

I want it to be okay that I ramble relentlessly, that I think too much, and that I'm sassy.

I want a day of walking on the beach, lots of photos, and finishing the ends of sentances.

I want comfortable silence, talks about nothing, and everything.

I want laughter, tickling, wrestling, and spontaneity.

I want dinner making, a roaring fire in the fireplace, and a merlot with a good after taste.

I want long, slow, deep, wet kisses that last for three days for the appetizer, entree, and dessert.

I want lots of tasting, smelling, touching and listening.

I want rodeos, snow cones, and pick up trucks.

I want time to figure out what I want, time to find it, and time to enjoy it.

I want a real man who will spend a lifetime proving he's not like the rest, a cowboy with integrity, and heart that belongs to God.

I want the present. The here and now, where there isn't a past and there isn't yet a future.

I don't want assumptions or titles or expectations or rules.

I don't want to be made to feel like I am committing a felony by the want.

I want too much, not enough, and what I have.

I want there to be room for me....in you, whoever and wherever you are.

I want Tiffany jewelry, a chinchilla jacket, and Tony Lama Caimans.

I want sunsets on horseback, a cowboy of my own, and my punks.

I want honesty, integrity, and trust.

I want love, a gold band, and a lifetime.

It's good to want things........