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Christmas comes but once a year, yet it is an overpowering presence. It takes over our lives – our home and our work, our families and our friends, and quite obviously, our bank balances and credit ratings in their entirety.
This in spite of the undeniable fact that like millions of Americans I am not a Christian, and we live in a country where a debate periodically erupts on whether we are a Christian nation or not. The general consensus -- a working model – is that we are not, even though many of the foundational values of this society came to us from Christianity and from those who, personally, were believers. This country was founded by Christians, but that does not make it a Christian country.
Christmas and Thanksgiving, have become the biggest earners for sales outlets and shopping malls. It is as if a viral infection breaks out annually. People go into debt and borrow against their houses so that they can buy what they neither need nor want or can afford. And the day after Christmas the fever breaks. Shoppers line up hours before stores open, to return the gifts that they neither needed or wanted nor could afford.
Businesses love it; they live and die by it.
When the virus of Christmas fever hits the land, there is no escaping it. One could hope that by being non-Christians we would not be so vulnerable, but no one is immune. It makes no distinction between an observant Christian and Muslim, Hindu, Jew or Sikh. It sees not that one is a devout deist while the other is a committed agnostic or atheist.
The Midnight Mass of Christmas eve remains even more popular than the annual renderings of “The Nutcracker Suite” across the country. There are millions who attend church only twice a year – on Christmas and Easter, and seek the formal blessings of their faith on only three occasions: when they marry, at the birth of a child, and when they die.
One wonders if the religion of the land is “business” while Christianity and Jesus have been recruited as merely the biggest and best sales reps.
In all this hoopla and the eggnog that flows as a river, I aim to inject not a sour but a contemplative and introspective note.
There would be very few hardy souls in the world today who do not know that Christmas honors the birth of Christ; even fewer are those who accept it as a historical fact that Jesus was born on this day. No one really knows exactly what day Jesus was born.
Even though the word "Christmas" translates to "Mass of Christ," knowing that the birthday of Jesus remains undetermined, the celebration of Christmas could not have acquired its present meaning right away. What we now see as integral to the celebration of Christmas probably owes its origin to ancient pre-Christian traditions. The X in Xmas reminds me of the Greek for Chi – most likely for Christos or Messiah, which became Christ in English. Christmas has its roots in pagan practices, but is now completely woven into the fabric of Christianity.
Over 4000 years ago, the Mesopotamians celebrated New Year with a 12-day festival, called Zagmuth. They honored their chief god, Marduk, who was said to have battled the monsters of chaos at the beginning of each winter. Perhaps, therein are the roots of the celebration of 12 days of Christmas.
The ancient Romans, too, lavishly celebrated their god Saturn. The festival – Saturnalia – lasted from the middle of December to the first of January. The Romans decorated their homes with garlands. On trees they hung candles. They would hold great feasts, exchange gifts amongst family and neighbors to promote good luck.
There are winter days in Scandinavia when the sun would not shine. The people celebrated the first sunlight by the festival of Yuletide. A log would be burnt in celebration, and people would tie apples to the naked tree branches. Thus might have begun the idea of decorating a Christmas tree. Many would sing songs marking the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year, which happened around December 22nd. Hence the tradition of singing carols at Christmas.
Santa Claus (Saint Nick) remains a bit of an enigma. Was he really Irish, or a Turk?
Perhaps the merging of all these diverse pagan customs into Christianity owes largely to the efforts of the Roman emperor Constantine, who converted to Christianity. He needed both pagans and Christians to celebrate together; political realities demanded this. And this may explain why the birth of Christ was fixed on December 25th, even though he may not have been born even close to that day. Eventually, the position of the Roman Church prevailed; the December celebration came to symbolize only the birth of Jesus and the pagan origins were suppressed.
It doesn’t sound much different from what we do today, does it? Christianity is a world-wide tradition, and so has borrowed from all over the world. Today, Christmas knits together many diverse people and many esoteric faiths and festivals. Today, most of the world’s Christians operate by the Gregorian calendar and celebrate the day on December 25, but most Orthodox Christians continue to observe the older Julian calendar; for them Christmas comes 13 days later, on January 7th.
Keep in mind that even if Christmas celebrates the birthday of Jesus, in Christian doctrine and history, Easter should occupy a significantly more important place because of its meaning. But Christmas has become the major Christian festival, while Easter has been relegated to a relatively minor position.
A similar stream of thought and undercurrent run through the festivals of many cultures. In India, for example, Dussehra and Divali almost uniquely define the nation and its people. This is so even though both events are connected only to Hindu history, mythology and religion. Even among Hindus, Divali now occupies a much more significant place than Dussehra.
Divali has only a tenuous connection, if any, to Sikhi, and absolutely none whatsoever to Islam, Christianity or Judaism. Yet, it would be a rare Indian, no matter what his or her religious persuasion, who did not celebrate this national holiday.
I think the reason for this is simple: no minority lives in absolutely secluded pockets with impenetrable barriers around it. Majoritarian cultural practices continue to seep into the traditions of minority communities. In India it is Divali that intrudes into Sikh space and colors its traditions; in the West, it is Christmas. No one is an island.
Sometimes the vagaries of the calendar system assist in the mixing of differing traditions. For example, the Jewish Hanukkah usually falls in December. That timing transformed a minor Jewish holiday into a major commemoration that rivals Christmas. Keep in mind here that like Sikhs, the Jews, too, exist as a small minority within an overwhelming Christian presence.
Similarly, the Indian lunar calendar often places Guru Gobind Singh’s birthday close to Christmas. Thus we find a reason to join the major festivities of this society with similar practices -- dinners, lighting of houses and buildings, and exchange of presents. This allows us to practice our own tradition without standing out as a sore thumb.
Ergo, minorities encourage and develop connections between their own holy days and those of the larger community. The celebration is then so much easier and richer, while markedly reducing conflict with the majority. Thus a losing battle is avoided.
As an aside I mention that in days gone by I have, at times, filled in for Santa Claus at children’s parties; my friends and I quipped that I was a younger, trimmer version.
Some thirty years ago, when there were few people of Indian origin in this country, my not quite three-year-old daughter wanted a Christmas tree. Her mother was a non-Sikh, mainstream American, and everyone else in the neighborhood was a Christian or a Jew.
So, after much inner reflection, I settled upon what was then a novel solution. I shopped around for a bagful of religious markers from different faiths of mankind as ornaments for the tree, and topped it with a foil-covered cardboard replica of a Sikh khanda; thus was my own ecumenical Christmas tree assembled.
That year, the tree also adorned my personally designed and specially printed New Year greeting cards. The many questions that emanated from my placing a khanda atop the tree made for an unrivaled opportunity for discourse and building bridges.
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