Roots of Xmas and new years, do we want to know?
I listened to the lecture http://torahanytime.com/Rabbi/Search/index.html?lecture=xmas&lecture_ID
By Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen about Xmas and New Years. The lecture is less than 40 minutes long. I downloaded and listened to it in the car.
Rabbi Kelemen explained that Jesus was not born on December 25th, Xmas tree, mistletoe, ginger bread man, and Santa Claus have nothing to do with Christianity or December 25th. In this lecture, he is providing facts and historical evidence about those holidays and traditions. Rabbi Keleman explained that all of those traditions came out of horrible pagan traditions during which there were a lot of gruesome killings that grew into public anti-Semitic events.
It all sounded horrible and I have totally different relationship to those holidays after listening to his lecture. We have never celebrated December 25th and I don’t really care about that date. However, there is actually a bright side to the progression of these holidays into contemporary society. Christians with adaptations of those dates to their religious traditions slowed down the inhuman acts that were commonly done in those times.
Today, majority of people do not know about the origins of these holidays and it all turned into happy winter family get together holiday. To take it further, Soviet Union re-adjusted January 1st into a happy calendar new year with adaptation of a fairy tale about Grandma Frost and his granddaughter Snegurochka (Snow maiden) who brought presents to the kids and magic was possible during the New Year’s night. There was nothing related to religion in that holiday.
It seems that humanity has moved far away from the wild behaviors of ancient Greeks and Romans. In the USA, these holidays turned into commercial events to move the economy (Well, after Xmas shopping can turn out wild).
So, my question is, do we need to know the origins? Do we want to go back to the horrible roots? Do we want to continue making these dates positive?
I understand that non-Christians do not celebrate those dates and they have their own holidays that Christians do not celebrate. I don’t think that non-Christians have to create a conflict or be disrespectful towards Christians because they celebrate these holidays in a civil manner.