The "Real Origin" of The Holiday

[Davey]

Christmas is a time where I'm just glad to get a couple weeks off from school and my parents are glad to get a week or so of paid leave from work so we can be together.

I don't care about presents, decorations, songs, christmas trees, menoras, or anything else. Other people can celebrate it their own way, I don't have to follow their example if I don't want to. That's what a free country is all about. If someone ever says, "Hey, why aren't you celebrating Christmas in this way?" or "I want you to celebrate it my way and be politically correct and include my X festivity" and of course the usual "Christmas is evil! It's too commercial!" I tell them to leave me alone and continue their crusades elsewhere, because I frankly couldn't care less, because I don't buy into any of this 'Christmas' or "Christ Mass" or "ZOMG EVIL BABYKILLING CORPORATE COMMERCIALISM!" The thing is I don't have to if I don't want to.

For me, the more stuff we just tack onto the holiday, the more's keeping me from appreciating the trip back home to my family and my loved ones.

Bottom line: Christmas for me is more like a second, smaller, and much colder summer vacation.

[Vendetta]

Though they probably did have midwinter festivals. It was a popular time for getting shitfaced and celebrating the fact that you've hit the point where nights are going to start getting shorter again. Just as early spring is a good time for celebrating the fact that this winter didn't manage to kill you, so there have always been celebrations then.

Umm, it's pretty well-known that the Winter Solstice is a significant date which has been a focus of celebrations for a very long time.

Well yes, I was responding to the specific point about what the Scandinavians were up to in the fifth century. Whether the people who decided to bolt Christmas on to the winter solstice knew about them or not, they were probably getting pissed sometime around midwinter.