Snow and Christmas

[Conner]

We very rarely get snow for Christmas here, so I guess it's considerably easier to imagine it for me. [EDIT: Because we're horrible topic drifters, I did my best to split this along the religious drift from the original topic - Arthmoor]

[Arthmoor]

Christmas without snow? Every year. Snow is about the furthest thing from our minds down here in CA. The mountains get it though, so it's something we can at least visit when we want to

[Conner]

It's not like Samson/Arthmoor or I live in the southern hemisphere, Tommy, it's just that we live in places that very rarely get snow, let alone on December 25th. When I was living in Albuquerque we sometimes got a dusting of snow in December (as they did there this year) but rarely specifically on, or even right around, December 25th. On the other hand, when I was growing up in the greater metropolitan Washington DC area we usually had snow on the ground by this time of year, but being Jewish I really don't associate the snow with the Christian holiday. I can understand, living in Canada, why Hana would associate it with snow though, but I imagine that most people living south of a line about fifty miles or so of the southern border of Arkansas wouldn't be used to seeing it for Christmas either, let alone folks in the Southern Hemisphere who are enjoying summer this time of year. On the other hand, I imagine folks living far north, like northern edges of Alaska and Siberia and such don't really associate snow with Christmas either as they've got snow most of the year and Christmas is just one day that happens to fall somewhere in the middle of that rather extended snowy season.

[Arthmoor]

The association of snow with Christmas is the result of the commercialization of the holiday more than anything. Religiously speaking, it's not even certain Jesus was born in December.

[Conner]

That's probably very true regarding the commercialization factor. That and songs like White Christmas and such. I don't know about religiously speaking, but I'd heard often that Jesus was born in the spring, no where close to December.

[prettyfly]

Wasn't 12/25 a Roman Holiday or something that the church pinched? I would've said that the commercialization only occurred be cause the bulk of western world people live in the Northern Hemisphere where there is snow at Christmas. In any case, I'm happier with spending Christmas day on the beach, but the whole snowy Christmas theme doesn't bother me at all.

[Dwip]

Had some significance in the religion of Mithras/Sol Invictus. Sort of like Easter was a big druidic thing.Religion founding protip: Co-opt everything you can get your hands on. This totally worked for Christianity.As far as the snow thing, makes some sense too when you think about it in terms of a lot of the mythology coming from, IIRC, northern Europe. Also the commercialization thing, but.

[Arthmoor]

Religion founding protip: Co-opt everything you can get your hands on. This totally worked for Christianity.

Wow, are we getting off topic... but... this pro-tip applies to Catholicism, not Christianity in general. It's not really the fault of true Christians that Catholics became the dominant religion of the western world.

[Conner]

I didn't think the Romans actually had 12 months in their calendar until the very end of The Great Roman Empire, but I certainly expect that Christmas was co-opted like almost all the other Christian holidays were. The catholic church had a real knack for stealing other folks' ideas to convert to their own uses.Yeah, I imagine most of the Santa Claus (or whichever of his names you prefer) mythology involved snow, after all the reindeer and sled and red parka and so forth don't work so well in tropical weather.. but I really don't think folks in general really started emphasizing the idea of a "White Christmas" until the heavy commercialization kicked in.Either way, my point was more that I was a little surprised that no one really thought to try for a novel approach to a Christmas themed mod based on the fact that they were making their mods for a fantasy game world in which we've got multiple sapient races in multiple climates and much of the game is played without snow regardless of the time of year anyway. I suppose it shouldn't have surprised me that most of the entrants went with what they related best to in their own real world concepts but.. :shrug:Btw, welcome aboard prettyfly!

Wow, are we getting off topic... but... this pro-tip applies to Catholicism, not Christianity in general. It's not really the fault of true Christians that Catholics became the dominant religion of the western world.

Yes, we have sort of drifted the topic a bit on Hana, even after she specifically asked us not to this time. :(I rather thought that all Christian sects were pretty much off-shoots of Catholicism to begin with, so wouldn't that mean that it really does apply to all Christians even if only indirectly? As for which is the world's dominant religion, I'm kind of thinking that it was Catholicism back in the medieval period and has been Christianity in general since Martin Luther, though it's starting to bend toward Muslim/Islam lately if I understand the numbers correctly...

[Dwip]

I rather thought that all Christian sects were pretty much off-shoots of Catholicism to begin with' date=' so wouldn't that mean that it really does apply to all Christians even if only indirectly? As for which is the world's dominant religion, I'm kind of thinking that it was Catholicism back in the medieval period and has been Christianity in general since Martin Luther, though it's starting to bend toward Muslim/Islam lately if I understand the numbers correctly...[/quote']Approximately this. Depending on how much credence you want to give to Arians and the other early heresies, Christianity == Catholicism for a couple few hundred years, up until you start getting schisms between the eastern and western branches of the church coinciding with the split between the same halves of the Roman Empire. Even that doesn't get too bad until 1054 or thereabouts.The point, of course (he said, continuing to veer OT), is that the stellar job the early Christians did of co-opting various Roman/pagan institutions has pretty much stuck around for almost all sects of Christianity, with the major exception of the Pope.As far as the calender, it gets complicated, but you get a roughly modern calender in Rome in the 40s BC. Ever hear of the Julian calender? That's for Julius Caesar. FWIW.And, uh, yeah. Upstairs furniture. Still kind of awesome. If we want to continue to go OT we should probably be nice to Hanaisse and split it.

[Arthmoor]

Ok, last hit on the Catholicism stuff.Christians don't believe in purgatory, don't worship Mary, don't make old pagan gods into saints to worship, etc. Catholicism did such a good job of assimilating Christian components into their consolidation of the old religions that you have a difficult time separating them out again. Also equally difficult convincing people that Catholics are not actually Christians, they're idolaters.Anyway, yeah, if this really needs to be continued, it otta be split.

[Tommy]

Oh well, where did my post lead us!? :grinning:@Conneryeah, my geographical knowledge is barely sufficient to know that Texas and California are not in the southern hemisphere! I guess what I really wanted to say was that in the N.H., we celebrate Christmas in winter where the tendency to have (regional) snow and cold is relatively high. Whereas when living or growing up in the S.H., by force of nature, one has to celebrate Christmas in summer when chances for snow are relatively low. :lol:Well, with regards to Catholic church co-opting other religions holidays. I mean one can understand that: These "heathens" would say: "Yeah Jesus is sure a nice guy, but we really like to celebrate this-and-that on "Christmas". And the missionary would conveniently say: "What a coincidence! This is exactly the day he was born! So you can believe in Jesus and still celebrate something on Christmas. Isn't ours a cool religion?" This coupled with the occasional friendly head bashing from your local Conquistador and the "heathen" soon would be more than "happy" to convert to Christianity... :sad:As to Jesus born on Christmas or some other day: Are we really sure he was born at all?? I'm not a biblical expert by any means, but I have always thought that there is no proof in the "CSI sense" that he really lived. Just saying... (and of course it's of no relevance to the story of the New Testament)And finally it is no wonder that many cultures celebrate something around the time of Christmas. It's the time of the "Turn of the Sun" (Sonnenwende in German) when days start to get longer again which understandably must have been an important date / event in ancient times. Hey, it sure is for me too because I really can't wait until the days get longer again!

[prettyfly]

Is the split permission to keep going? I'm just going to assume it is.

and red parka

I was actually under the impression that Santa was green until Coca-Cola got to deal with him' date=' though it remains a parka either way.

Christians don't believe in purgatory' date=' don't worship Mary, don't make old pagan gods into saints to worship, etc. Catholicism did such a good job of assimilating Christian components into their consolidation of the old religions that you have a difficult time separating them out again. Also equally difficult convincing people that Catholics are not actually Christians, they're idolaters.[/quote']Catholicism is the original church. If anything it demonstrates that initially the church had to incorporate bits of pagan imagery into the religion to ease the conversion of new groups of people (as Tommy pointed out). However as time passed and pagan religions were forgotten and Catholic church became more corrupt and oppressive christian moved away from Catholicism and dumped the various pagan bits that they felt weren't really significant anymore (though it was a gradual thing, protestants didn't just drop this stuff overnight), and IMO, got more down to the message that Christianity was more about. But as the dates of Easter and Christmas demonstrate, not all of it has vanished and I've seen many a protestant church that is still into Saints and holy water (though not the one I go to).

As to Jesus born on Christmas or some other day: Are we really sure he was born at all?? I'm not a biblical expert by any means' date=' but I have always thought that there is no proof in the "CSI sense" that he really lived. Just saying... (and of course it's of no relevance to the story of the New Testament) [/quote']I was under the impression that there is reasonable historical evidence the Jesus existed, but obviously, definite proof just isn't going to exist and never will...I think we are fairly sure though that he wasn't born on Christmas day (in fact, I believe there are records of the census he was born during).Also, it's Summer Solstice here in Australia today; it didn't get dark to about 8:30pm.

[Arthmoor]

True that modern day Christianity hasn't been able to completely shake off the pagan symbolism that still contaminates Christmas to this day. Or Easter for that matter. The date of Christmas itself is somewhat open to debate, but Easter is fairly specifically mentioned even if the formula by which it's arrived at is a bit convoluted.Historical evidence for Jesus exists in the Roman records, which is independent of the Bible. So it's pretty solidly established. The Romans would have had little reason to lie about something like that. Especially since it wasn't in their best interests to have him around.

[Hana]

Thank you Arthmoor :)I believe I got your point Conner about why almost all the 12 Mods of Christmas turned out to be all about the snow. As I said, it just came naturally to me, having never lived anywhere else. It's also human nature to think about what you originally know and experience. Which leads me into the over-commercialization of Christmas rant. It's barely about religion and baby Jesus any more in the western world. It's all about how much loot can I get mommy and daddy to buy me. Gimme, gimme, gimme. It's also redefined charity, where you're made to feel guilty about those (politically-correct label) 'less fortunate' as if it was your fault, and you should now buy their Christmas for them, ending where they have a better gift-hogging day than you do.If I could, I'd live in Whoville; those Who's knew what Christmas was about. I simply love the message The Grinch who Stole Christmas gives out. Too bad others don't get it.I'm not going to get into the religious debate, I have nothing to add. Even though family history labels me a Protestant, it's meaningless to me.Maybe I'm just getting old and cynical, lol. My favourite Christmas song has become The 12 Pains of Christmas (google it, its hilarious).

[prettyfly]

Which leads me into the over-commercialization of Christmas rant. It's barely about religion and baby Jesus any more in the western world. It's all about how much loot can I get mommy and daddy to buy me. Gimme' date=' gimme, gimme. It's also redefined charity, where you're made to feel guilty about those (politically-correct label) 'less fortunate' as if it was your fault, and you should now buy their Christmas for them, ending where they have a better gift-hogging day than you do.[/quote'] That's what we get for being capitalist, isn't it...(of course if we were communist religion would be banned so we wouldn't even get to have Christmas, and I like getting presents)

[Conner]

I rather thought that all Christian sects were pretty much off-shoots of Catholicism to begin with' date=' so wouldn't that mean that it really does apply to all Christians even if only indirectly? As for which is the world's dominant religion' date=' I'm kind of thinking that it was Catholicism back in the medieval period and has been Christianity in general since Martin Luther, though it's starting to bend toward Muslim/Islam lately if I understand the numbers correctly...[/quote'']Approximately this. Depending on how much credence you want to give to Arians and the other early heresies, Christianity == Catholicism for a couple few hundred years, up until you start getting schisms between the eastern and western branches of the church coinciding with the split between the same halves of the Roman Empire. Even that doesn't get too bad until 1054 or thereabouts. The point, of course (he said, continuing to veer OT), is that the stellar job the early Christians did of co-opting various Roman/pagan institutions has pretty much stuck around for almost all sects of Christianity, with the major exception of the Pope. As far as the calender, it gets complicated, but you get a roughly modern calender in Rome in the 40s BC. Ever hear of the Julian calender? That's for Julius Caesar. FWIW.

So sayest our official historian. ;)Regarding the calendar, that's sort of what I was saying too, they didn't really have the Julian calendar until shortly before the "fall of Rome".

Christians don't believe in purgatory' date=' don't worship Mary, don't make old pagan gods into saints to worship, etc. Catholicism did such a good job of assimilating Christian components into their consolidation of the old religions that you have a difficult time separating them out again. Also equally difficult convincing people that Catholics are not actually Christians, they're idolaters.[/quote']That may well be the case these days for certain Christian sects, but Christianity as a whole was spawned by Catholicism as a direct off-shoot (not a breaking away as Catholicism did from Judiasm) so it's very difficult, especially with so many different Christian sects these days, to isolate which practices make who what within the auspices of Christianity in general.

Oh well' date=' where did my post lead us!? :grinning:[/quote']Would you believe how susceptible we are to nudging toward topic drift?

yeah' date=' my geographical knowledge is barely sufficient to know that Texas and California are not in the southern hemisphere! I guess what I really wanted to say was that in the N.H., we celebrate Christmas in winter where the tendency to have (regional) snow and cold is relatively high. Whereas when living or growing up in the S.H., by force of nature, one has to celebrate Christmas in summer when chances for snow are relatively low. [/quote']I understand entirely where you were going with it and such. Prettyfly, for example,is in the Southern Hemisphere living in Australia, so he could probably relate better to that aspect but you have to try to remember that within each hemisphere of our earth we also have a tropical zone and the closer you are to that zone the less likely you are to see snow ever.

Well' date=' with regards to Catholic church co-opting other religions holidays. I mean one can understand that: These "heathens" would say: "Yeah Jesus is sure a nice guy, but we really like to celebrate this-and-that on "Christmas". And the missionary would conveniently say: "What a coincidence! This is exactly the day he was born! So you can believe in Jesus and still celebrate something on Christmas. Isn't ours a cool religion?" This coupled with the occasional friendly head bashing from your local Conquistador and the "heathen" soon would be more than "happy" to convert to Christianity... :sad:[/quote']Yup, most of the religious co-opting was done for exactly that reason too, to help facilitate conversions.

As to Jesus born on Christmas or some other day: Are we really sure he was born at all?? I'm not a biblical expert by any means' date=' but I have always thought that there is no proof in the "CSI sense" that he really lived. Just saying... (and of course it's of no relevance to the story of the New Testament)[/quote']Amazingly, yes, as Arthmoor pointed out, there is clear indication that the man referenced in the bible was a real person who really did live. The Jews have never denied his existence, we've known who he was for a couple of thousand years, we just dispute that he was the messiah and that he performed all the "miracles" that he's been credited with in the bible.

And finally it is no wonder that many cultures celebrate something around the time of Christmas. It's the time of the "Turn of the Sun" (Sonnenwende in German) when days start to get longer again which understandably must have been an important date / event in ancient times. Hey' date=' it sure is for me too because I really can't wait until the days get longer again! [/quote']Right, Christmas ever so conveniently falls within days of the Winter Solstice which was a very popular and important event to the pagans that the Catholic priests wanted to convert...

Is the split permission to keep going? I'm just going to assume it is.

Yes' date=' it basically is.

and red parka

I was actually under the impression that Santa was green until Coca-Cola got to deal with him' date=' though it remains a parka either way.[/quote']Now that one you've gone beyond my knowledge on' date=' but I don't think it would've been Coca-Cola either because I think Macy's and Gimballs were responsible for most of the commercialization of Christmas and neither had an interest in Coca-Cola.

Christians don't believe in purgatory' date=' don't worship Mary' date=' don't make old pagan gods into saints to worship, etc. Catholicism did such a good job of assimilating Christian components into their consolidation of the old religions that you have a difficult time separating them out again. Also equally difficult convincing people that Catholics are not actually Christians, they're idolaters.[/quote'']Catholicism is the original church. If anything it demonstrates that initially the church had to incorporate bits of pagan imagery into the religion to ease the conversion of new groups of people (as Tommy pointed out). However as time passed and pagan religions were forgotten and Catholic church became more corrupt and oppressive christian moved away from Catholicism and dumped the various pagan bits that they felt weren't really significant anymore (though it was a gradual thing, protestants didn't just drop this stuff overnight), and IMO, got more down to the message that Christianity was more about. But as the dates of Easter and Christmas demonstrate, not all of it has vanished and I've seen many a protestant church that is still into Saints and holy water (though not the one I go to).

Right, Christianity may have evolved and wizened enough to have dropped many of the bad habits of Catholicism, but they've still got their roots there more deeply than most Christians would even want to realize.

As to Jesus born on Christmas or some other day: Are we really sure he was born at all?? I'm not a biblical expert by any means' date=' but I have always thought that there is no proof in the "CSI sense" that he really lived. Just saying... (and of course it's of no relevance to the story of the New Testament) [/quote']I was under the impression that there is reasonable historical evidence the Jesus existed' date=' but obviously, definite proof just isn't going to exist and never will...[/quote']Again, as Arthmoor pointed out, there are records from the Romans (as well as the Jews) that do verify that the man did exist, what's not provable are the things he's credited with.

I think we are fairly sure though that he wasn't born on Christmas day (in fact' date=' I believe there are records of the census he was born during).[/quote']Er, sorry, born during?

Also' date=' it's Summer Solstice here in Australia today; it didn't get dark to about 8:30pm. [/quote']And, by no coincidence, it's Winter Solstice here today in the Northern Hemisphere.

[EDIT: Because we're horrible topic drifters' date= I did my best to split this along the religious drift from the original topic - Arthmoor]

Thank you Arthmoor

Seconded!

I believe I got your point Conner about why almost all the 12 Mods of Christmas turned out to be all about the snow. As I said' date=' it just came naturally to me' date=' having never lived anywhere else. It's also human nature to think about what you originally know and experience.[/quote'']I suppose that's true/fair enough, but it seems like if you're going to get the creative juices flowing working on a fantasy world, why not let go the reins a bit more still and explore the idea of how would the non-humans celebrate the holiday?

Which leads me into the over-commercialization of Christmas rant. It's barely about religion and baby Jesus any more in the western world. It's all about how much loot can I get mommy and daddy to buy me. Gimme' date=' gimme, gimme. It's also redefined charity, where you're made to feel guilty about those (politically-correct label) 'less fortunate' as if it was your fault, and you should now buy their Christmas for them, ending where they have a better gift-hogging day than you do.[/quote']Even being jewish, it's hard not to see that aspect of y'all's holiday in modern times.

If I could' date=' I'd live in Whoville; those Who's knew what Christmas was about. I simply love the message The Grinch who Stole Christmas gives out. Too bad others don't get it.[/quote'] It's a nice sentiment, especially if you can remove the religious context of it. Simply goodwill towards others and sharing with those you love seems plenty powerful enough by itself.

I'm not going to get into the religious debate' date=' I have nothing to add. Even though family history labels me a Protestant, it's meaningless to me.[/quote']I've noticed that about many Christians these days too. My wife's family says they're Christians rather than a particular sect of Christianity so when we were getting married it was really hard to find out which sect they actually fell under the auspices of because they don't go to a church affiliated with a particular sect and don't practice as a particular sect despite being a fairly pious lot.

Maybe I'm just getting old and cynical' date=' lol. My favourite Christmas song has become The 12 Pains of Christmas (google it, its hilarious).[/quote']Alrighty then!

[prettyfly]

I think we are fairly sure though that he wasn't born on Christmas day (in fact' date=' I believe there are records of the census he was born during).[/quote']Er' date=' sorry, born during?[/quote'] Wasn't Jesus born in Bethlehem because his family had to move there so his dad was at his hometown for some sort of census (maybe I am wrong).

[Conner]

Being that I'm not among those who actually might keep such records, I don't know about all that and will defer to our Official Historian (he so rarely gets to put his degree to good use around here...) but I was really asking more of what it was that you were saying he was born during.

[Hana]

Holy cow, Conner, that's gotta be your biggest post ever. lol

[Dwip]

Catholicism is the original church. If anything it demonstrates that initially the church had to incorporate bits of pagan imagery into the religion to ease the conversion of new groups of people (as Tommy pointed out). However as time passed and pagan religions were forgotten and Catholic church became more corrupt and oppressive christian moved away from Catholicism and dumped the various pagan bits that they felt weren't really significant anymore (though it was a gradual thing' date=' protestants didn't just drop this stuff overnight), and IMO, got more down to the message that Christianity was more about. But as the dates of Easter and Christmas demonstrate, not all of it has vanished and I've seen many a protestant church that is still into Saints and holy water (though not the one I go to).[/quote']This is pretty much where I was going. When you dig down into it, it's a little more complex than just Catholic vs. Protestant - see also power struggles between Eastern Orthodox and Catholic centuries before the Reformation, and if you ever want some fascinating bits of Church history, check out the roughly 300 years until the Council of Nicea.The point is that the post Nicene Church did a very efficient job of co-opting pagan rituals in a very deliberate fashion to, as we've all noted, facilitate conversion - a little bit of Mithras, a little druidism, some other pagan festivals, Mary as a semi-Isis figure, etc, etc, etc. Some of the Protestant sects stripped a lot of that out, but some of it still survives even now.If one looks at the history of especially Catholicism in the Americas and Asia, you get a lot of the same thing, although I'm less familiar with it. Something missionaries are very good at, adapting.Which is all to say that Church history is very interesting stuff, and I'm happy I spent the time on it that I have.As to the Jesus existing thing, as far as I recall our best guess is that we know he did, but not terribly many of the details.Re: Hanaisse, suffice it to say that I've had a much better relation with commercialized Christmas. But then, I'm entirely secular, so I would say that, wouldn't I.And, re: music, so I was in getting my hair cut a week or two ago, and I was talking with the hairdresser about the Christmas music playing. On which she held forth that it was a good thing the radio stations were playing renditions of the classic songs by modern pop stars, because the old versions were "boring." Music traditionalist that I am, I kind of had to bite my tongue. Old versions are the best versions. We did agree that Grandma Got Ran Over By A Reindeer was pretty awesome though.On a related note, I continue to hold forth hope that Silent Night will eventually die in a fire.

Regarding the calendar' date=' that's sort of what I was saying too, they didn't really have the Julian calendar until shortly before the "fall of Rome". [/quote']You mistake me. Julian calender is 40s BC. Fall of the western Roman Empire is 476 AD. So that's about 500 years. Decent bit of time there. We've had roughly modern dating for a little over 2,000 years now.

[Conner]

Holy cow' date=' Conner, that's gotta be your biggest post ever. lol[/quote'] No idea, it might be. I suspect it certainly is for this site anyway.

And' date=' re: music, so I was in getting my hair cut a week or two ago, and I was talking with the hairdresser about the Christmas music playing. On which she held forth that it was a good thing the radio stations were playing renditions of the classic songs by modern pop stars, because the old versions were "boring." Music traditionalist that I am, I kind of had to bite my tongue. Old versions are the best versions. We did agree that Grandma Got Ran Over By A Reindeer was pretty awesome though.[/quote']Old versions are boring? Oh well, "to each her own".. or maybe it's "there's no accounting for taste". ;)Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer is awesome.

You mistake me. Julian calender is 40s BC. Fall of the western Roman Empire is 476 AD. So that's about 500 years. Decent bit of time there. We've had roughly modern dating for a little over 2' date='000 years now.[/quote']Again, our Official Historian has spoken and I stand corrected. I really thought the Roman calendar was pretty convoluted and changed several times right up to a few decades before the end of the Empire. Guess I'd gotten the time line wrong on that. The medieval calendar was almost worse than anything the Romans had come up with because The Church wanted to keep track of the passage of time but weren't concerned with peasants understanding the calendar beyond knowing which days they needed to be at church and such so they basically dedicated every day of the year to a different saint.. except when they just counted days by how close to the beginning, middle, or end of the month it was: For example...

[Tommy]

>>Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer is awesomeIs that on youtube also? The title alone is hilarious!As to Jesus living. OK, I definitely stand corrected on that. You know, if I did not constantly do another 1000 things already, this whole topic is actually really interesting and fascinating to get into and learn more about. I totally agree with Dwip on that. I'm gonna google it one day... :)As to dating of Jesus birth, there is the clue with the Star of Bethlehem. Wasn't that probably some comet or supernova occurring? I think attempts were made to trace back the timing of it but the possibilities were too many or the dating range too vague to nail down a precise birth date. Finally, yes the commcialization of Christmas is really nauseating and tiring. In our family we have officially stopped to search for presents for the grown ups a good long while ago. The children get something - of course - but the older generation cannot expect anything. Sometimes we just run into something and say "Oh that's a cool present for XY", but nobody gets upset when there is no present. Basically what we do is light up the tree (usually with candles) and have a lavish dinner and that's about it; we celebrate on Christmas Eve on the 24th which is the custom in the German speaking countries in Europe. And I actually quite like the family get-together (although I'm the minority... my sister and brother always get soooo stressed and worked-up...), it's only the frentic general shopping atmoshpere I totally detest.

[Dwip]

is a decent version. Couldn't find the recorded version anywhere. Something of a comic staple over here.Re: early church, etc, Wikipedia apparently knows much. For myself, most of the relevant story is included in general histories of the Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire, and medieval Europe as a whole. See also Michael Grant's History of Rome, John Julius Norwich's Byzantium: The Early Centuries, and Norman Cantor's The Civilization of the Middle Ages for the best general histories of all three groups respectively. If I recall correctly, Cantor's the best of the three, but it's been six or seven years so I can't be sure. Can't remember how much it digs into the subject, but Karen Armstrong's A History of God was pretty fascinating when I read it 12 years ago, and covers a lot of other interesting topics as well. All three likely available at your nearest library.(sheesh. It's like I majored in history or something.)As far as Christmas traditions go, the whole family's alternately pretty secular or non-denominational Christian, so we didn't really play up the religious aspects much, but we take our holidays pretty seriously. Whole month between Thanksgiving and New Year's is pretty festive, to the tune of:- Thanksgiving (Nov. 25): Ridiculously epic feast, at least some of the family and/or friends show up, we play games all day and then stuff ourselves until we can't move. Pretty much the traditional American Thanksgiving.- My birthday (Dec. 12): At the very least, my friends all showed up for this, and entertainment and merriment is had. Good halfway point between Thanksgiving and Christmas.- Erecting a Christmas Tree (early Dec.): One of the awesome things about living in a forest is that you can walk outside and pick up a nice tall 7-8 foot tree from your front yard, never mind that Oregon is a big tree exporter and we're surrounded by tree farms. One of the first weekends in December we take a day to put up the tree and decorate the house with lights. Play some music, be generally festive. A weak version of this, without the usual tinsel carpet bombing, may be seen here. Also in here, we'll start placing presents under the tree, and one of the fun bits is waking up random mornings to see new things under the tree. Closely examining boxes to attempt to figure out what's in them is a whole-family activity, you may be assured.- Christmas Eve (Dec 24): Every year there are about 6-7 movies wrapped and put under the tree, and on Christmas Eve we open those up, cook a couple pizzas, and do pizza, games, and movies night. Friends and family welcome, and usually my friends all showed up.- Christmas Day (Dec 25): The one day of the year I actually wake up early. Presents are opened, and there's usually a lot of them for adults, kids, and adults who think of themselves as kids alike. More games are played. An epic feast is prepared. Fun is had by all.Surprisingly, we don't really do a ton for New Year's.One of the real bummers about moving out of Oregon and away from the family is that for the last few years all the traditions have pretty much fallen by the wayside. Me, I barely even have a tree this year. Going to fix that sooner or later.The shopping scene does suck a lot, though. We usually beat it by getting things months in advance. Mom used to hide things in random cabinets, which sometimes backfired because she'd sometimes forget where she hid something, and we'd only find it a couple years later. All part of the fun.

[Conner]

As to dating of Jesus birth' date=' there is the clue with the Star of Bethlehem. Wasn't that probably some comet or supernova occurring? I think attempts were made to trace back the timing of it but the possibilities were too many or the dating range too vague to nail down a precise birth date.[/quote']I don't know, I always thought the whole Star of Bethlehem thing was part of the biblical myths of Jesus. I suppose it is certainly possible that there really was a astronomical event that roughly coincided with his birth, but frankly his real life birth was probably not something that occurred with any real fanfare.

In our family we have officially stopped to search for presents for the grown ups a good long while ago. The children get something - of course - but the older generation cannot expect anything. Sometimes we just run into something and say "Oh that's a cool present for XY"' date=' but nobody gets upset when there is no present. Basically what we do is light up the tree (usually with candles) and have a lavish dinner and that's about it; we celebrate on Christmas Eve on the 24th which is the custom in the German speaking countries in Europe. And I actually quite like the family get-together (although I'm the minority... my sister and brother always get soooo stressed and worked-up...), it's only the frentic general shopping atmoshpere I totally detest.[/quote']My wife's family celebrates it mostly the same way. Everybody makes a to do about buying gifts for each of the kids from each of the family groups and usually the adults can each expect to get some sort of single [usually gag] gift from the collective. Gifts are saved for Christmas Day while the night before everyone goes to Oma's house for a celebratory dinner the night before. Though they use standard Christmas lights on the tree and house rather than candles there. Being jewish, we usually didn't have as much trouble with the shopping experience as most Christians do for Christmas because Hanukkah so often comes before Christmas anyway.

(sheesh. It's like I majored in history or something.)

:lol:That's not a bad version of the song. I'm not sure why youtube doesn't have the recorded version, but who knows, some artists refuse to allow their work to go to youtube. :shrug:It is surprising how in-depth that wiki article was, but sometimes wiki does have some really good info.For my family, (as opposed to my wife's?) the traditional holiday season's pretty packed and a bit longer than the Christian version of the traditional holiday season. November 25th is my birthday and usually Thanksgiving falls on or within a couple of days of it too; Hanukkah is sometime in December (usually) and that takes up a week (8 days/nights) of family dinners and gift exchanges (mainly for the kids); Dad's birthday is December 18th; we have to acknowledge Christmas on December 25 because so many things are impacted by it (banks, post office, stores, etc are all closed for it); New Year's Eve we all toast the new year and conclude it with a late night birthday celebration for my sister who's birthday is January 1st; my older daughter's birthday is January 5th, and my grandmother's birthday is January 10th which finally concludes our holiday season and my wedding anniversary with my wife is on January 24th. Usually, for the most part, we start the holiday season with Rosh Hoshannah & Yom Kippur in the beginning of September, followed by my niece's birthday on September 30th followed by my second son's birthday on October 10th and then we move on to include Halloween. For us, the seasonal holidays then effectively resume in March with my eldest son's birthday on March 25th, closely followed by my wife & my mother's birthdays on April 5th and my youngest son's birthday on April 14th. After that we have a short break before my wife's son's birthday on May 21st and then my youngest daughter's birthday on June 24th followed closely by my parents' anniversary on July 3rd and independence day on July 4th. We've also got my wife's parents' anniversary and birthdays in June and July too. So, basically we get a short break between January and the end of March and another longer one between July and September, but of course my wife's brothers and sisters have birthdays, anniversaries, etc in there somewhere too (one of my wife's sisters has her birthday on December 20, the other sister and her two brothers birthdays are escaping my immediate recollection at the moment) and of course all the little nieces and nephews have birthdays and then there are all the other holidays throughout the year.. basically, we get August as a break from all the holidays/birthdays/anniversaries until one of the kids decides to get married in August or have a child of their own in August on us.