Happy Holidays
Happy Holidays to you~!
I hope you enjoy whatever brings you a depth of meaning this season. The world offers a beautiful array of celebrations across December and into January, over a month of activity with no shortage of high holy holidays, where one’s spirituality, faith, tradition, and reflection are given space to feel rewarded, where connectivity is made ceremonious and memorable. During these the darkest months of our year in the States, given the melting pot we stew in, there is no lack of worldwide celebrations taking place in American homes around our nation.
I’ve struggled to understand the issue with saying Happy Holidays.
Any well-wish is a greeting I am grateful for.
Even if I’m only referring to St. Nick’s, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Eve and Day, the Christian holidays, those collectively are more than one individual holiday, hence the greeting Happy Holidays in a card or on the street.
Long gone are the days of tiny towns where one sacred space and faith gathered our citizens in the small town church or temple and required conformity or shunned outcast religions. We, the United States, have become a multicultural nation. Purposefully.
Herein lies the dichotomy of perpetuating a solely Christian nation, through narratives of victimization, when historically, our citizens brought, bought, and sold free labor to our shores, then encouraged the huddled masses to become our underpaid immigrants. Our Constitution afforded them the right to their own religion.
This is where we address the claim of religious freedom, an incredibly paradoxical phrase, that lately depicts an infringement on the Christian faith.
I would bet good money that political spin doctors are the only ones waging war on Christmas my Christian friends. If the powers in charge can divide us with a more effective tool than faith, history has yet to see it. The hilarity of it all, is that true Christianity would never reject a holiday greeting or an act of good will. To accurately reflect Jesus’ teachings, we’d likely have sacrificed more, expected less and would never have gone commercial with Christmas. Rather, he would likely have wanted us to welcome strangers into our homes to care for and feed them. Jesus was not recorded as a fighter or an excluder. He taught and extended love and tolerance and kindness toward all his fellow humans.
Most Christians are not aware that the traditions celebrated today are borrowed from ancient yuletide traditions that marked the Winter Solstice. Jul or Jol (yule), a Norse winter celebration, had the Vikings feasting, making merry and animals were sacrificed. Even the word “jolly” is derived from this tradition. Solstice celebrations in Germanic cultures often lasted twelve days. Scandanavian cultures celebrated the returning of the light from the darkest day of the the year. All of these rituals included burning a fire, typically a yule log, bringing lightness and warmth into a dark and cold hearth. Greenery such as Holly and Ivy, fir and evergreens brought the reminder of greener days and life into the home to ward off the long dark months.
Historians agree that though Jesus was likely not born December 25th , that Christmas day was built around solstice celebration purposefully to drive pagans to convert to Christianity.
Pagans predate Christians by thousands of years, though even the word pagan cannot encapsulate the number and variety of faiths that have been lumped into it. Animism, or the belief of all things being interconnected, is at the root of much paganism.
Christmas, the recognized birth of the Christ child, has adopted and evolved into what we widely celebrate today. Gift giving, ceremony, church services and song, activities, shopping, baking, feasting, gathering are at the heart of this holiday. Decorated with greenery or a tree in the home, adorned with lights to ward off the darkness, a collection of past rituals representingJesus’ birth that brought light to dark hearts. I hope those hearts can see the light in all people and honor them as he did.
One of the wonderful things about this season is to recognize how we arrived here. Think of the millions of families and cultures who for millennia have contributed to some version of our traditions. Long before we defined religion and wrote sacred texts to follow, the earth cycles pulled people together into ritual around the sun and moon, recognizing the consistency, connectivityand impact that our planet has on our wellbeing.
2020 has been quite a year and will present its challenges for gathering mid pandemic. Unpredictable as this year has been, 2020 will leave in a blaze of glory, when we see a great conjunction of planets in the sky. This Winter Solstice will be celebrated with “The Christmas Star” the rare alignment of Jupiter and Saturn on December 21st, 2020, in a celestial spectacle not seen in 800 years. Perhaps the knowledge of such years between events can remind us of our own connectivity across distances.
I especially like that my namesake, the beautiful Holly plant, that grows in every climate worldwide, has played a long role in these winter celebrations and has given the spirit of the season its rich colors of deep green from its leaves and the bright red of its berries.
Whether you are nonreligious, naturally spiritual, pagan, atheist or choose to celebrate Christmas, Hannukah or Kwaanza, Boxing Day, St. Lucia’s, Yule or Winter Solstice, you are in good company. History has compiled a wonderful season of observances to cherish.
I wish you a very joyous winter holiday season. There is much beauty and light to be found amidst the myriad international celebrations that many of our citizens wrap their families around at this time of year.
A polite ‘Happy Holidays’ is simply a wish to include more of our citizens through the spirit of the season, in the giving of well wishes. There is light to be found in that.
