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From The Archives -- Why Christmas Is Not On The Solstice

[ Posted Monday, December 23rd, 2024 – 17:03 UTC ]

[Program Note: From now until after the new year dawns, I can't promise any new columns, but there may be a few. I had intended to write about the Gaetz report today, but it took so long to get through it and make notes that that's going to have to wait until tomorrow, sorry. We'll also at some point have our "Banished Words List" annual column, and I may be motivated to write about other things happening in Washington. But again -- no promises. It's been a long month here (seems like someone stole a week between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year somehow) and I need a vacation to recharge my batteries. Anyway, hope everyone has a great holiday season, and don't forget to keep those donations coming! Our pledge drive is going very slowly this year, but I am still hoping to raise enough to cover the cost of redesigning the website next month, so please give what you can!]

 

Originally published December 4, 2007

When is Christmas? And why?

These are questions guaranteed to get you funny looks when you pop them, especially in a gathering of wassail-soaked relatives. But if you're tired of hearing the seemingly-eternal "this is what Uncle Fred did when he was twelve" stories, and you're leery of bringing up politics with your kin from Outer Podunk, then it's at least a conversation-starter that's somewhat neutral. Plus, you can reaffirm your nearest-and-dearests' image of you as a latte-sipping fruitcake who moved away from the glory of the heartland and now lives on (say it with an embarrassed whisper) the coast.

OK, I should stop editorializing here. After all, the subject at hand is Christmas.

Now, the first thing that has to be pointed out is that absolutely nobody alive today knows what day Christ was born on. [Note: I am postulating here that Christ did exist, was born, and that the Gospel stories of his birth are fairly accurate. That's a lot to postulate, but we don't want to make the Outer Podunkians' heads explode, so we've got to start from some sort of common ground.] And, from the Gospel of Luke, we read that the shepherds were "abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night." From this, we can probably guess that Jesus wasn't born in midwinter, but more likely in the spring or fall, as that's when the shepherds of that time took their flocks to the fields (and not in the middle of the winter). Meaning that setting "Christmas" on December 25th was likely about as accurate as the Emperor Constantine's mother going to the Holy Land 300 years after Christ was there, and then pointing at the ground and saying "this is where some event in the Bible took place."

But that's another story.

Adding to all of this confusion is the differing concepts of a "calendar" and a "year." The first people who came up with a calendar (and helpfully wrote it down in something easier to translate than, say, Stonehenge) were the Egyptians. Their yearly cycle revolved around one key date: the spring flooding of the Nile River. [Now, while it is very tempting, I refuse to make a "De Nile ain't just a river in Egypt" quip here, because that joke stopped being funny a long time ago.] Since their entire agricultural year began with this yearly event, they needed a way to predict it. Their magicians came up with a stunning idea which we still use today (albeit for a different reason). Since their whole number system was based on 12 (most number systems are based on 10 for the simple reason that that's how many fingers we have... but the Egyptians also counted an extra 2 -- one for each whole hand), they figured the year had to be a perfect multiple of 12, and so came up with 360 divisions of the Earth's path around the sun. Easy to remember, easy to use, and it divides cleanly with 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, and, of course, 12. Problem solved. It's such a convenient system everyone still uses it today, from math teachers to skateboarders -- as the number of degrees in a circle.

Except that it didn't work. It was off by a bit. So the Egyptians, who had twelve months of 30 days each just threw up their hands and added 5 feast days to the end of the year.

Now, "the end of the year" is just as fluid a concept as any in the calendar business. Most civilizations which followed used the Egyptian concept of spring being the beginning of the year. Makes sense, since that's when everything is born anew. The Romans even used this system, which is also still kind of in use today. If you start your calendar in March, then count forward, you have July as the fifth month (which was originally called Quintillis), August as the sixth (originally Sextillis), and then a numerical run of September (seven), October (eight), November (nine) and December (ten). January and February didn't even originally have names, and seeing as how they're the worst months of the year, weather-wise, it's not surprising.

Julius Caesar (and Augustus, after him) tinkered with the calendar even more, as it became apparent that 365 days for each year wasn't quite right. Julius added the concept of a "leap year" every four years, and because he was so proud of his new calendar he had to go and name a whole month after himself. Augustus kept the Julian calendar intact, except he also named a month after himself as well.

The concept of "Christmas" evolved over the centuries as well. Initially celebrated on January 6th, by the time of Constantine (fourth century AD), the church had learned a valuable lesson in marketing (the "new and improved" concept). The problem back then with converting pagans was that even after you went to all the trouble of converting them, they still wanted to celebrate their feasts on their traditional days. And the traditional midwinter festival day was always the solstice. Now, in 46 BC, when Julian was tinkering around with the calendar, the winter solstice had been on December 25th. So everyone was already used to celebrating on that day. The church came up with a compromise: a celebration lasting from 12/25 to 1/6 -- the "twelve days of Christmas." Eventually, they just kind of gave up and started celebrating Christmas on December 25th, and everyone was happy.

For a while, that is. But Julius hadn't gotten it quite right, either. The problem is, the year and the day have nothing to do with each other, astronomically-speaking. They just don't add up very easily. By the 1500s, anyone bright enough to measure the sun's daily movement with a stick in the ground noticed that the solstice was slowly moving. Although the feast day was on the 25th, the actual solstice had moved. If something wasn't done, pretty soon the whole calendar was going to slowly rotate through the actual year. So Pope Gregory XIII, in 1582, changed things around again. His new-and-improved calendar has leap years, but every year that ended in 00 was not to be a leap year. Except for every year evenly divisible by 400, which does have a leap day. Which means that February 29th, 2000 was a day that only comes once every four hundred years -- not just every 4 years, or even "doesn't come" every 100 years.

This is convoluted, but it actually works pretty well. It won't be off by a whole day for thousands of years, so it's close enough for government work, as they say. The problem was getting the actual governments to accept it. Now, since the Pope put his stamp of approval on it, Catholic Europe changed over pretty quickly in the late 1500s. But Protestant Europe took another couple hundred years to get around to it. England (and her colony, America) didn't switch over until 1752. Imagine the confusion in Europe for this period -- when crossing from one country to another, you didn't just change time zones, you entered a whole new calendar zone! In any case, the Gregorian calendar is the one we still use today.

The changeover had other effects as well, and didn't go over easily. Laborers, for instance, got paid wages by the month. But when Gregory made ten days in October disappear, their employers docked their wages and didn't pay them for a full month's time. Even the riots this caused were nothing compared to the wars (yes, actual wars) fought over when exactly to celebrate Easter.

But, eventually, the Gregorian calendar was accepted. Another interesting footnote for Americans is that when we switched over in the 1700s, George Washington changed his birthday. Some people (my mother's one of them) get annoyed by the concept of one "Presidents' Day" in February, instead of celebrating both Washington's and Lincoln's actual birthday. But Washington himself didn't celebrate his birthday on his "birthday." Washington was born February 11th, 1732. But when the calendar switched in America, there were eleven days' difference, so he changed it to February 22nd. When Americans started celebrating his birthday as a holiday (which they did while he was still alive), some celebrated on the 11th, and some on the 22nd. And you think we're politically divided today!

In any case, through Gregory's tinkering, the solstices were set on the 21st/22nd (they move around slightly, since they don't pay any attention to "leap years," while we do). But because everyone by the 1700s had forgotten about the pagan solstice and were now happily celebrating Christmas on the 25th, it stayed where it was.

So the concept of Christmas started by the church taking a pagan holiday, essentially filing the serial numbers off of it, announcing it "new and improved," and proclaiming it as Jesus' birthday. By the time they had to reset the calendar, nobody cared much about the solstice so it was allowed to slip three or four days. Christians worldwide are joyously celebrating the birth of Christ, everybody agrees on the date to do so, and a merry Christmas is had by all.

 

[You know, after reading all that, I'm not so sure that it is all that neutral a subject. Better talk about weather and sports with the Outer Podunkians, just to be safe.]

 

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

 

-- Chris Weigant

 

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

 

5 Comments on “From The Archives -- Why Christmas Is Not On The Solstice”

  1. [1] 
    Michale wrote:

    Bashit,

    Michale, you are really playing the imbecile on this one. Your "quote" is referring to the entire phone call as it's not a direct quote from that call.

    It's not "MY" quote, it's CW's quote..

    And CW's quote is ..it was a pretty easy case to prove -- there was that recording of Trump's "All I need is 11,780 votes" phone call with Georgia Republicans,
    -CW

    Saying "All I need is 11,780 votes" is NOT "proof" of anything crime or otherwise.

    It's not even EVIDENCE of anything other than a desire to win an election that Democrats cheated at..

    Even if we ADD the word "find".....

    "All I need is to find 11,780 votes"

    It's STILL not "proof" of ANYTHING... It's not even EVIDENCE of anything...

    Yer so full of shit on this one, Bashit, it's laughable!! :D

    Even JL has conceded on this one..

    Yer just wrong, Bashit... As you ALWAYS are...

    President ELECT Trump didn't do ANYTHING wrong in the aftermath of the 2020 election. Al 'Crazed Sex Poodle' Gore did everything in the aftermath of the 2000 election that President Trump did in the aftermath of 2020..

    We know this to be factually accurate because Gore's lead attorney TOLD us...

    You are so far beyond stoopid on this, Bashit.. :eyeroll:

    President ELECT Trump is completely, unequivocally and utterly INNOCENT of any criminal accusations..

    These are the FACTS... Give it up, Bashit.. You lost...

    0188

  2. [2] 
    Michale wrote:

    Russ,

    You have lived in Florida since before 2000,

    Not factually accurate..

    so not sure where else you could have worked as a police officer.

    You don't know shit, Russ..

    And yet you spew all this garbage without the FIRST CLUE what's going on..

    BBBBWWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

    Sure, when you post Benita's criminal record with the group,

    Who is "Benita" and what does she have to do with anything??

    You are so pathetic, Russ..

    Only a pathetic worm would try to take a flame war into RL JUST because you are getting your ass kicked all over Weigantia..

    Face reality, dood.. You ain't shit.. You like to play the "gay" card and "husband" card because it let's you pretend yer oh so worldly and woke..

    But yer nothing but a little weasel who is all alone and all you have is your ranting on a cop-hating Democrat blog...

    What a sad and pathetic creature you are, Russ...

    I can only pity you...

    0189

  3. [3] 
    Michale wrote:

    Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

    Looks like some Demon Rat bitches are getting a rude awakening in California...

    Stoopid Democrats walked into stores and shoplifted a whole bunch of cosmetics and clothes..

    When arrested, they were shocked to hear that, with the advent of Prop 36, many theft crimes that were downgraded to misdemeanors have been RE-upgraded back into felonies..

    Stoopid-ass lazy stealing Democrats..

    Ya'all must be SO proud to be Democrats, eh? :eyeroll:

    0190

  4. [4] 
    Michale wrote:

    I had intended to write about the Gaetz report today, but it took so long to get through it and make notes that that's going to have to wait until tomorrow

    ***SPOILER ALERT***

    I'll tell you how it ends..

    Mat Gaetz is completely, unequivocally and 100% **INNOCENT** of everything in that report...

    Of course, I know that FACTS never enter into ya'all's hysterical diatribes...

    But FACTS are FACTS, whether ya'all can admit to them or not... :D

    0191

  5. [5] 
    Michale wrote:

    Russ

    You served in the military for the better part of a quarter century???

    I realize that yer such a retarded moron that you have a 2nd grade reading level, but I never said I served in the military for the better part of a quarter century..

    Since you are too stoopid to understand basic english, there is no hope for you whatsoever...

    I mean, yer such a stoopid moron, you actually thought that Token DEI Hire Headboard Has Been Hooker Harris was actually going to win the election!!!

    BBBBBWWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA

    NO ONE with more than 2 brain cells to rub together could POSSIBLY believe that Token DEI Harris could actually WIN!!

    Whatta maroon... :D

    0192

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