Forum Post: Christmas... the most wonderful time of the year!
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 26, 2011, 10:21 p.m. EST by Payyourtaxesrichasses
(19)
from Brooklyn, NY
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
What are your thoughts on Christmas?
Well ... on the one hand its just a disgusting display of consumer excess and a cheapening of social bonds to the exchange of material things.
On the other hand it isn't so bad in principle, its more of a question of its excess. We long ago stopped exchanging purchased gifts in my family, except for the kids. Sometimes we'll pool money to buy something really important for somebody but it isn't so much that it's Christmas so we have to get them something, it's that we want to do this and it seems appropriate to wait for Christmas to do it. But in general we don't really exchange gifts anymore. My nieces who are in their 20s said they found Christmas embarassing and painful because they could not afford to buy presents for everyone, so we stopped. But we still very much enjoy getting together and having a nice dinner and spending the day with each other.
Christmas is a very, very old tradition in Western civilization. The 25th of December in the old Julian calendar (which was supposed to be the solstice, although the Julian calendar was inaccurate and wandered a bit as a result) was the day of a special festival called Saturnalia. Saturnalia was a day of feasting and the exchange of all manner of gifts between members of a household, including slaves. This was one of Saturnalia's more unusual aspects, on Saturnalia, everyone was equal. Slaves were allowed to (expected to) criticize their masters in a sort of role-reversal, and everyone wore a funny hat around the dinner table called a Phrygian cap - the symbol of a freed slave. I don't know if you have this in the States, but in the UK and Commonwealth countries we still have a tradition involving this little fireworks sort of things called "crackers" that give a loud bang and contain a paper crown that everyone wears to the dinner table.
Also the Romans seem to have gone caroling on Saturnalia, albeit this seems to have been a more rowdy and upsetting affair. Possibly even lewd if some early Christian authors (who hated it) are to be believed.
It has turned Christian's away from loving one another, into greedy little bastards - who worship the golden calf- and make the 1% rich.
Well. It is a religious holiday that has been turned into a materialistic orgy by the people.