What has Santa to do with Christmas?

[The Plague Rat]

You're such a geek, Hannah.

[jewels]

Well there's a story about St Nicholas (santa) and he used to go round his village on christmas and put a silver/gold coin in the "good girls and boy's" shoes. But if you were bad you got a lump of coal.

That's december 6th (St. Nicholas' death day). It's still celebrated in some European countries, in Belgium they call it Sinterklaas. Saint Nick was an actual person, he was a Turkish priest that did deliver presents to children.

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[kefln]

No one knows when he got born, i don't think it was recorded anywhere. Apparently Christmas is picked as his birthday because after the 25th december the days start getting brighter, so it's kind of showing when he was born he brought light into the world or something haha... i have no idea how i know all this!

Ok…here comes the history lesson…

Most dates in the Catholic Church calendar have been stolen. Shocking huh?

A decision was made that it would be easier to convert pagans if they kept the common feast days but changed their meanings. A clever trick that made the church both powerful and rich.

Examples:

Christmas: Originally was a roman pagan holiday. A weeklong celebration of lawlessness. Courts were closed and no one was punished during the festival. Christianity imported the event hoping to take the pagan masses with it. The then Christian leaders succeeded in converting large numbers of pagans by promising them that they could continue to celebrate as before. The problem was that there was nothing Christian about breaking the law. So they declared Dec 25th as be Jesus’ birthday. QED.

Holloween: All Saints Day, November 1, a solemn holyday of obligation to honour all saints. Followed by All Souls Day, to pray for the souls suffering in Purgatory. Again they chose the days to match pre-existing pagan feast days of the dead.

Valentine's Day: Very odd Roman festival where women were handed out under a lottery system. The church adapted this to represent saints rather than women. Then settled on men celebrating by seeking the affections of women by written word.


Unfortunately that “trick” has backfired and the Catholic Church are now a victim of their own success. These days the feasts are so ingrained in society that many Catholics no longer think of the religious significance of what they celebrate. And the holydays of obligation are reduced to consumerism.

[Havril!]

You're such a geek, Hannah.

sMaCk dAt HO aVrIl!!!!

[XxLoki]

Three dudes dressed a bit funny

I'm thinking about the Life Of Brian, were they take the gifts back.