I’m with Bill O’Reilly on this.
I’m tired of all this “Happy Holidays,”
politically correct mumbo jumbo.
Everyone knows December is about one holiday and one holiday
only ““ there’s no need for plurals.
Yes, I’m talking about the time-honored pagan celebration
of Yule.
All those pseudo-holidays such as Christmas, Hanukkah and
Kwanzaa have merely co-opted Yule, the hedonistic, alcoholic romp
commemorating the winter solstice.
I say we cut the capitalism and get back to basics.
Contrary to popular belief, Jesus was not born on Dec. 25.
One key giveaway would be the presence of the shepherds at the
birth of Jesus. Shepherds don’t usually go around with their
flocks in the middle of winter.
Yes, Christmas ““ that quintessential Christian holiday
““ isn’t really Christian after all.
Early Christians had a hard time converting the pagans of Europe
to their budding religion and had real trouble getting them to stop
worshipping the earth and start worshipping the “Big
J.”
Late December was traditionally a time for celebrating the
winter solstice with a lot of un-Christlike debauchery. The Romans
were very fond of these traditions, and their solstice celebration,
Saturnalia, was one of the most important and raucous events of the
year.
So early Christians co-opted Yule and allowed the new converts
to continue their traditional practices ““ only now under the
auspices of honoring Jesus’ birthday.
Mistletoe is a Viking tradition, Christmas trees came from the
Druids, and nobody really seems to have an explanation for eggnog
or fruitcake.
Christmas, it seems, is really just a load of reindeer crap.
While Christmas was the original holiday to wage its “War
on Yule,” two others have helped to completely wipe Yule from
the December holiday list: Hanukkah and Kwanzaa.
Many non-Jews believe Hanukkah to be the Jewish equivalent of
Christmas.
But, oy vey, it’s not.
If one were to make a list of important Jewish holidays, it
would probably be topped by such show-stoppers as Yom Kippur, Rosh
Hashana and Passover.
Hanukkah has only risen to prominence in the greeting-card world
as a result of its close proximity to Christmas.
Hanukkah is Tijuana to Christmas’ San Diego; the Jewish
Jay to Christianity’s Silent Bob; the Hebrew’s George
W. Bush to the Gentile’s George H.W. Bush.
Proximity is everything, and Hanukkah, while a lot of fun, is
not the Jewish Christmas.
And it certainly doesn’t hold a candle to Yule.
Equally as disturbing is the promotion of Kwanzaa, a holiday
celebrating black identities.
Many people attack Kwanzaa because it was only invented in 1966,
and its founder, Ron Karenga, had a felony conviction for
assaulting two women in his organization. But Christmas has been
celebrated for well over a millennium and is equally
fallacious.
The problem with Kwanzaa isn’t that it’s young and
artificial, but rather that it simply doesn’t make sense.
The holiday is said to be rooted in the first harvest traditions
of Africa, yet few if any crops are harvested in December, the
middle of winter.
Kwanzaa uses mostly Swahili phrases, completely ignoring the
fact that the former slaves from whom the vast majority of African
Americans, are descended came from West Africa, yet Swahili is
spoken thousands of miles away, along the East African coast. These
people’s ancestors would never have even heard of
Swahili.
Karenga himself admitted during the early years of Kwanzaa that
the holiday was meant to be an alternative to Christmas, since his
original stance was that Christianity was a white religion that
black people should reject, even writing that “Jesus was
psychotic.”
The implication is clear. Christmas has started a landslide of
consumerism and holiday cheer that will continue to drown out the
more authentic and time-honored celebration of the winter
solstice.
A “War on Yule” is being waged, and the recent birth
of December’s bastard child, “Christmukkah” is
perhaps the latest attack.
We must mobilize the Yuletide forces and liberate December for
its true holiday roots.
If there’s anything that helps an economy more than
holiday-driven consumerism, it’s a war.
And we could certainly use the extra boost this December.
Want to get drunk and celebrate Yule with Jed? E-mail him at
jlevine@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to
viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.