---

How Saturnalia became Christmas 

or 

Pagan Origins to a Christian Holiday

by Caitlyn

Its seems that no one really ever gives a thought to the idea of the date December twenty-fifth as the day of Christmas. If you look at our evidence as to Christ’s birth you will read from the bible, " And there where in the same country shepherds abiding in a field, keeping watch over their flock by night," In the dead of winter seems most unlikely.

That the date actually goes back to Rome with a festival called Saturnalia. It was a time of revelry, celebration, eating and drinking. It was at once a solstice observance and a harvest festival. On the Julian calendar it was proclaimed in 46 c.e., that the Saturnalia would fall on December twenty- fifth.

The early Christians found a birthday celebration of a religious figure strange or blasphemous. The only people who celebrated birthdays were the pagans in Rome. Holidays where declared for the birthday of Ceasars and for the gods. Gift giving at a birthday is a wholly pagan concept and the early church banned it. Slowly the idea of giving alms to the poor and to the church for Christ birth is mentioned in the tenth century. By the eleventh century, families privately gave a token to their servants and expected nothing from them

We know that as Rome became a Christian empire, it sent that religion to the corners of its holdings. Throughout the Middle Ages, there was an adaptation of pagan festivals into the Christian calendar. The pagan people have always celebrated Solstice in late December as a renewal of kingship, vegetation, the year and the world. Many of those cultures contain a story of the god waxing and waning. The newly christianized Pagans’ adaptation of this holiday was a short leap to the celebration of the birth of Christ who rose from the dead.

Now let’s look at that word Yule. The Scandinavian word Yule (Danish Jul) long ago came to mean Christmas. It is argued that it may have come from the Anglo-Saxon word hweol, or "wheel", referring perhaps to the solstices. The early Germanic people called their chief deity Yolnir. In time he lent his name to their New Year’s festival. In Old Norse tradition it was called Jol; as in old English Geol and the name is familiar to us as Yule a twelve-night festival. This event had begun, as a new year’s festival and only later became associated with the solstice. Over the centuries, Yolnir was renamed Woden and later Odin. The old Germanic people viewed him as the "all father", as one of the creators of the world.

 

As for the Yule log, it is an ancient custom. The Germanic peoples marked their seasonal festivals with fires, dancing, and sacrifices. The fires of the winter Solstice were thought to promote the return of the sun, to burn away the accumulated misdeeds of the communities, and to ward off evil sprits. The tradition of burning a special log (the Yule log) on Christmas Eve was practiced throughout Europe, from Scandinavia to Italy. In parts of Germany it was custom to place a large block of wood on the fire and to take it out before it was consumed and preserving it until the next year. The Yule log burning, its pagan connotations lost an 11th century Knight Sir Belvedere is recorded as saying, with his cup raised in King Stevens’s court "This Yule log burns. It destroys all old hatreds and misunderstandings." Despite Christianity’s adaptation and absorption of the feasts, symbols, and customs of the pagan past, the evergreens were still perceived as taboo for the early church elders. In 575 AD, church laws forbade the custom of garlanding houses with the laurel greenery. Records from the 15th century writers in Italy and Germany note the use of hanging flowers, branches, and garlands of fir. The eight-century English missionary St. Boniface, also known as Wynfrith of Crediton, took the gospel to these Germanic druids. His tale is that one Christmas Eve he cut down the people’s sacrificial oak. In its place a young fir tree instantly sprang up. By this miracle the pagans were converted.   The boar’s head was more symbolic than a feast dish. Presented on a board by two men and a page holding the bloody sword that killed it, it was said Satan ran amuck as a wild boar and the head on a platter symbolized Christ’s supremacy. In actuality, it’s a Norse custom of killing a boar in the dead of winter and presenting it to Freya, the head sent to her with an apple to insure fertility. A tenth century Viking legend references the custom of celebrating mother’s night when the earth mother made visitations to her people. Descriptions of her vary as her arriving as a hag requesting shelter and when invited in turning into the beautiful Frea in jewels and furs bringing a feast. It is said you could identify her by her jeweled stick with holly ivy and mistletoe, two symbols now closely associated with Christmas. A strange correlation to all of this is in the Norse religion. Oden was the oldest and wisest of the gods. He had a long white beard and on one night, the twenty first of December or solstice, he would lead a hunt from his white horse to seek out evil doers. The howling wind was said to be the shriek of bad children he took! People would leave out grain for his horse and food for the spirits. Santa could be a Viking god in disguise? Don’t tell your Christian friends.

What do you think of this article?  Send your thoughts to Caitlyn and the other Sisters at sof_net@yahoo.com