The War on Christmas, and Other Fallacies
Once again, the so-called ultra-right have decided that there’s a war on Christmas this year. That somehow the unclean masses won’t know it’s the Christmas season when their favorite fast food joint wishes them Happy Holidays. Or their favorite coffee shop have red paper cups instead of “Merry Christmas” written on them.
Uh really? Seriously?
Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas?
I can just imagine the conversation at the local Denny’s:
Greeter: Welcome to Denny’s.
Ignorant Patron: I see Happy Holidays on the lectern. What does that mean?
Greeter: Excuse me?
Ignorant Patron: What Holidays are we talking about?
Greeter: Well, there are several this time of year. Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Yule, Solstice, and others I’m not familiar with.
Ignorant Patron. Wow! Christmas? I didn’t know Christmas happened in December! I bet I’d know if you had a Merry Christmas sign instead of a Happy Holidays sign. I guess I should be buying presents.
Greeter: […]
Okay, okay, that wouldn’t happen. At least not in the United States. But you get my point. In a country where the major religion is still Christianity, albeit waning, you can’t swing an Elf on the Shelf without hitting something Christmas-sy in local stores. And those who are Christian pretty much know who Christ was — if he existed at all.
Why Happy Holidays at All?
As much as our Christian citizens would like to batter people over the head with “Merry Christmas,” the reality is that we live in a diverse culture in the United States. Christianity is diminishing at a rapid rate, where it was maybe 70 percent of the US population around 2007 or so, it is now around 65 percent of the US population as of 2019 according to Pew Research. Yeah, that means that 35 percent of the US population worships something else, or nothing else.
Many of these people are “Nones,” meaning that they don’t belong to an organized religion and certainly don’t call themselves Christian. In many cases they’re not atheists, but may believe in a higher power or powers.
Given that there is a large number of non-Christians in this country, retailers have decided that it is better to be inclusive than divisive. Hence, “Happy Holidays.” I suppose one could get offended by the word, “Holidays” because it comes from the words, “holy days,” but I digress.
The Christians Weren’t the First to Celebrate Around Christmas
Bad news, Christian peeps. Christmas was established in the 4th century and decided upon by Church leaders so they could incorporate other pagan holidays such as Yule and Saturnalia into the celebration. The Romans practiced Saturnalia. It started on the 17th and originally went for three days. Eventually, it was made into a seven day feast and party days.
Saturnalia included gift giving, singing, playing games, decorating, dressing in costumes, and feasting. Slaves often got the time off and the master of the house served them (maybe where Boxing Day came from?). Each house had a “Lord of Misrule” who proceeded over chaos in the household. This person was usually low on the social ladder and could insult guests, play tricks, and award special cookies with coins in them to people.
Christmas naturally adopted the pagan trappings so that pagans would be more inclined to join the new religion. Since no one really knows when (or if) Christ was born, making up a date closest to the solstice made a lot of sense to win converts.
Our Ancestors Celebrated Yule
Yule is the winter solstice, here in the Northern Hemisphere. Our ancestors celebrated Yule because it was the return of the light. Solstice was very important part of living in the Northern Hemisphere, especially if you were farmers. If the sun did not return, it could spell the beginning of Fimbulvintr–the long dark winter before Ragnarok. So, having the sun return was a big deal.
I could go into all the myths surrounding Yule, but this post is getting off topic. So, let me get back onto it.
Why this Isn’t a War on Christmas in the United States
First, Christians are late-comers when it comes to holidays around the solstice. Humans have celebrated the solstices since Stonehenge, and probably before that. We don’t know how they celebrated it, but we know summer solstice was important enough to mark it with a menhir known as the “heel stone.” On winter solstice, archaeological evidence shows it was likely they sacrificed pigs then. A trilithon marked the sun setting on winter solstice.
Christmas is simply a made up holiday to keep the pagans in line. We know the Christmas stories have their roots in the Exodus, and therefore have pagan roots. So, if anyone ought to be screaming, it should be the pagans. But we don’t, because we aren’t assholes.
I doubt many people in Western countries are saying that Christians shouldn’t celebrate their made up holiday. What the rest of us are saying is be a bit more inclusive and less self-centered. You’re not the only people who celebrate around this time of year.
The REAL War on Christmas
Actually, there has been wars on Christmas in the past. Only problem was, Christians banned Christmas all by themselves. In 1647, the English parliament banned Christmas, which was rescinded when Charles II retook the throne. In 1659, Boston outlawed Christmas, but eventually that law was revoked in 1681. You got to admit, those Puritans were joys to be around.
Nowadays, if you want to see the real war on Christmas, look at any totalitarian government. The People’s Republic of China, for example, insists on atheism and has shut down Christian churches. The USSR in the past had persecuted Christians. So, calling a request for inclusiveness a “war on Christmas” is the right wing version of being a snowflake. Seriously.
Merry Whatever
Look, I certainly not offended if someone wishes me a Merry Christmas, especially if it’s heartfelt. I will wish my Jewish friends happy Hanukkah, if I know they celebrate it. Basically, if you aren’t an asshole, I’m good with whatever you celebrate. I put up a “Christmas tree” even though it’s really a Yule tree. I wish my Christian friends a Merry Christmas because that’s what they celebrate. I don’t go ape-shit if they wish me Merry Christmas back.
So, my friends, I wish you a happy Yule, or whatever you celebrate. Have a safe one.
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Okay, those of you who have read my stuff know I’m a skeptic when it comes to witchcraft and Magick. (‘Magick’, of course, is the fancy-smancy word for ‘magic,’ because apparently Aleister Crowley thoughts magic had too few letters.
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Apparently you need herbs, candles, crystals, and stuff to focus your energies to get shit done. I don’t understand why if the magic is built on intent, that someone could just cast a spell without all the extraneous stuff. But hey, I’m not a witch.
That being said, sometimes you catch a lucky break. But I would argue that every time I had a lucky break, I had been “in the neighborhood” figuratively speaking, to get that lucky break. Some shit that has shown up “out of the blue” had seeds planted months, or even years, before. Lot of luck is being in the right place at the right time. Just ask any hunter. You seldom find deer in metro areas — or rather, deer you can shoot, other than with a camera.
Well kids, it’s that time of year again. Thanksgiving. Or maybe you call it something else. Or maybe you’re outside of the US, and you’ve already celebrated a Harvest holiday. Whatever. For those of us who have Thanksgiving, you may be feeling like I do. That is, there isn’t a lot to celebrate. And you’re probably right.
I’ll admit. There’s not a lot of things to feel thankful about this Thanksgiving. We’re still in a pandemic. There’s a lot of civil unrest. Cost of everything has skyrocketed. People have lost their minds and believe all sorts of insane notions.
But sometimes it’s tough to find little things to be thankful on Thanksgiving. Even so, you can find something in your life that gives you joy, even for a moment. Don’t look at the big stuff, unless there is something big that gives you joy. The big stuff is often overwhelming. Focus on the here and now. Mindfulness meditation can help.
Nazis, seriously? A reader of this blog commented on a post of mine saying he’d be rather be called a Nazi over Antifa.
How the fuck did we get to the point where people align themselves with the Nazis? The NAZIS, for the gods’ sake. These 
I’m not a communist apologist, either. Stalin and Mao (to name a few) committed atrocities in the name of communism. Mass murders and genocide. Even today, communists oppress and murder people. People are not free under their regimes. 
You go too far right or too far left, and the methodology of the institutions look the same. Oppression. Mass murder. Destruction of people’s rights. In fact, the sides who oppose each other start behaving like each other the farther right or left they go. Sure, their rhetoric might be different, but those are just words. I’m talking action.
In the United States, we value freedom. But freedom doesn’t mean you can do anything you want. Your behavior and rights stop where you are harming someone. In other words, I have the right to swing my fist all I want to as long as it doesn’t impact someone’s nose (or body). Likewise, I don’t have the right to cough on, breath on, or otherwise spread my germs on people during a pandemic. Yeah, wearing a mask sucks. Deal with it. Don’t want to get a vaccine? Don’t expect to keep your job in healthcare. Get a job that isn’t affected by the mandate.
Conspiracy theories abound on both sides of the political spectrum, but I hear more from the far right than the far left at the moment. People no longer use logic. Instead, the more fantastic the claim, the more they believe.
Welcome to Halloween 2021. If you’re new to this blog, you may not be aware that I am not the Samhain/ Halloween kind of person. BUT, I understand that a number of you are, so with that in mind, check out my blogs on Halloween.
Fucking freaky. Occasionally the Runes remind me I’m not just screwing around. Like the time when I asked them who was guiding me with the runes and they spelled out Thor’s name and gave me Tyr’s rune.
Here in the Northern Rockies, harvest is in full swing. Lots of peppers, corn, beans, potatoes, melons, and pumpkins fill the farmer’s markets. Inevitably, that means food banks get a ridiculous amount of produce donated from local farms. 
I won’t bore you with my shopping experience, but suffice to say, most of the food had been picked over early. That being said, as I waited, stuff that I actually needed appeared and I was able to bring home a lot of good stuff.
Our ancestors needed to prepare for the lean winter months. That required them to pay attention to the harvest. Harvest was a time when everyone worked, from the highest thegn to the lowest slave. Landowners at least had to supervise the harvest and keep track of everything being done, if they wanted it done correctly. Women and children had to help process the food to ensure it was properly preserved.
If you were a lord, you might have delegated oversight to trusted men or women, but this depended on how much land you owned, what time in history you lived, and how big your kindred was. Remember, kindreds were basically extended family. There might be people whom you had no famillial ties within your village, but they and their families had some positive aspects for being considered part of your kindred.
Winter, for all its beauty and majesty, could be a very brutal time for kindreds. Basically if you didn’t have the food saved, you were shit out of luck. Sure, there was game and fish to be had–assuming you could break a hole in the ice or find game in the snow–but other than your livestock and your food stores, that was it when it came to edible foods. The northern hemisphere was retreating into darkness, culminating in the solstice where the light returned. 
The gods help you if you had raiders, thieves, pests, or a bad harvest. There’s a reason why our ancestors were good warriors. They had to be. Not only did they raid other peoples for their treasures, but they also had to defend their homes against other raiders. Losing your food was a death sentence, unless you somehow procured more. This is why it was so important to be part of a kindred and not an outlaw. Outlaws didn’t have the safety of a kindred.
Now with the harvest almost completed, we modern day Heathens can look to have a harvest festival now. Maybe it’s winter finding, Alfarblot, or Samhain for you. Maybe you just want to celebrate Harvest. That’s perfectly acceptable. Maybe you’ve had a rough year and need something to look forward to. Maybe you had a good year and need to celebrate it. As a Heathen, the second harvest festival seems like a good idea.
Our ancestors celebrated a holiday known as Alfarblot. It was to remember our male ancestors. When it was celebrated exactly, we don’t know, but I seem to recall it could have been in the fall or the winter. Choosing to remember our male ancestors during the second harvest festival seems appropriate. So, if you want to celebrate Alfarblot around Halloween or Samhain, that’s perfectly okay. I like to think of it around the beginning of November, but anytime around Halloween is fine. Seeing as we really don’t know all the holidays from the past, we can celebrate it in the spirit as it was intended.
Harvest is a time for celebration of the foods we’ve received from our farmers, but more importantly, the Earth. Just think how our lives would be different if we couldn’t grow fruits and vegetables. As a species, we all might still be hunter/gatherers. Or maybe we wouldn’t even exist because the carrying capacity of the land wouldn’t be able to support so many humans.
If you’re looking for ways to celebrate the harvest, here are some tips:
Yes, it’s that time of year: 
Back then, community wasn’t just for socialization. It was the only means you could survive in that harsh climate. You did a lot of things, but there were other people whose expertise you relied on. Not everyone was a blacksmith, carpenter, hunter, cloth maker, or field worker. While there were many farmers, the farmers also needed their tools repaired, sick animals cared for, and furniture made. Sure, some people did it all, but many people traded things they made or grew for services.
There are plenty of things you can do to celebrate the autumnal equinox. Here are some ideas:
The lack of basic logic in people today confounds me. I used to think that human beings were generally intelligent, but now, I’m pretty much convinced they’re not. At least the majority of people lack basic intelligence.
While not all progress is good, I’m seeing a lot of regression when it comes to the United States. People are clearly ignorant when it comes to science. A lot of folks believe what their neighbors and friends tell them rather than objectively look at the facts and make a rational decision.
If you’ve followed me for any length of time, you know I consider
You see, many of their congregation do not believe in getting vaccinate against COVID-19, with predicable results. One woman whom I know was in tears (without a mask, by the way) because a prominent member of her congregation died from COVID-19. I would think this would cause everyone to line up to get vaccinated, or at least wear masks and social distance, but no. They continue their behavior and mistrust the vaccines because of anecdotal evidence.
Except me. And my husband. And if I could point out, my sisters, their spouses, and their children are vaccinated. At least a half dozen other people we know are vaccinate and have had no issues. In fact, I had some of the side effects (swollen, hot arm for a week, and feeling tired and achy for a few days), but I would still line up and get a booster if the experts said I needed to do it. Why? Because I know the disease is worse than the vaccination.
I doubt that my story will figure into the Holy Roller’s list of people she counts when talking about the COVID-19 vaccination, because it doesn’t fit her narrative. I listened to her statement about people getting sick from the vaccines and stay silent because she won’t listen to me. If she did, I would tell her correlation does not equal causation. In other words, just because something happened around the same time doesn’t mean the two events have anything to do with each other.
I’m probably preaching to the choir, but the bullshit being spread via social media and talk shows shouldn’t be trusted. I don’t care how entertained, livid, or interested you are when you listen to these sources. I don’t care what quack guy with an MD after his name they got to testify about their latest miracle cure for COVID-19. The reality is if that so-called cure REALLY worked, the mainstream hospitals and doctors would be using it. Use logic, people!