Christmas is a mix of cultural traditions...calling it pagan is flawed as calling it purely original -- as much as anything in culture can be TRULY original, since even "original" ideas took a spark from thing else. Christian also varies by region, a bit like Easter. I always roll my eyes at people who say that Easter is a pagan thing -- true, it bears a pagan name in Germanic countries (including England and America), but outside of those areas (i.e. The Rest of the World), it's called Pascha or some equivalent, given that the resurrection was linked to Passover. And the bunnies and such are absent there.
Most, if not all, traditions (including Christmas and Easter) are an amalgamation of old - sometimes *very* old - practices and much more modern ones (mostly Victorian I think). To call any of them 'Pagan' or 'Christian' (or anything else definite) is missing the historical nature of things... Bottom line is that *everything* we do is cultural and the more you dig into it the stranger, more convoluted and wider it gets... Interesting too!
Oh, I keep trying to do a thoughtful reply to your comment a few posts down but keep getting interrupted by patrons. Wicked tricksy patrons, making me work instead of read blogs.
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Christmas is a mix of cultural traditions...calling it pagan is flawed as calling it purely original -- as much as anything in culture can be TRULY original, since even "original" ideas took a spark from thing else. Christian also varies by region, a bit like Easter. I always roll my eyes at people who say that Easter is a pagan thing -- true, it bears a pagan name in Germanic countries (including England and America), but outside of those areas (i.e. The Rest of the World), it's called Pascha or some equivalent, given that the resurrection was linked to Passover. And the bunnies and such are absent there.
Most, if not all, traditions (including Christmas and Easter) are an amalgamation of old - sometimes *very* old - practices and much more modern ones (mostly Victorian I think). To call any of them 'Pagan' or 'Christian' (or anything else definite) is missing the historical nature of things... Bottom line is that *everything* we do is cultural and the more you dig into it the stranger, more convoluted and wider it gets... Interesting too!
Oh, I keep trying to do a thoughtful reply to your comment a few posts down but keep getting interrupted by patrons. Wicked tricksy patrons, making me work instead of read blogs.
Don't you just HATE that.... [lol]
Truly. So many substacks, so little time!
Christians are so embarassing.
LOL
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