A time of indulgence or a time of challenge?

by Lionel Wijesiri

While waiting in transit at Singapore airport, I was browsing through a magazine when a full-page Christmas ad caught my eye. It showed a creche with an empty cradle. The theme, of course, is that Christ has been stolen out of Christmas, and we need to put him back where he belongs.

The advertisement brought to my memory a story I have read long years ago. In Attica of ancient Greece, very long time ago, there lurked a bandit named, Procrustes or 'the Stretcher.' He had an iron bed on which travellers who fell into his hands were compelled to spend the night. His humour was to stretch the ones who were too short until they died, or, if they were too tall, to cut off as much of their limbs as would make them short enough. None could resist him, and the surrounding countryside became a desert.

Procrustes continued in his wicked ways until slain by Theseus, worshipped as a hero after his death. His bones were brought to Athens at the bidding of the Delphic Oracle, and a splendid temple which served specially as an asylum for escaped slaves was erected over them.

I don't know why this story came into my mind when I saw the ad. Maybe, I wanted to see the ad in a different perspective. I saw the cradle as a Procrustean Bed in the sense that for centuries, the churches have been trying to get Jesus to fit a bed that was not his - stretching here and trimming there to try to make him fit. Perhaps the infant Jesus just got tired of the abuse and crawled away from it all.

Celebrations

The Christmas celebration we have developed has very little to do with the Galilean prophet who walked the earth some two thousand years ago. Many of the elements of the purported celebration of his birth preceded him by centuries and came from lands far from his own.

The Puritans were not without reasons for prohibiting the celebration of Christmas when they were in control in Britain. They saw Christmas for what it was and is - a pagan festival grafted onto Christianity. Their position was, "If Jesus wanted us to celebrate his birth, he would have told us when he was born."

The concept of national festivals is an ancient idea, probably much older than written history. The harvest is in. It's not yet time to plant again. People are stuck indoors with each other. What do you do with the time between two seasons of heavy work? Why not have a festival? Ancient societies clustered around the Mediterranean perfected this idea over centuries - and gave us traditions still in use today.

Four thousand years ago or so, ancient Egyptians celebrated the rebirth of the sun at this time of year. They set the length of the festival at 12 days, to reflect the 12 divisions in their sun calendar. They decorated with greenery, using palms with 12 shoots as a symbol of the completed year, since a palm was thought to put forth a shoot each month.

The annual renewal festival of the Babylonians was adopted by the Persians. One of the themes of these festivals was the temporary subversion of order. Masters and slaves exchanged places. A mock king was crowned. Masquerades spilled into the streets. As the old year died, rules of ordinary living were relaxed.

The Egyptian and Persian traditions merged in ancient Rome, in a festival to the ancient god of seed-time, Saturn.

Saturnalia

In the northern latitudes, midwinter's day has been an important time for celebration throughout the ages. On this shortest day of the year, the sun is at its lowest and weakest, a pivot point from which the light will grow stronger and brighter. This is the turning point of the year. The Romans called it 'Dies Natalis Invicti Solis', the Birthday of the Unconquered Sun.

The Roman midwinter holiday, Saturnalia, was both a gigantic fair and a festival of the home. Riotous merry-making took place, and the halls of houses were decked with boughs of laurel and evergreen trees. Lamps were kept burning to ward off the spirits of darkness.

Schools were closed, the army rested, and no criminals were executed. Friends visited one another, bringing good-luck gifts of fruit, cakes, candles, dolls, jewellery, and incense. Temples were decorated with evergreens symbolizing life's continuity, and processions of people with masked or blackened faces and fantastic hats danced through the streets.

Roman masters feasted with slaves, who were given the freedom to do and say what they liked (the medieval custom of all the inhabitants of the manor, including servants and lords alike, sitting down together for a great Christmas feast, came from this tradition). A Mock King was appointed to take charge of the revels (the Lord of Misrule of medieval Christmas festivities had his origin here).

In pagan Scandinavia the winter festival was the Yule (or juul). Great Yule logs were burned, and people drank mead around the bonfires listening to minstrel-poets singing ancient legends. It was believed that the Yule log had the magical effect of helping the sun to shine more brightly.

Mistletoe, which was sacred because it mysteriously grew on the most sacred tree, the oak, was ceremoniously cut and a spray given to each family, to be hung in the doorways as good luck. The Celtic Druids also regarded mistletoe as sacred.

Druid priests cut it from the tree on which it grew with a golden sickle and handed it to the people, calling it All-Heal. To hang it over a doorway or in a room was to offer goodwill to visitors. Kissing under the mistletoe was a pledge of friendship. Mistletoe is still forbidden in most Christian churches because of its Pagan associations, but it has continued to have a special place in home celebrations.

In the third century various dates, from December to April, were celebrated by Christians as Christmas. January 6 was the most favoured day because it was thought to be Jesus' baptismal day (in the Greek Orthodox Church this continues to be the day to celebrate Christmas).

Around 350, December 25 was adopted in Rome and gradually almost the entire Christian Church agreed to that date, which coincided with Winter Solstice, the Yule and the Saturnalia. The merry side of Saturnalia was adopted to the observance of Christmas. By 1100 Christmas was the peak celebration of the year for all of Europe.

During the 16th century, under the influence of the Reformation, many of the old customs were suppressed and the Church forbade processions, colourful ceremonies, and plays.

In 1647 in England, Parliament passed a law abolishing Christmas altogether.

When Charles II came to the throne, many of the customs were revived, but the feasting and merrymaking were now more worldly than religious.

Our decision

I want to return to the empty cradle with which I began. We cannot simply go back to the "old, pure, simple religious Christmas of the past" because the truth is it never really existed. It is something some have been working toward, but have not yet attained. It is a goal, not a memory.

Sociologists often tell us is that we have the right to transform tradition - it is not static, not locked in stone. The fact that Christmas has been commercial for many people does not mean that it has been for everyone or that it must be so for us.

It does not mean that we have to celebrate with the excesses which used to be part of the observance. We have the right to focus on the meanings which speak to us and to our needs as we have come to understand them. Like our ancestors, we celebrate not because we have been told we must, but because we choose to.

Christmas has become, for many people, a time when we try to look beyond the everyday realities to the possibilities we have not attained. We can imagine a better world, a better way of being, of living.

Christmas can be a time of indulgence, or it can be a time of challenge - perhaps we need to settle for some of both.