what’s christmas even like in non-christian families? in completely non-religious families? like what do you tell your children? “well, kids, we’re eating a whole lot of food and spending a fuckton of money spoiling you because some other people somewhere believe their holy lord and saviour and the greatest person to walk the earth was born 2000 years ago. here’s a playstation.”
yeah pretty much
i legit didnt know non-christians celebrated christmas… literally never crossed my mind
We do, and basically it’s like “Hey kids, let’s decorate a tree, exchange presents, eat a fuckload of food, and get a picture with the creepy mall Santa that probably will be arrested next week”. I didn’t even know it was a religious holiday until I was 9
Christmas was celebrated here (in Norway) for several thousand years before Christianity got here. There was literally nothing Christian about it in the beginning, the Christians just figured it’d be easier to say that Jesus was born on a day that was already celebrated than to make up a new holiday and force it on people
Pretty much every culture in the northern hemisphere has had a celebration in the fuck-all heart of winter purely because it’s depressing as fuck when it’s cold all the time and dark for 90% of the time
So long before jesus was born someone was like
“k it’s cold and dark and the view outside is literally identical to our concept of hell but I made you this candle stop being sad”
Yep, Easter existed before Jesus died on this day. Basically pretty much every “Christian” holiday was put on a pagan holiday, like lots of churches were also built on pagan places of worship. That’s how they made Christianity a success. We call that marketing now.
Christmas is rooted in pre-Christian Solstice celebrations. By Dec. 25th, days are getting noticeably longer. Light is triumphing over the dark. Spring and life will eventually return. In the dead of winter, the promise of renewal. It’s an ancient and powerful thing, that has been integral to human culture and religion in every culture around the globe.
Christians couldn’t get people to stop celebrating their solstice feast days, so they replaced the ‘rebirth of the sun’ celebrations with a ‘birth of the son’ celebration. Literally all they did was tweak existing mythology and relabel old traditions.
Christmas is far, far older than Christianity. Don’t flatter yourselves.
Additionally the birth of Christ was probably sometime in the spring or summer. (we base this on tax times and lambing seasons). By and large*, Christians didn’t start celebrating the birth of Jesus in December until 336 when Roman Emperor Constantine did a whole bunch of shady stuff to give his momma’s religion more power/importance and basically set Christianity on the sucky ass path it’s been on every since. (fyi it was Pope Julius I who made it an official holiday a few years later).
*There is some speculation on why this was so easily accepted. One reason being that for reasons not quite known the date was already associated with Jesus’s birth. In the second century Hippolytus wrote in passing that Jesus’s birthday was on December 25th and I think this gets largely ignored because it doesn’t fit with the currently popular historical narrative. That said humans have long had traditions of combining/appropriating regional holidays as populations move into and out of areas and we have ALWAYS had a mid winter holiday for reasons.
tl;dr: The most readily identified secular Christmas observations/symbols/etc aren’t Christian at all, so it’s not remotely odd to me that Christmas is celebrated by nonchristians. It’s odder to me that nonchristians get all riled up when those secular symbols are attacked. (like holiday reindeer cups, etc)
ps. I realize that those symbols are not secular to everyone, but in most current observances there is little knowledge or understanding of their religious roots.
“CLIMBS UP ON SOAPBOX”
ALSO BECAUSE I’M NOT DONE
Christmas trees? Why the fuck do we drag a tree into our house and decorate it in the middle of winter? Because the evergreen is an ancient pagan symbol associated with immortality and rebirth, as it’s the only tree that is green in the dead of winter. Romans used fir branches to decorate their homes at Saturnalaia. Pagans in Europe used fir and holly branches to remind themselves that rebirth and growth would return, as even the coldest winter could not kill all the green growing things. It doesn’t have fuckall to do with Jesus, kids.
Santa? The wise old man who rides a sleigh drawn by eight reindeer through the sky on Yule Night? Based on Odin, the Allfather of the Norse Gods, who rode his eight-legged steed Slepnir on a hunt through the sky on Yule night. Children would leave their boots out, filled with hay or root vegetables for Odin’s mount as an offering. If this pleased Odin, he would leave gifts in return, for all gifts must be returned in kind.
Sound familiar?? (Right and the reindeer? A hugely important animal to most of the Northern European cultures where solstice celebrations originated. They also have ties to the Horned God, the god of the hunt, which associates them with Odin’s ride with the Wild Hunt on Yule Eve. Again, ain’t got shit-all to do with Jesus.)
Christmas.
Ain’t.
Christian.
*builds a soapbox big enough for the both of us, passes you a cup of eggnog and a spiced cookie*
Don’t get me started on St. Nic.
Saint Nicolas (the Wonderworker) was a wealthy, 4th century Turkish saint (so the likelihood of that round white man with the white beard…yeah…pretty slim *snickers at pun*) with a reputation for secret gift giving, ie putting coins in shoes…which I wonder where that notion would have come from? I mean on the one hand, yes, previously existing traditions from others, but also, shoes are handy? and a place someone is likely to absolutely not miss a thing.
But really, THAT’S IT. He didn’t leave toys for children or build them or any such thing. What we have is just have a good ol’ case of FUSION going on wherein the Christians were super excited to have someone of their own who could take on the traits of a figure most likely already common in their time/geography. Because I’ma guess folks really didn’t want to give up this kind of fun.
It REALLY helped that St. Nic’s feast day was early December.
The holiday took off during the Middle Ages in areas where anything pagan had better be rebranded as Christian or folks couldn’t keep it. St. Nic was handy, became Sinterklass and heck yes took a whole bunch from Odin cause you know…Odin needed a Christian face if he was going to continue spoiling kids with sweets.
As it stands now, St. Nic is nearly lost in all but name, but man…when people start getting super passionate about their white santa I like to drag him out and wave him around.
GESTICULATES WILDLY AT ABOVE POST WHILE SHOVING COOKIE INTO MOUTH
And St. Nick became associated with the earlier Odin myth BECAUSE he shared some features compatible with the Odin myth and was a suitable Christian figure to use to cover up the older, pagan roots of the tradition!
SANTA IS EITHER A TURKISH MAN OR THE POWERFUL KING OF A PAGAN PANTHEON TAKE YOUR PICK EITHER WAY YOUR JOLLY LITTLE WHITE SANTA IS A LIE.
AND THEN THE ELVES. FUCK ME THE ELVES.
Tied inextricably to the myths of the ‘little people,’ and of course to the powerful Sidhe and the dwarves of Norse myth, who crafted wondrous gifts for the gods in their marvelous workshops.
The Fair Folk were well known for punishing those who crossed them, and conversely richly rewarding those who pleased them. Or, in other words, “The Naughty and Nice.”
“Swigs eggnog, drops mic.”
Okay so like my favorite awful Christmas movie is the Life and Adventures of Santa Claus because holy heck it takes all the pagan elements cuts them up and stitches them into this wild but somehow historically honest (not accurate, honest, there’s a difference) quilt and yes, the naughty and nice fair/forest folk just– *flails until you reassure me that you’ve seen this claymation masterpiece*
This is why our tree is basically forest, fey, and mythological creatures because honestly the magic and wonder of the season is what I love the most.
Also, I sorta hate round fat jolly santa and I think we could have largely helped me get over that as a child if he had just ridden a beautiful giant grey horse.
NOW
DO WE EVEN WANT TO GET INTO THE MESS THAT IS YULE LOGS?
OH FUCK I THOUGHT NO ONE ELSE EVEN KNEW ABOUT THAT MOVIE MY MOTHER WATCHED IT WITH US WHEN I WAS A LITTLE BUDDING FILTHY HEATHEN AND SHE WAS ALREADY A FULLY FLEDGED FILTHY HEATHEN.
My tree is all vintage glass ornaments that I’ve gotten from thrift shops because I love the sheer beauty of them and because I feel like my pagan ancestors would have also loved them.
And OH FUCK YULE LOGS, traditionally cut from an oak tree, which has such deep rich symbolism in old pagan mythology that it’s worthy of a whole essay on its own, decorated with evergreen and holly for rebirth and immortality, and burned on the solstice to celebrate the return of light and warmth.
There’s an old, old rhyme for this;
May the log burn, May the wheel turn, May evil spurn, May the Sun return.
And then of course the ashes were used as powerful protection and fertility charms.
CHRISTIANITY CONTENT; 0.000000%.
“Offers spiced mead and gingerbread.”
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this and…
HOLY CRAP, OTHER PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT THAT MOVIE?! IT’S MY FAV FUCKING XMAS MOVIE AND WHEN I SHOW IT TO PEOPLE THEY’RE LIKE…WTF DID I JUST WATCH?!
Now….can I get on this spiced mead and cookies business?!
YEEAAAAAHHHHHH I love this whole thread!
Okay I love all this myth history but I feel like no one really answered the question.
“How do non-christians, TODAY, celebrate christmas? what do you tell your kids?”
and yeah some of it is “other people (statistically, your grandmother, so be nice and let her take you to church this one time) believe in this thing” but a lot of it is like…..christmas-movie-cheer? It’s like Thanksgiving But About Presents. We have this holiday, and it’s a time of year for us come together and celebrate family and friends and generosity, just like we celebrated our good fortune a month ago, just like we celebrated Spooky Shit and Candy two months ago without any particular attention paid to All Saints Day Mass the next morning. We have these traditions because they’re fun and connect us to other people. it’s….really nice and cozy, actually.
I also love all this history but there is a simpler answer to the question.
“How do non-christians, TODAY, celebrate christmas?”
They don’t.
Yes, many people from both lapsed Christian and non-Christian backgrounds celebrate it in a secular way, but…a tremendous amount of people in the world don’t? American Jews famously eat Chinese food and go to the movies (not to “celebrate Christmas,” but because they have the day off and Chinese restaurants are open). I’d imagine in largely non-Christian countries it doesn’t even register.
No one asks how Christians celebrate Hanukkah or Eid or Diwali. For all the excellent dismantling this thread does of the tie between Christmas and Christ, it bothers me that no one’s questioned the overwhelming Christian-centric nature of the conversation.
(What do you tell your kids? “Sorry, honey, we don’t celebrate Christmas because we’re [insert religion here], you will get a present on [our appropriate gift giving holiday, if one exists], don’t tell the Christian kids Santa isn’t real.”)
