Reply #16: Actually the Solstice is the 21st of December [View All]

[WCGreen]

the longest night of the year, I'm getting ready for the celebration. that really kicks of the holiday season for me....

Then comes Christmas...

The idea of celebrating Christmas the way we do today is truly an American invention....

Like everything else, we pulled together myths and traditions from all over the world and cobbled them together to create this monster we call Christmas....

The Puritans actually forbade the celebration of Christmas.....

Really, watch the special on the History Channel that goes into the history of Christmas.....

It's great and makes no attempt to gloss over the whole story...

curiously, the advent of "gifts" came from the bounty of the harvest. We share what we know will soon be gone. But when the middle class started to grow and grow, that's when Christmas and gift giving really took off....

Maybe that is why we celebrate Christmas the way we do, it was born out of the need to celebrate the new found wealth of the many....

In that sense, it truly is the expression of our culture in that we rejoice in the fact many more today can splurge than ever before....

Tongue in check with a little bit of truth added just for the hell of it......