Just in time for the Holidays right? Well, barely. But I couldn’t let Christmas pass me by without posting at least one thing about it. Especially if it’s something thought provoking :).
See, as more and more people added a “Christmas-y” theme to their websites and (as the picture above proves) literary SELL Christmas I get all these questions popping up in my head. Like, why the hell is Christmas season the best season for ALL retailers?
Don’t get me wrong, I support the charities, I support the shelters, and I support anything that helps another human being suffer less. But I just don’t see why Christmas account for practically HALF the income of all retail stores.
Uhmm… Wasn’t Christmas about family? Wasn’t it more about spending time together rather than “let me buy you all this crap because I feel bad about the fact that we don’t spend time together all year round like we should”.
Well… surprisingly “Christmas” in it’s purest form wasn’t about family and love. It was about PARTYING! Yes, PARTYING!
See, Christmas is actually a pagan holiday (shocked?). Reality is our Christmas can actually be thought of as the continuation of Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, meaning “the birthday of the unconquered Sun”. The use of the title Sol Invictus solar deities to be worshiped collectively, which if you think about it, is actually time productive (smart pagans). But, the real reason people loved it so much though was because 1- farming work was done since it was winter, which meant party time, and 2- people were happy about the coming spring, which meant party time (basically everything leads to a party). allowed several
Christmas wouldn’t be what it is today if it wasn’t for Emperor Elagabalus who around 218–222 became the hype man (think club promoter) for the festival, and thanks to him (and his promoter ways) it reached the height of its popularity under Aurelian, who then promoted it as an empire-wide holiday.
The festival was arranged to be on the date of the solstice because that’s the time the Sun reversed its southward retreat and proved itself to be “unconquered” (this is where we go back to the whole worshiping gods thing). Now Christians, being supremely obsessed in their love for Christ, connected the “rebirth” of the sun to the birth of Jesus. I can actually picture them thinking of this:
Christian #1: “Dies Natalis Solis Invicti means “the birthday of the unconquered Sun, right?”
Christian #2: “Yah.”
Christian #1: “Christ is the son of God, right?”
Christian #2: “Uhmm…”
Christian #1: “JUST SAY YES!”
Christian #2: “Okay. Yah, he’s the son of God.”
Christian #1: *smiles* “So here’s the plan… We’ll go around calling Dies Natalis Solis Invicti “the birthday of the unconquered son” and through sound similarities and mass confusion people will just take our word for it.”
Christian #2: “THAT’S MAD GENIUS YO!”
*props, daps, handshakes, etc. are given*
… I might have taken that tooo far, but you get the basic idea. Christmas actually has it’s roots in buying lots of crap, getting drunk as hell, and having a good time. The whole worshiping gods/God thing was just an excuse to party. And the whole family and Christ thing was just slyly added on top later. Santa Claus and all that was added on later, but that just complicates this more than necessary.
Anyways, when you look around this Christmas ask yourself “Do these people want to hang with their families or do they want to party with their families? Most likely the answer is party.
I’m not mad about this though, I love partying, who doesn’t. Anyways, I just realized that I’m sounding like a happy, emotionless Grinch (which means it’s time to stop). But, if you want to agree with me on the whole I’m Grinch thing, curse me off for having an opinion, or say I’m completely 100% f**king wrong about Christmas then… COMMENT. 🙂