A this-worldly story
When our children were young, we tried to shield them from the excesses of the cultural, materialistic and market-driven year-end holiday. We wanted them to understand that for us Christmas was about the birth of Jesus and God's love; it had nothing to do with Rudolph, Frosty and a Santa Claus who brings gifts and toys in direct correlation to a child's compliant behavior. We failed miserably. In Christmas: Festival of Incarnation, Donald Heinz notes that Christians have always lamented and resisted the cultural captivity of Christmas. From the beginning they've tried to separate themselves from year-end festivities. But, says Heinz, it's been a "spectacular failure of theological imagination."
Even before the Romans, the winter solstice was an occasion of thanksgiving and celebration. The darkness and cold of the retreating sun inspired terror, and when the sun finally started its slow return, ancient peoples marked the event with feasting and fertility celebrations. Some of their symbols are still with us: boughs of evergreen, holly and ivy, wreaths.
Later the Romans marked year's end with Saturnalia, a raucous weeklong party. Christians decided to offer an alternative and began to celebrate the incarnation with Christ's Mass. Their hope was that in time Christ's Mass would replace Saturnalia. That effort failed, Heinz says, as has every church's attempt to banish the secular festival.
