THE WINTER SOLSTICE AND CHRISTMAS

Victor Bloom MD

Professor Earl Wendell Count recently died at the age of 97, and his obituary was in the Sunday New York Times. He was an anthropologist who was famous for a book he wrote which came out in 1948 called, "4000 Years of Christmas". In it he collected strands of myth and folklore from antiquity and wove them into a tapestry which showed how ancient festivals evolved into the modern celebration we call Christmas.

He traced the greatest story ever told from its origins in Babylon, where it moved westward to Greece, Rome and Israel and north from the Mediterranean to northern Europe. Interwoven into the tapestry were the early customs that developed into modern Christmas, such as gift giving, candle lights and St. Nicholas.

The wealthy Babylonians exchanged gifts in an empire that flourished four thousand years ago. The peoples of pre-Christian Europe believed they could banish evil with decorations of evergreens, which held the promise of renewed life in the dead of winter. The ancient Druids and Aryans used mistletoe in symbolic and magical rituals. Many civilizations utilized the Yule log and danced around bonfires for food and warmth in the bitter cold.

Despite attempts by organized religion to suppress and banish the pagan rites observing the winter solstice, customs and traditions found their way into Christian celebrations. The church fathers succeeded in taking the merriment, the greenery, the lights and the gifts from Saturn, and gave them instead to the celebration of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, the Messiah, the Savior, the Redeemer.

In the end it was the peasantry who identified with His lowly beginnings and developed an abiding faith in the divinity of this great rabbi (teacher) who was without sin, and who preached the gospel of the Father with great eloquence and intensity, and who promised everlasting life for all those who would follow Him.

Professor Count concluded that "Christmas has become great because men and women have given to it their deepest and most enduring selves." Beneath the spectacle of commercialization and the pressure of last-minute shopping, the never-ending tinkle of bells and echo of carols, there exists a warmth and a glow that radiates and infuses into all with an open heart, the hope of real brotherhood and peace.