Today, December 23 is the day mentioned in the TV comedy Seinfeld as Festivus, a holiday for those
who don’t ascribe to any of the traditional ones for this season: “Festivus for
the rest of us.” The script writers may or may not have been aware that the
23rd was the last day of the Saturnalia, the weeklong period of feasting,
rabble-rousing, and gift-giving that the pre-Christian Romans so enjoyed. It
was, of course, originally a solstice celebration. The solstice marked the
onset of winter in the Northern hemisphere; everywhere it was celebrated with
rituals and feasts. Cattle and other farm animals commonly were slaughtered at
this time so that they wouldn’t have to be fed through the winter months;
accordingly, more meat for the feasts was on hand than at any other time of
year. Besides, in those days, fattening up for the winter wasn’t such a bad
idea if you could do it; some lean months might loom ahead.
In 46 BC Julius Caesar somewhat arbitrarily calibrated his
new calendar so that the solstice fell on December 25, but no one bothered to
adjust the date of the Saturnalia. When a sun cult (Sol Invictus – the
unconquerable sun) came to prominence a couple centuries later in what was
still pre-Christian Rome, though, December 25 was chosen for the celebration of
the Dies Natalis (birthday) of the sun. It was also the birthdate of Mithras,
demigod of a martial cult of Persian origin popular with the Roman legions. The
Christians, sensibly, often chose existing days of celebrations for their own
holidays, and December 25 was a natural for Christmas. For these and other
reasons, the Puritans who settled New England did not celebrate Christmas,
claiming (with some justice) it had pagan origins – they waged the first “war
on Christmas,” to borrow a phrase currently in the news. The Puritans didn’t
begin to ease up on this until the 19th century, and some never did.
Julius’ calendar wasn’t quite accurate. It calculated the
year at 365.25 days instead of the more nearly correct 365.242; so, it drifted
out of synch with the solar year by three days every four centuries. In the
1500s, the scholar Aloysius Lilius devised a simple formula to correct the
problem: leap days are dropped from years evenly divisible by 100 unless they
are also evenly divisible by 400. So, 1900 was not a leap year but 2000 was.
Pope Gregory adopted it in 1582, also chopping 10 days from that year’s
calendar so as to re-set it to Roman times. Yet, for some reason, he chose not
to reset back to the original 46 BC start date of the Julian calendar (which
would have been 13 or 14 days) but to the Council of Nicea of 425 AD. Why is
anybody’s guess, but it is possible, at least in part, that he wanted to
dissociate Christmas from the solstice. The Puritans, unsurprisingly, rejected
the Gregorian calendar. Other Protestants resisted for a while also, but by the
18th century they by and large grudgingly accepted it for its
greater accuracy; the British Empire ,
including the American colonies, switched over in 1752.
A dozen or so friends are stopping by my home this
Christmas. Whatever the day’s origins, and whatever personal or religious
meanings any person chooses to associate with that day or this time of year,
I’m just happy to have another excuse to get together with friends, exchange a
few presents, and overeat. I’ve shed the extra pounds from the turkey at
Thanksgiving, and it is time to put them back on.
There is one Saturnalian tradition I would like to revive,
however, and I’ll see whether the idea goes over. One of the party (convivium) attendees
was chosen by lot to be prince (Saturnalicius princeps). He or she could issue
commands, which generally were prankish: dance on the table, dump a pail of
water on another guest’s head, sing in a squeaky voice with a bag on your head.
That sort of thing. On second thought, considering the usual line-up of guests at my parties, maybe that’s not such a good idea.
Festivus Pole
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