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Christmas: Tradition vs. Truth

December is a month-long exercise in cognitive dissonance. 

We celebrate "peace on earth" while fighting for parking spots at the mall, and we honor a desert-born carpenter with pine trees and fake snow.

Anybody that no longer believes in Santa Claus has at least considered many of the tradition versus truth segments of the Christmas season. And of course that's a good place to start: the date, December 25th.

We celebrate the birth of Jesus on December 25th.  Historically, it is highly unlikely Jesus was born in December. 

The biblical accounts mention shepherds tending flocks at night—something they didn't do in the dead of winter in Judea. 

The "truth" of the date is political: early church leaders likely chose December 25th to coincide with Saturnalia and the Winter Solstice, effectively "rebranding" existing pagan festivals to make the new religion easier to swallow.

So, what about the tree? Personally, I find it highly offensive that we take the tree down. If we can put it up once why not just leave it up?  Maybe Christmas might become more of a reality and less of a ceasefire.

But we drag a pine tree into the living room and cover it in lights. This tradition has more to do with the Vikings and Germanic tribes than the Middle East. 

Evergreens were seen as symbols of life that stayed green while everything else died. Decorating them was a way to ward off the darkness of the solstice. 

It wasn't until the 1840s, when Queen Victoria’s German husband, Albert, put up a tree, that it became a "must-have" global tradition.  

So what about the creepy fat guy in red attire?  A jolly man in a red suit lives at the North Pole and runs a logistics empire.

"Santa" was Saint Nicholas, a 4th-century Greek bishop in modern-day Turkey known for secret gift-giving (like tossing bags of gold through windows to save people from debt).

The red suit? That was largely solidified by Coca-Cola advertisements in the 1930s. We traded a saintly advocate for the poor for a global brand ambassador.

And now we express love through the volume of cardboard boxes under a tree.

The underlying "truth" of the season is actually a survival mechanism. In the deepest, darkest part of the year, humans have always felt the need to feast, gather, and share resources to ensure the community makes it to spring. The "magic" isn't in the gift; it’s in the communal refusal to let the winter win. 
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