HOW HE SEES IT An unabridged history of Christmas

By BILL FERGUSON
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
It seems that more and more schools, businesses and government agencies are greeting the run-up to Dec. 25 with a "Happy Holidays" or a "Season's Greetings" rather than a "Merry Christmas." Apparently, the more generic greetings are being favored in deference to the fact that not all Americans are of the Christian persuasion and some may take offense or feel left out by overtly religious holiday salutations.
This PC-driven watering down of the Christmas message rubs some people the wrong way, and they're being increasingly vocal about their displeasure. It might come as surprise to some (especially those who aren't history buffs), but this battle to keep Christ in Christmas is not really a recent development. It has been going on for centuries.
This time of year has been a time of celebration for many cultures throughout history because of the Winter solstice, and it is no coincidence that our modern Christmas holiday occurs around the time of the solstice.
Roman pagans celebrated a solstice holiday called Saturnalia before Christianity rose to prominence in that culture. Saturnalia was a weeklong celebration that occurred between Dec. 17-25, and it was one heck of a party.
The rule of law was more or less suspended during Saturnalia, and people took to the streets to do pretty much whatever they pleased. Food and strong drink were in abundance, and at this time all social roles were reversed, with slaves being served by their masters. (This may have been a direct precursor to the modern tradition of the office Christmas party.)
'Lord of the Misrule'
There are even some stories of communities appointing a young male to play the part of the "Lord of Misrule" during Saturnalia. This was a good deal during the week of the celebration, as he would be allowed to do absolutely anything he pleased, and I do mean anything. But at the end of the week, he was ceremoniously killed in a symbolic effort to restore order to the community.
Unsurprisingly, the Christian church took a dim view of the raucous Saturnalia celebration and they initially sought to stamp it out completely when they rose to power in the Roman Empire. But they found that there are few things more difficult than taking away a people's right to party, so they settled on a compromise. They decided to Christianize the holiday and arbitrarily declared that the last day of the festival was Jesus' birthday.
(In fact, no one has the slightest clue as to which day of the year Jesus was born.)
This proved to be a good strategy for the Church for both the long and the short term. For a time, the people continued to ring in the solstice much as they always had, though of course they changed the name of the holiday in deference to the new religious authority.
As the years passed, however, the idea that the birth of the Savior (and not the ending of the long nights of winter) was the true "reason for the season" gradually took hold, and today many people are not even aware of the original Pagan roots of the holiday.
So perhaps, with all this in mind, we can all take a healthy dose of "lighten up" and try to relax and enjoy Christmas, or Hanukah, or Kwanzaa, or the Winter solstice, or just a few days off from our routines, and declare a holiday cease fire in the culture wars. There'll be plenty of time to straighten out the unenlightened idiots who don't share our particular point of view after New Year's.
X Bill Ferguson is a columnist for the Macon (Ga.) Telegraph. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.