Are you looking forward to Christmas?

[Dan1980]

^ That's too bad.

Tell you what, I'll look forward to it for the both of us. Yes? Yes.

Thank you! It's the first Christmas since mum died.

[NativeSon]

I have to work Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, so that part is pretty much waylaid. The rest of Christmas day will be spent with roomie and his mom. That's OK, but not too exciting. She does not decorate so it will be opening a few gifts and eating. The dogs make me happy. I am thinking about getting them some apples because they like them with their dogfood. They also wag their tails at green beans and carrots and yogurt. Such good doggies!

I'll be, for the first time ever and with no help, preparing a stuffed turkey dinner on Christmas Eve. Piece of cake, I think.

[Dan1980]

I'll be, for the first time ever and with no help, preparing a stuffed turkey dinner on Christmas Eve. Piece of cake, I think.

Good luck with that!

[Doc]

Ya'll some Grinch motherfuckers, where's your Christmas spirit? I absolutely adore the holiday no matter how much my family tries to ruin it for me- I hear you [MENTION=18997]matty7[/MENTION]

[deephiance]

I celebrate the Winter Solstice.

Not in any huge way... just light some candles and acknowledge the celestial return of the Sun.

That IS the fundamental meaning behind Christmas, you know.

How come Christmas is 3 days after the solstice?

[LJay]

[MENTION=24118]deephiance[/MENTION], because the Solstice is a moveable feast and Christmas is not.

[LJay]

I'll be, for the first time ever and with no help, preparing a stuffed turkey dinner on Christmas Eve. Piece of cake, I think.

Youll do well. Just think it all out ahead of time. I did it the first time at age 9 for Thanksgiving. Mom was working and I sometimes fixed dinner so why not? It worked, though the kitchen was a bit of a mess!

[deephiance]

[MENTION=24118]deephiance[/MENTION], because the Solstice is a moveable feast and Christmas is not.

Oh ok...well that's interesting because I thought the solstices were the 21st-22nd December and 20-21st of June every year.

Learn something new every day

[MikeW]

I celebrate the Winter Solstice.

Not in any huge way... just light some candles and acknowledge the celestial return of the Sun.

That IS the fundamental meaning behind Christmas, you know.

How come Christmas is 3 days after the solstice?

Well, sir, the answer to that question is going to depend on just how deep into this subject you want to get.

First of all, let's note that "Solstice" comes from the ancient words "Sol" (the sun) and "stice" (to stand still). So the Solstice literally means "the time when the sun stands still."

Although celestially the solstice proper is on December 21 (or there about), the *apparent* "rebirth" of the sun god, "Sol" (from the point of view of an earthling) is three to four days later. This is all relative to the northern hemisphere of course. For the southern hemisphere, the length of night/day is just the opposite.

The ancients used markers to designate where the sun was seen to rise and set on the horizon. For three to four days during the winter Solstice, they observed the sun rose and sat at the same points. This also corresponded to the longest nights and shortest days. It wasn't until three or four sunrises/sunsets had passed that the sun was seen to be "reborn," now rising and setting ever so slightly north of its southern-most points.

All this is tied together with worshiping the various "Solar Deities," with special attention paid to those cultures that have heavily influenced European and American traditions. (E.g. Egyptian, Zoroastrian, Celtic, Greek, and Roman, among others.)

It gets even more confusing though because, in ancient cultures, the "first of the year" (the first day of a new cycle) was counted from different celestial observation points AND using different calendars (from one another, not only from our own). Currently, for example, we're using a solar calendar but many cultures in ancient times used a lunar calendar.

Rather than write all this out, I'll quote some text for you:

... In the days of the Roman republic, the calendar was numbered from the founding of
Rome – which, according to the present calendar, would be 753 B.C.E. And March 15,
called the Ides of March, was designated as New Year's Day. However, this was a lunar
calendar rather than a solar calendar, so the months rotated throughout the year. One
year March 15 might be in the summer, and a few years later it would be in the winter.

Greece, and all of northern Europe operated on a solar calendar, with the new year
starting on the winter solstice. When the Romans invaded Greece in the fifth century
B.C.E., they realized the advantages of a solar calendar. In 153 B.C.E., New Year's
Day was moved to January first, since Janus was the two-faced god of doorways and
new beginnings.

Finally, in 46 B.C.E., Julius Caesar switched from a lunar to a solar calendar. He divided
the year into 365 and one-quarter days, with twelve "moons," or months, all of which
had either 30 or 31 days, except February, which had 28 – and 29 every fourth year.
New Year's Day was still on January first.

The major festival of the year in ancient Rome was called the "Saturnalia," and it
centered on the winter solstice. When the Julian calendar was first devised, the solstice
fell on December 25. But the Julian calendar had an error of eleven minutes. The year is
actually 365 days, 6 hours, 11 minutes and a few seconds. So by the third-century C.E.
the solstice had crept backward to approximately December 23.

At this time, the emperor Aurelian established an official holiday called "Sol Invicti" –
meaning unconquered sun, in honor of the Syrian sun god "Sol," and also in honor of
himself, since the emperors were regarded as the divine incarnation of Apollo. This
holiday was held on December 24 and 25. And it more or less established December 25
as the official solstice. All other religions that worshiped sun gods also accepted
December 25 as a fixed date for their celebrations. And the major festivals of the
Egyptian earth-mother Isis were held on December 25, January 6, and March 5. The
earliest Christians assumed that Christ was born and was resurrected on the same day –
March 25 – which was assumed to be the vernal equinox. Later Christians celebrated the
birth of Christ on January 6, along with the festival of Isis. By the fourth century, many
Christians were referring to December 25 as the day of the "unconquered son" – in
defiance of the emperor, and January 6 was then called "Epiphany," when either the
magi were supposed to have visited or Christ was baptized, or maybe both.

In 325 C.E., which is when the Catholic Church was officially organized, it decreed that
the resurrection of Christ was determined by the vernal equinox – which is still
celebrated today as "Easter," named after the goddess of spring. In 350, Pope Julius I
decreed that the nativity should be celebrated on the same day as all other sun gods,
namely December 25. But many churches did not want to be associated with the pagan
religions, and to this day the Eastern Orthodox Church celebrates the birth of Christ on
January 7 – the day after Epiphany.

New Year's has been celebrated at every time of the year by various cultures. Months
have varied in number and length. And weeks have varied from four days to ten days in
different cultures.

In the fourth century, Emperor Constantine established our seven-day week – based on
Jewish tradition.

In the sixth century, Pope John counted backward to the presumed date of Christ's
birth, calculated from the reign of Pontius Pilate, and renumbered all the years in history
as B.C. and A.D. The year 753 A.U.C. (ab urbe condita, meaning after the founding of
Rome) was then called .A.D. 1. B.C. and A.D. are now being replaced, at least by
secularists, by B.C.E (before the common era) and C.E. (of the common era).

Throughout the early Middle Ages, most of Europe disregarded Roman practices and
continued to start the year with the equinox – March 25. England, however, retained the
practice of starting the year on the solstice – December 25.

By 1582, the eleven-minute error in the Julian calendar had thrown the year ten days out
of sync with the sun, which was very upsetting to the Catholic Church, since the
calendar determined all their feast days. At that time, the pope was the most powerful
person in the world. So Pope Gregory had the authority to establish his "Gregorian"
calendar. He deleted ten days from that year, which pushed the solstice back to
December 22, where it had been when the Catholic Church was founded in 325. But by
then, the connections with Christmas had long since been forgotten, so it remained on
December 25. Then Gregory modified the rule about how often leap-year must occur so
the calendar wouldn't drift out of sync again. The Gregorian calendar also retained the
Italian tradition of January first as New Year's Day. England and America finally
accepted the Gregorian calendar in 1752.

...

In view of the connection between the solstice and the new solar year, it is obvious that
the babe in the manger and the babe in the diaper with a New Year's banner around his
chest are really the same – a symbol of the reborn sun god. The sun god was always the
most important in any polytheistic culture, and the winter solstice always marked his
death and resurrection, or rebirth. Some of the major gods who celebrated their
birthdays on December 25 were Marduk, Osiris, Horus, Isis, Mithras, Saturn, Sol,
Apollo, Serapis, and Huitzilopochli.

...

Source.

BTW... I think it is interesting to point out that Jesus was alleged to have been "in the tomb" for three days and three nights which just so happens to coincide with the literal meaning of the "Solstice."

If you *really* want to get esoteric around Solstice/Saturnalia, there are those who've come to think that Saturn was "the original or 'true' sun," the star that originally illuminated Earth. Sol only became "our sun" much more recently in Earth history.

[deephiance]

Thank you, never really being a man of symbolism, religion or tradition, but a man of science I rarely understand how the two go hand in hand.

Thank you for your time.

PS. I also get taken the wrong way when asking questions or talking because I have a habit of being short with my words and blunt in my manner, but my interest in the manner was genuine, so thank you.