Happy Birthday, Mithras!

So it’s Christmas time again. I’ve successfully purchased all the gifts for Jessie from me and from Hannah. (That includes birthday presents since her birthday is right before Christmas.) The tree is up. The stockings are hung – by the front door on some coat hooks since we don’t have a chimney to hang them by with care. So have you ever wondered why we have some strange traditions this time of year? You know, like why hang our laundry by the fireplace hoping some large man who watches children will come put gifts in it. Or why we cut down trees and bring them inside. Or better yet, how does any of that fit with what the western world has been told this time of year is supposed to be all about?

Whether you’ve thought about those things or not, I would highly recommend the upcoming showing of Christmas Unwrapped on the History channel. I caught this last year and thought it was great. Christmas Unwrapped goes through the real origins of Christmas and why we have all those traditions. It discusses the early pagan traditions of the winter solstice and the secular, rowdy festivals with lots of dancing, drinking, and general chaos.

Even something as simple as Christmas being celebrated on December 25th has its origins in paganism. December 25th, among other things, was originally the birthday of Mithras, the Persian sun god. On the Julian calendar, the 25th was the winter solstice. So the sun god is born on the day with the shortest amount of daylight because the daylight hours will only get longer from then on (at least until the summer solstice).

If you watch the documentary, you can learn a lot more than I could ramble about here. According to the History channel schedule, it will be shown at various times throughout the middle of the night this coming week; however, the most convenient time to watch it appears to be next Sunday the 23rd at 7pm EST. I’ve got my DVR all set.