The Twisted History of Easter, Passover and Noruz

What does a fuzzy little bunny have to do with a crucified King of the Jews?

That very question lead me to ask questions about religious celebrations, the connectivity of religions and the just plain weirdness of religions. What follows are some of the answers I found along the bunny trail.

It all begins with Spring.

Why is this season different from all others?  

Because between mid-March and late April we get the Vernal Equinox and three major religious holidays: NoRuz, Easter and Passover.

The Vernal Equinox is when the Sun can be observed to be directly above the equator. The word equinox is derived from the Latin word aequinoctium (equal night). Basically the day is equally divided between light and dark. At this time of year the Southern Hemisphere is entering autumn while cultures in the Northern Hemisphere celebrate their spring festivals.

NORUZ

On March 21st in Iran and parts of India the festival of NoRuz was celebrated. NoRuz, meaning: New Day, is sometimes spelled NowRuz. So now you know that the English word “New” comes from the Indo-European word “Now.” Who knew? Other Iranian/Farsi words you would recognize in English are Shekar (Sugar),Sharbat (sherbet) Doktar (daughter) Madar (Mother). And if you play chess you use a Persian expression when you’ve checked the king. You yell SHAH MAT ! (the King is dead) Except, you pronounce it “checkmate!”

NoRuz, sometimes referred to as Persian New Year, is the spring festival of Zoroastrianism.

Zoroastrianism is one of the oldest religions still in existence, founded by Zarathustra (Zoroaster in Greek) somewhere around 1500 BC, 500 years or so before Moses. Reportedly the world's first monotheistic religion, its theology had a profound impact on Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Zoroastrianism introduced beliefs concerning the soul, God, Satan, heaven, hell, a savior born of a virgin who will raise the dead on judgment day and all sorts of familiar religious concepts.

Zoroastrians believe in a single god called Ahura Mazda.

They also believe there exists a pissed off potentate, an evil spirit of violence and death, Angra Mainyu, who opposes Ahura Mazda. Angra Mainyu is where we get the English word "Anger". To counter Angra Mainyu there is Spenta Mainyu –the Holy Spirit. There was also a demi-god named Mithra would mediate between Ahura Mazda and the earth.

One part of NoRuz is the feast called Chahar Shanbeh Soori, the Four Saturday Feast. It’s held four days after the last Wednesday of the year. The concept is the spirits of your ancestors pay a house call that day. So children, both boys and girls dress up in chadors (similar to the burka in Afghanistan.) These little ghosts knock on doors asking for treats. Sounds like “trick or treating” to me. By the light of a bonfire, they run through the streets with their New Year’s noisemakers, banging on pots and pans with spoons called Gashog-Zani to chase away the old year. If you’re a regular reader of my Holiday memos you’ll notice, I’m sure, the amazing similarity to the Celtic New Year --Samhain from which the modern Halloween celebration evolved. An even odder Irish/Iran connection is that the Persians have a trefoil plant with magical powers whose Farsi name is a Shabdar, when translated into Arabic it becomes Shamrakh.—sounds a bit like Shamrock, doesn’t it. Well, Shah and begorra! Actually, it’s not coincidental at all.. The Celtic language along with most European languages is called Indo-European. The prevailing theory being these languages spread from India to Iran and then on to Europe. You might remember that the Nazi’s claimed their ancestors were the Aryans. The Aryans were the peoples who moved west from India into Iran and then Europe. The name “Iran” means: Land of the Aryans.

One NoRuz belief is that whatever a person does at this time will affect the rest of the year. Sounds just like Chinese New Year doesn’t it? Women also make a New Year’s wish then go out on the street and eavesdrop. The first conversation they hear will be an answer to their wish. Like almost all cultures there is a Spring Cleaning ritual called Khaneh Tekani, which literally means, “Shaking the House.” Cleaning it the way you would shake out a rug.

Hadji Firuz.

One New Year’s noisemaker unique to Iran is Hadji Firuz. People dress up as Hadji in a red costume and blackface and dance through the streets beating tambourines to herald the coming New Year. It has something to do with the fact that slaves were once the entertainers in the Persian Court.

There’s a lot more symbolism and history in the festival than I’m able to get into here, check out this site if you want to know more: www.persianmirror.com/celebrations/NoRuz/NoRuz.cfm

But here’s the stuff germane to our little memo: a major part of the NoRuz New Year ritual is the family gathering around a special table for a feast called Haft Seen.

It consists of seven symbolic items that begin with the letter 'Seen,' the S in Arabic alphabet. There is Sombol (hyacinth) and Sekkeh (coins) and Sabzeh (sprouted greens) and Seer (garlic) and Senjed (a fruit only found in Iran), a mysterious gooey chocolaty brown stuff called Samanoo. And finally --Serkeh (vinegar). Originally it included wine (Sherab,) but that was replaced by vinegar when Iran became Muslim and alcohol was banned.

Other items found on the table are goldfish –symbolic of life, mirrors -- a symbol of self-reflection and a fertility symbol --eggs. The eggs are colored in bright reds, greens and yellows. Which brings us back to Easter & Passover

PASSOVER

It is, of course, no coincidence that Easter and Passover are usually celebrated around the same time. In Judaism the celebration of Passover commemorates the Hebrews liberation from slavery in Egypt and the "passing over" of the forces of destruction when the Lord "smote the land of Egypt" Smote, now there's a word you don't hear too often. The modern equivalent translation of "smote" is "to open up a can of Whoop-ass."

There's some conjecture that Passover is actually the melding of two separate Jewish celebrations, one involving a lamb from nomadic times, the other centered on grain from an agricultural celebration.

Passover today is a chance for Jewish families to gather at a communal dinner, a Seder (The Order) and recount the story of the Exodus while following a prescribed ritual.

For you goyim here's an explanation of the Exodus in 150 words or less:

3000 years ago.

Jewish captivity in Egypt.

Moses: "Let My People go"

Pharaoh: "Fuggedhaboudit".

G-d: "Special Delivery for Pharaoh - 7 plagues. We got your frogs, your vermin, your flies, mad cow disease, locusts, boils, hail, oh yeah and slaying of your first born (always a biggie in biblical times.)

The Jews mark their doors with lamb's blood so G-d knows not to come a knockin’. He passes over their homes.

Finally Pharaoh says "You wanna go, get outta here."

Jews have to leave in a hurry; don't have time to bake foccacia to snack on in their Ford Explorers as they head off-road across the desert towards Israel. They make unleavened bread - matzo. Pharaoh's Army chases them. They reach the Sea of Reeds (later mistranslated into The Red Sea); Moses whips out his Divine E-Z pass. Jews get across. Pharaoh's Army goes for a dip.

Pretty much covers it.

Charlton Heston fits in there somewhere but it gets way too confusing.

The Seder is the most important event of the 8 days of Passover. It takes place the first two nights. Similar to the Christian Mardi Gras /Pancake Day all non-kosher foods containing yeast are consumed or disposed of before the holiday begins, otherwise they're not as the saying goes "Kosher for Passover."

Glatt –- wat’s dat?

You may see the term “Glatt Kosher” on certain foods. Most folks think it implies this stuff is Extra-Strength Kosher, the best of the blessed. In fact, it just sorta means that the animal was a non-smoker. Huh? Glatt is Yiddish for smooth, it means that the lungs of the animal were smooth, without any adhesions, scars or punctures. Basically this law kept folks from eating diseased animals or leftover road kill. There is no such thing as Glatt kosher chicken, fish, or dairy, but that doesn’t mean you won’t see the G word plastered all over them. Which when you think about doesn’t seem quite Kosher.

Like the Haft Seen --The Seder plate contains 5 foods which all have symbolic meaning:

Haroseth, a mixture of chopped walnuts, wine, cinnamon and apples that represents the mortar the Jewish slaves used to assemble the Pharaoh's bricks.

Parsley to symbolize spring, dipped in salt to remind us of the salty tears of the slaves.

Egg, again to symbolize spring.

Lamb bone, okay we got that.

Bitter herbs to symbolize the bitter life the slaves led.

Jewish children ask the famous 4 questions. (One of them is not: When am I getting a Sony PlayStation? Questions like: Why do we lean on a pillow tonight?

Answer: To remind us that once we were slaves and uncomfortable but now we are free. The answers explain the symbolism of the objects and infuse a sense of history/culture.

At one point in the Seder the front door is opened to allow the Prophet Elijah in. After the meal children search for a piece of Matzo wrapped in cloth called the Afikomen (meaning: after dinner). The one who finds the Afikomen gets a prize.

EASTER

Which brings us up to Jesus. He was Jewish, presumably as a child he searched for the Afikomen. He was crucified during Passover. The Last Supper was a Seder. As mentioned, three foods served at this religious meal are shank bone, symbolic of the Paschal lamb, an egg and matzo bread. The symbolic use of the lamb and the egg both survive in the Christian Easter. Christ being considered the sacrificial lamb for man's sins and, of course, the Easter egg. Passover's unleavened matzo bread survives in the Christian Communion wafer. Some Christian groups contend Christ's body wrapped in linen in his tomb was the afikomen for mankind. The gift/prize was revealed upon his resurrection.

Early Christians (whom I guess could be considered the very first Jews For Jesus) did not celebrate Easter. They continued to observe the Jewish religious holy days, though in a new spirit, thus Passover had a new concept added to it of Christ as the true Paschal Lamb. Paschal is from the Hebrew " pesach " (Passover) from the verb form "he passed over."

As the Christian faith evolved Easter came into its own.

But wait, we're all the way up to 400 AD or so.

Let's back up a bit.

Ancient Antecedents

By now you know there are some pretty well established pagan customs that we unknowingly follow to this day. So let's go back to some of the pagan origins of Christianity's most solemn holiday. Read on and discover the hidden origins of Sunrise Services, Lenten fasting, Easter Eggs, the Easter Bunny and even the word "Easter."

Easter in the Christian faith is a festival of resurrection, a celebration of Christ, the Son of God, rising from the dead. On another symbolic level it is also a celebration of nature returning from the dead, a welcome home party for the pagan Earth Mother or if you prefer "Mother Nature" who arrives in the form of spring.

It probably comes as no surprise to you that back there in BC, Before Christ, the Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians had festivals of resurrection in spring.

Babylonian Resurrection legends

Ishtar/Astarte

Astarte was the mother goddess of the ancient Assyrians, she was

also known as Ishtar. Astarte was hatched from a huge egg that fell into the Euphrates. Astarte's husband Tammuz croaked. Astarte fasted for 40 days and went looking for him in the underworld and by her grief she was able to bring him back to life. In honor of Astarte, Babylonians considered eggs sacred and they were not eaten for the period of her mourning (which interestingly corresponds with the concept of giving something up for the 40 days of Lent.)

Egyptian Resurrection Mythology

Osiris

The Egyptians influenced the Hebrews (look no further than Moses, which is an Egyptian name) and the Hebrews influenced the early Christians (Look no further than the Pope who wears a yarmulke.) So it's interesting to note an Egyptian resurrection legend that predates Christ. The Egyptian gods Isis and Osiris were not only sister and brother; they were husband and wife. Osiris was the Son of God. His daddy was Ra - the sun god. Did that make him the son of sun? Osiris is many times depicted with green skin --since he was the god of vegetation, which is why spring is an important time for him. Osiris is whacked by his brother, the god Seth. Seth chops us his body. Isis tries to put him back together. She finds everything but a fairly important component ---his penis. After one day and two nights she is able to bring him back to life but only temporarily. He rises from the dead at sunrise; after all he is the son of sun. It happens to be the day of the Vernal Equinox, the first day of spring. They make love (G-d knows how!) then Osiris returns to his father in the heavens. Osiris will eventually leave his father and become the god of the underworld. Hey if you lost your manly member you wouldn't be in too sweet of a mood either.

40 weeks after they do the big nasty Isis gives birth to a son, Horus. The date of his birth -- Dec 25th. You’re familiar with the date I’m sure and already know that Christians chose this date to venerate a son of God who returned to the right hand of his father ---in the hopes it would supersede pagan celebrations to Horus and another powerful god Mithra.

Mithra/Mithras

A fascinating god. He was Persian and as their empire spread he was introduced to new cultures. In India he became a Hindu God - Mitra. Eventually he would be worshipped throughout the Roman Empire. The fascinating thing about Mithra is the uncanny similarity to Jesus. He was worshipped 800 years before Christ but here’s Mithra’s bio: He was born of a Virgin, was part of a divine trinity, had twelve followers, who were baptized into the faith and ate bread and drank wine to symbolize the body and blood of god. They looked forward to a final day of judgment when true believers would rise from the dead and do battle until the forces of light triumphed over darkness. Mithras died and was resurrected. This compassionate god was known as the light of the world and was born on December 25. Holy Happenstance Batman!

It is also interesting to consider that Easter Sunrise Services have become more and more popular. On some subliminal level they harken back to Sun worship, which was one of the earliest religions. In ancient Babylon the sun was personified as Tammuz, the returning lover of Ishtar. It was at dawn that the Egyptian Osiris rose to join the sun god in the sky. Even today, Druids hold sunrise services on the summer solstice.

Greek Resurrection Mythology

In Greek mythology Demeter was the Earth Mother, goddess of the harvest. When her daughter Persephone was abducted by Hades (god of the underworld), Demeter spiraled into a depression. The plants died and there was no harvest. Zeus (who had a lot of money invested in crop futures) got p.o.'d and i.m.'d his brother Hades and told him to let Persephone the hell out of hell.

Hades tricks Persephone into swallowing some pomegranate seeds. Now that Persephone has accepted the seed of Hades she is symbolically his wife and is now Queen of the Underworld.

Hades agrees to let her go home to momma if she promises to agree to live with him for four months of the year. So every year, when Persephone lets herself go all to hell, Demeter pops some Prozac and the world lapses into winter. When Persephone is released and resurrected from death, Demeter's joy is expressed in the flowers of spring.

Roman Mythology

The Romans kept the story but changed the names to protect their lack of creativity. 

  They changed Demeter’s name to Ceres. Ceres is the root word for cereal.

Chicagoans should find her familiar. She sits atop the Chicago Board of Trade where grain futures are sold. Persephone’s name was changed to Proserpine.

Teutonic Mythology

In Norse-Teutonic mythology there was a goddess of spring, in Scandinavian this Earth Mother's name was Ostara, in Saxony it was Eostre, also spelled Eastre. There is some belief that the name Ostara may be a corruption of Astarte, the mother goddess of the ancient Assyrians mentioned earlier. Eostre/Eastre is where we get the word "Easter." Eostre is also considered one of the possible root words for "estrus", from which we get the name estrogen, the female sex hormone.

Eastre and the original flying Easter bunny.

Since Eastre was the goddess of fertility there was an extremely fertile animal associated with her, the highly reproductive critter was---drum roll please……..a rabbit. Her name was Oschter Haws. Holy Hasenpfeffer Batman!!!! Is that where we get the Easter bunny? Yup. Like the Yule log, the Christmas tree and holly, this pagan custom crept into Christianity when the Germans converted. The story goes that an injured bird was brought to Eostre; she was unable to fully restore it so she transformed it into a hare. The hare retained its ability to lay eggs and did so every spring in honor of the Goddess and the Earth's rebirth. Thus, the tradition of a bunny bringing eggs to children.

It's interesting (and weird) to note that an old expression for asking a woman if she was pregnant was: Did the rabbit die? An archaic pregnancy test consisted of injecting a woman's urine into a live rabbit. If it died you could expect a blessed event. In reality, the rabbit always died, however if the woman were indeed pregnant the rabbit's ovaries would bulge. This, of course, was determined post-mortem. Obviously Bugs Bunny heaved a sigh of relief when they invented E.P.T.

The Easter Bunny

When German immigrants came to America and unpacked their folklore baggage, the Easter bunny hopped out. It was widely ignored by other American Christians until shortly after the Civil War. German-American children believed that if they were good the "Oschter Haws" would lay a nest of colored eggs. The children would build their nest in a secluded place in the home, the barn or the garden. Boys would use their caps and girls their bonnets to make the nests. The use of elaborate Easter baskets was a later addition to the tradition.

Easter Tuesday?????

Prior to A.D. 325, Easter was variously celebrated on different days of the week, including Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. (Was Good Friday called Good Wednesday when Easter fell on a Friday?) In 325 the Council of Nicaea was convened by the Roman Emperor Constantine. It issued the Easter Rule, which states that Easter shall be celebrated on the first Sunday that occurs after the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox, or first day of spring. Is that why Easter Sunday is always hopping around? Uh-huh. The Greek Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church officially split in 1054 AD. The Greeks continued to determine the date of Easter using the Julian calendar even after The Romans Catholics switched to the Gregorian calendar. Thus their different dates for the same Holy Day. (The split between the two churches became irreparable in 1204 AD when Venetian bankers arranged with the Vatican to have an army of Crusaders sack Constantinople (Venice's business rival) on the way to the Holy Land. The Crusaders sacked the Holy Christian City of Constantinople (Istanbul) and that was that.

Easter Eggs

The egg of course is universally understood as a symbol of life.

In Pagan times the egg represented the rebirth of the earth. Winter was over; the flowers burst forth from the earth just as the chick burst out of its shell. (Is that why folks put Easter decorations up with pictures of chicks popping out of eggs?) With the advent of Christianity the symbolism of the egg changed to represent, not nature's rebirth, but the rebirth of man. Christians embraced the egg symbol and compared it to the tomb from which Christ rose.

There are many Eastern European legends about coloring eggs. One legend concerns the Virgin Mary holding a basket of eggs while crying at the foot of the Cross. Her tears fell upon the eggs leaving them with splashes of brilliant color.

During the Middle Ages the Brits were big on decorating and coloring eggs. In 1290 Edward I had four hundred and fifty eggs gold-leafed and colored which he presented as Easter gifts.

The world’s most famous Easter eggs were those made by the well-known goldsmith, Peter Carl Faberge. In 1883 Czar Alexander commissioned Faberge to make a special Easter gift for his wife, the Empress Marie. You, dear Gothamites, were once in a most envious position. The largest collection of Faberge eggs outside of Russia used to reside at The Forbes Museum at 62 Fifth Ave. But did you ever get off your keester and go over there when they were there? Unfortunately, they’ve been sold and now Forbes is fresh out of eggs.

Easter Parades

There is one other Fifth Avenue connection to Easter.

Historically in New York, Fifth Avenue is where each religious franchise plopped its flagship building i.e. St. Patrick's Cathedral, Temple Beth Israel. At Fifth Avenue and 52nd street (next to the Museum of Modern Art) you'll find St. Thomas Episcopal Church. It had a very, very well to do congregation. The opulent spring wardrobe worn by the women parishioners as they exited the church onto Fifth Avenue became known as the Easter Parade.

It has transformed into a somewhat pedestrian mall cum parade, kind of a weird Venice beach meets Fifth Avenue stroll.

So class to summarize:

We've taken an ancient agrarian festival celebrating the rebirth of the earth, reinterpreted it as a religious festival celebrating the resurrection of Christ and then turned that into a festival where a bunny rabbit sneaks into a house and leaves stuffed rabbits, chocolate lambs, colored eggs and chocolate scale models of ancient execution devices (crucifixes) for children. Unlike Santa, the rabbit doesn't check once, nor twice if you've been nice. He just gives you the goodies and hops back down the bunny trail.

And you wonder why kids today are so confused.

That's about all the trivia I've got. Now I must return to my research trying to uncover the Pre-Columbian origins of the marshmallow chick.

Happy NoRuz, Eostre-Passover, oh and welcome home Persephone.

Dano

McHistory. The twisted history of St. Patrick's Day

Appropriately enough, there’s a good deal of blarney out there about Ole St. Pat.

What is known is that he was born in 389 A.D. in Banwen, Wales.

His name wasn’t Patrick, it was Maewyn Succat. The moniker “Patrick” was given to him later in life by Pope Celestine.

At the age of 16, this not particularly religious boy, was kidnapped by Irish Raiders, brought to Ireland and enslaved. During his time on the Emerald Isle he became a devout Christian. FULL STOP! He became a devout Christian?  I thought it was Paddy who introduced Christianity to Ireland? Nope.

Legend holds – and sometimes legend is a real whopper --that Christianity was brought to England and Ireland by Joseph of Arimathea or his son Josephus.  Joe of A Sr., you might remember, was the guy who offered up his own tomb for Christ’s burial. Legend holds that somehow or another he got a hold of the cup Christ used in the Last Supper and used it to catch his blood as he died on the cross.  Then, either he or his son took the cup to England and buried it.  This cup was known in French as the “Sang Real” –the True Blood. Say “Sang Real” three times fast and you’re saying Grail –the Holy Grail – Monty Python and all that Jazz.  Point is:  Ireland had Christians before Patrick.

Eventually Maewyyn escaped back to England joined the clergy and was ordained a priest. After Bishop Palladius, the first Irish missionary croaked in 431, Pope Celestine gave Maewyyn the new name of "Patercius" (from Latin "pater civium" meaning "the father of his people" think "paternity.")

Patercius went back to the Old Sod to minister to the Christians already living there and to convert the rest of the unwashed heathen.

Did St. Patrick really drive the snakes out of Ireland? 
People who know such things say there never were snakes in Ireland.  The story is symbolic. Ireland was pagan. The snake has always been symbolic of the devil (See Adam & Eve.) So in other words, St. Patrick rid Ireland of its pagan customs and gave Da Divil a boot in tha arse ta boot.

The Shamrock
The vast majority of the Irish were pagans. Members of Ireland’s ruling class were called Druids. It was from this class that the pagan priests emerged.  They worshipped nature and considered the shamrock a sacred plant. Three was also a mystical number to the Celts. (Here’s a weird “one world” connection there is a trefoil plant in Arabia called a shamrakh. This same plant is considered sacred in Iran).

As the story goes, Patrick, knowing the shamrock’s mystical importance used it to explain the Christian concept of the Trinity: Father, Son & the Holy Ghost/Spirit.

Problem is --the first written citation of this story did not appear until the time of the Protestant Reformation, nearly a thousand years after his death. Odds are it never happened.

Irish legend also credits St. Pat with the idea of using the pagan veneration of the sun for Christian advantage. He added a sun-like disc to the Christian crucifix, creating the Celtic cross. Maybe.

St. Patrick’s Day

This holy day commemorates the anniversary of his death on March 17^th 461 AD.

St. Patrick’s Day is the religious feast day of the patron saint of Ireland. No surprise then that in this very Catholic country it was merely a religious holy day. In fact, up until the 1970s, Irish laws dictated that all pubs were to remain locked tight on March 17th. It was a day to go to mass, not Bennigans. Notice the word “was”. They can thank the Yanks for that. Because it was in America that St. Patrick’s Day became what it is today.

Let me explain.

The myth of America says it was founded upon the principle of religious freedom. Truth is: no one really wanted the Jews, the Catholics, or the Quakers for that matter. (Let’s not even talk about those pesky Hindus. Kidding, I'm kidding.)

Irish Catholics began arriving in numbers just after the War of 1812.

By the height of the potato famine in 1847 it seemed as if the island of Manhattan was going to sink from the weight of Irish immigrants flooding ashore.

You can visit the Irish Famine Memorial just north of the World Financial Center. It consists of an Irish cottage that was abandoned during the famine shipped to the shores of New York and set up on a platform overlooking the Hudson River facing the Statue of Liberty.

The Paddys were quite unloved and were depicted as belligerent drunks, thieves and un-American Papists waiting for word from the Pope to take over the country. 

They were arrested so often the police vans were called paddy wagons.  They were referred to as “Blacks turned inside out”. Newspaper illustrations usually pictured the Irish as little monkeys or big apes.

An interesting book that explains all of this is called How the Irish became white by Noel Ignatiev.

Ironically, this derogatory ethnic stereotyping is kept alive today in the mascot for America’s most prestigious Irish Catholic University-- Notre Dame’s Fighting Irish symbol.

In New York, the micks settled in a sprawling neighborhood called Little Ireland. You know that neighborhood today as Chinatown, Little Italy and Nolita.  There is very little left of Little Ireland other than a Chinese Restaurant on Pell Street still calledPell’s Dinty and a street called Kenmare named after a town in County Kerry (which, Don’t ya know once won the coveted title of Tidiest Town in Ireland.)

Another McRelic is the original St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Nolita now called Old St. Patrick’s Church ( 264 Mulberry Street.) It was the church the community defended in the movie  “Gangs of New York.” The scene depicted in the film was an actual historic event.

We can thank Oliver Cromwell for another historic event that was later played out on the streets of New York. In 1649 Cromwell invaded Ireland, performed a few sizeable massacres confiscated 40% of the land and gave it as back pay to his Protestant soldiers. And thus began “The Troubles.” Northern Ireland became home to the Protestant Orange Order, which marched (and still marches) through Belfast's Catholic neighborhoods every July 12th.  It was a reminder that in 1690 William of Orange defeated the Catholic King James.  It’d be kinda like if Boston Red Sox Fans marched through the Bronx each October chanting: Choke! Choke! Choke!

In the 1820’s Ulster immigrants brought the Orange Order to America and in an act sure to provoke violence, they marched through New York’s Catholic neighborhood chanting “Croppies Lie Down”.  This was the historical antecedent to the present day Neo-Nazis marching through Jewish neighborhoods under police protection.

The worst of these riots occurred in 1871 at 24^th Street and Eighth Ave. At that street corner soldiers guarding a small group of parading Orangemen fired volleys point blank into crowds of jeering Irish Catholics. Over 60 Irish-Catholics were killed.

(See illustration)

In addition, Anti-Catholic mobs like the Bowery Boys, (separate from the Orange Order) would march through Irish neighborhoods on St. Patrick’s Day carrying “Paddies” effigies of the Irish Patron Saint dressed in rags holding a whiskey bottle, wearing a string of potatoes or a necklace of codfish, mocking the Catholic custom of fasting.  

And thus the Irish became the Fighting Irish. They began to organize in self-defense. In 1836 they formed the Ancient Order of Hibernians.  (Hibernia is the Latin name for Ireland). The AOH would eventually field 3 thousand armed men in uniform.

ST. PATRICK”S CELEBRATION 

The first St. Patrick’s Day celebration in America was held in Boston in 1737. It seems to have been a small fund-raising dinner dance. But the Micks up in Boston love to mention it to the Paddys in New York.

THE PARADE

The world’s first St. Patrick’s day parade was held in New York City in 1761, when a contingent of Irish soldiers in the British Army paraded up Broadway. The parade continued to be held under the auspices of military organizations until 1812.

By 1853 the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH) began to play a dominant role in the parade.  Now that they had a paramilitary organization, they needed a parade to strut their stuff. So the parade became kind of like the old May Day Parades in Moscow, a way to flaunt the size of the Irish martial might, an annual “Look how many men we have --don’t mess with us” reminder to the Protestant majority. It was no coincidence that the parade was held on Fifth Avenue not only the site of the new cathedral, but also the home of the ruling class. The parade soon became an opportunity for politicians to court the “Green Machine” the oh-so-important immigrant vote.

To this day the AOH still runs NY’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
The AOH remembers well the blood spilled on the sidewalks of New York, which is why there’s a distinct martial air to its parade. As opposed to -- say in Chicago -- where the parade is led by leprechauns on rollerblades followed by costumed characters dressed as the Honey Baked Bears, Monster Trucks from Rock Stations, double-decker buses with ads for Irish bars and lovely lassies handing out samples of Irish Spring soap. In New York a military regiment, NY's own Fighting 69th, always "steps off" to lead the parade.

The 255th St. Paddy's Day Parade will be held today on Fifth Avenue.  It begins at 11:00 am, and goes along from 44th uptown and then to over Third Ave, where there happen to be a few bars. There will be a live telecast of the 11:00am on NBC.

Aside from the parade, New York City also may have added one other important ingredient to the holiday.  If you asked for corned beef and cabbage in Ireland most folks will scratch their noggins.  The Irish ate and still eat something called Bacon and Cabbage, corned pork that looks and tastes very much like the corned beef you have at Katz’s deli.  I’ve read that Irish New Yorkers were introduced to corned beef by their Jewish neighbors on the Lower East Side. I’m not absolutely sure of this but it seems plausible. Or it could just be blarney with a slathering of schmaltz.

The songwriters of NY’s Tin Pan Alley ( 28^th Street between Broadway and 6^th Ave)also added some o’tunes to the party, writing such ditties as: When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral, Mother Machree and Little Bit of Heaven, Sure they call it Ireland. These sentimental songs were played in the Music Halls of the Bowery to entertain homesick Irish immigrants.

Another American addition to the Irish story is the happy go lucky leprechaun.

The Irish "lobaircin” were tiny little pissed off men whose job it was to mend the smelly shoes of all the other fairies. Walt Disney’s 1959 film DarbyO'Gill & the Little People, pictured them as a happy little loveable green smurfs. And this view of them has become dominant ever since.

America officially won the culture war in 1995 when the Irish Government began a national campaign to use St. Patrick's Day as an opportunity to generate tourism; they happily opened the alcohol floodgates and promoted a St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Dublin. You can watch the Dublin parade live at 12:30 pm GMT, go to:www.tourismireland.com/stpatricksday

So in the end the 34.3 million Americans who claim Irish descent wound up influencing the O.G.’s (Original Greensters) --the 3.9 million Paddys they’d descended from.

To sum up:  we’ve taken some pagan traditions --shamrocks, sun worship and fairies and added them to Ireland’s most important Saint’s feast day -- then turned that into a celebration of Green Beer, Mc Donald’s Shamrock Shakes, a good deal of Sure and Begorra, some Lucky Leprechauns and quite a few inebriated teenagers wearing Kiss me I’m Irish buttons.

An estimated 93.3 million Americans say they plan to wear green today. Me--- I think I’ll just stay home in bed. 

And if you don’t like it you can, as they so sweetly say in Gaelic: 

Pòg mo thòin (pronounced Pug Ma hone) Translation: Kiss me keester.

Donal O’Siodhachain
(Daniel Sheehan)

Twas the night before Saturnalia..the twisted history of Christmas

In the Netherlands Sinterklaas arrives with his helper Zwarte Piet (Black Peter) who stuffs bad boys and girls in a sack and brings them back to Spain. Americans think Santa Claus was a Dutch tradition, but the Netherlands were once part of Spain and Dutch Children await his arrival  each year by ship from Spain, not the North Pole. Zwarte Piet probably derives from a black raven that helped the the God Odin.

The Ghosts of Christmas Past.

Most Christians assume that Christmas traditions go back as far as… well, Christ’s birth. In fact, most were invented during the early 1800’s, many right here in New York. Surprisingly, other Christmas traditions actually predate Christ. I know what you’re thinking: “Dude lay off the eggnog.”

Bear with me.


Have you noticed that it has been getting darker earlier in the day?
Well, ancient cultures in the Northern Hemisphere used to notice it too. They would mark down the days, as they got shorter. The shortest day of the year was called the solstice, meaning “standing still sun”.


The original date of the solstice was December 25th. As the calendar shifted so did the date, this year it falls on Dec. 21st, the official start of winter.


On December 25th in the northern hemisphere, across the globe, folks would gather at night waiting expectantly to see if the sun would come back.  Since the sun was considered to be a god, the thinking was the god was sick and dying and might not come back if you didn’t pray for him.


In Egypt, they venerated Ra the Sun god by decorating homes with green palm fronds to symbolize the triumph of life over death. The Romans venerated Saturn by decorating their temples with evergreen boughs. And so you see, decking the halls actually predates Christmas.


The Chinese considered the Winter Solstice the fulcrum upon which the earth balanced; it was tied into the concept of Yin and Yang.

In Northern Europe evergreens were thought be have magical powers because they could survive the harsh winters and thus were a major part of Pagan worship.

Circular wreaths of evergreens were made to remind folks of the cyclical nature of the season. Winter was coming but if you waited long enough for the dial to turn spring would soon be here.

  If this nature/evergreen stuff interests you check out the legend of the Green Man.
www.mikeharding.co.uk/greenman/green1.html

You'll find the Green Man alive living on the facades of buildings all over New York.

You'll also find him alive in images of Santa with Holly and green leaves in his hair.

The Norse myths spoke of Balder a sun god and the son of Frigg (Friday is named for her, it was originally “Frigga’s day”) Similar to the Greek Achilles myth, Balder’s Mom went to earth and got all manner of animal and mineral to agree not to hurt her son. Rocks and metal agreed they wouldn’t form arrows and kill him. But the evil Loki/Loke found out that she hadn’t asked the lowly mistletoe not to hurt Balder.  And so Loki fashioned an arrow made from pointy mistletoe and tricked the blind god of winter to shoot the arrow in the air hitting Balder, mortally wounding the sun. The Winter Solstice party was a bedside vigil to see if he would live another summer.


The Scandinavian custom was to build huge bonfires of logs. It was thought the light of the fire would help reignite the Sun. The festival was called Jule pronounced “Yule” which is how those logs got their names. The logs stayed lit for 12 days (as in the 12 days of Christmas)


The Greeks called their Winter Solstice “Lenaea” the Festival of the Wild Women. The festival, as the name implies, consisted of drinking and Toga flashing. 

 Lenaea-

The original Greek Girls Sorority gone wild.

SATURNALIA

Long before Christ’s birth, the Romans,had a post-harvest festival in December called Saturnalia in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture, fertility and four-cylinder cars.


It was at this harvest festival that society was turned on its ear. The social order would be inverted. The upper classes would kiss the asses of the lower ones. Masters would serve their slaves. This Carnival was meant to be a safety valve to allow the lower classes to blow off some steam. There was a good deal of carnal fun going on (The root word for carnal and carnival means flesh or meat). Public nudity was condoned. Since Saturn was the god of fertility -- wife swapping, and servant girl swapping was a popular feature. Society officially let down its hair and condoned lots of public drinking and philandering. It was all kind of like a Girls Gone Wild Video minus Snoop Dawg.


(If you’re interested in the salacious stuff read a book called ‘The Battle for Christmas.” Published by Knopf)

When the Christians got sick of being lion-feed in the Coliseum they took over Rome. And as we’ve discussed in other posts, the Church attempted to smother pagan celebrations by imposing Christian feast days upon them. So in an attempt to redirect some of that wild libido they decreed that on December 25th there would be a mass to celebrate Christ’s birth. The olde English for mass of Christ “Cristes Maesse” would become --Christmas.


And even though Christ’s birthday was probably in spring (shepherds in the Holy Land would only have been tending their sheep in spring, not winter) they set it in the middle of this bacchanalian feast. They intentionally chose the exact same feast day that Pagans venerated their powerful god Mithra, December 25th.  Which was also the birthday of another powerful pagan God called Horus, the son of Isis and Osiris.


For the record, the idea that Dec. 25th is Jesus’ birthday was conceived by one Pope Sextus Julius Africanus in 221 AD. The earliest reference to the celebration of Christmas is in a manuscript from 354 AD.


So did Christmas eradicate the pagan customs?


Kinda, maybe.  A little.


The Church continued to try to overlay Christian themes upon the season. Pagan Germans venerated evergreens. It is said that in the 7th Century a monk in a St. Patrick like trick used the visual of a fir tree to describe the Holy Trinity. By the 12th century Germans were hanging them upside down from their ceilings to symbolize Christianity. Christmas trees only became popular outside of Germany when the German Prince Albert married the English Queen Victoria and brought his tree to the English Court in 1846. In the U.S. Christmas trees began to become common after the Civil War. The first American patent for a Christmas tree stand was granted in 1876.

It was taught that pagan holly was symbolic of Christ. The sharp edges symbolized Christ’s crown of thorns and the red berries his blood.


None of this boosted the Christmas story.


Through the Middle Ages Christmas was a lesser feast day overshadowed by Easter and the Feast of the Epiphany, which celebrates the baptism of Jesus and the visit of the Magi –We Three Kings and all that.  I’ll explain the Epiphany in a post in a few weeks. But the celebration of the Epiphany underscored two holiday themes. One was the concept of adults (Kings) giving gifts to children (infant Jesus.) The other was it reflected the idea of inverted social order “kings” bearing gifts for a poor child in a manger.


In fact, through the years children looked forward to New Year’s Day, the Epiphany, or the Feast of St. Nicholas because those were the days they were given treats or gifts. On Epiphany Eve children would leave hay out for the 3 Wise Men’s camels.  Eventually this would become leaving carrots out for Santa’s Reindeer.

In Italy, the tale was of a witch called LaBefana who was asked by the 3 Wise Dudes to accompany them. She declined. Then changed her mind, hopped on her broomstick to look for them. To no avail. So on Jan 6th  (The Epiphany) LaBefana (name derived from epiphany) flew down every chimney in the world and left a present for every child in the world hoping one would be the Christ Child. Which is why children in Italy waited for the Epiphany, not Santa.


The point is Christmas wasn’t all that important.


And the randy Bacchanalian stuff?

Well traditions die hard.  Some were merely bent a bit. In the Middle Ages, the custom of inverting the class structure transformed into a custom where gangs of low class folks would go door to door at Christmas demanding food, drink and coin. They would “Wassail” similar to assail the homes of the well-to-do threatening to burn down the house if they didn’t get grog. (We now call this caroling and the carolers now demand hot cocoa). Mumming was a big ritual. Men would dress as women and vice-versa and they’d traipse drunkenly through the village.  The Mummers parade in Philadelphia on New Year’s Day is one last legacy of this. Still to this very day blue-collar plumbers and steamfitters dress up like Vegas showgirls in feathered costumes and parade through the streets of Philly. The parade was nationally televised until the 1960’s when the networks pulled the plug over concerns that there were racist overtones to the parade.

Philadelphia Mummers marching on New Year's Day

All this naughty behavior became to be known as “Misrule.” The Season of Misrule began on Dec.6th and ended on New Year’s Day.


Why the communal kookiness?  

In agrarian economies the work was all done by the end of fall. There were stores of grain, the beer was brewed. The traditional butchering time on the farm was done the first week of December (St. Nicholas Feast Day) since there was no refrigeration you had to wait until the temperature dropped so the meat wouldn’t spoil as you salted it for the winter.  December would be your last taste of fresh meat for a while. There was no work to do, there was food and drink a plenty, so let’s party. This was true from 1500’s through the early 1800’s


The ruling classes knew not to mess with the working class Dec- New Year’s Mardi Gras of drinking and booby flashing.


In the middle of all this the Protestant Reformation occurred in 1517.

After the Reformation there was great debate amongst Protestants about what to do about Christmas.  The pagan aspects of Saturnalia were still pretty close to the surface.  For a while when the Puritans took over England they criminalized Christmas. In puritanical colonies like Massachusetts, you were legally prohibited from taking off on Christmas day. It was assumed you were up to no good. Even here in the U.S. Christmas Day wasn't generally a holiday.  Christmas wasn't officially declared a Federal holiday until 1870, signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant. 

The German celebration of Christmas would be the most familiar to a modern day celebrant. They gave gifts to children and it was in fact, Martin Luther who brought the tree into the Christmas story. The Germans would tie their presents to the tree, little dolls for girls and horns and drums for boys.  It’s the reason why many folks nowadays put little drums and horn ornaments on their tree, not realizing they’re continuing this old practice. The Germans were also big on Biblical pageants during the holidays. A favorite was the story Adam and Eve. Apple trees were bare in winter so an evergreen with red apples tied to the branches would be substituted. And still today some folks decorate their trees with red apples, not knowing why


The Protestants also had another problem.  Many Protestant denominations rejected the Saints of the Catholic Church. One of those saints –St. Nicholas had become widely, wildly popular. His feast day of Dec 6th was celebrated by the giving of small gifts or candy to children.


Who was St. Nicholas?
There may never, in fact, have ever been a Saint Nicholas. Tradition holds that St. Nicholas was a Greek bishop stationed in Myrna, Turkey who performed assorted good deeds. I’ve never read it but my guess is he was a member of the Greek Orthodox Catholic church.

St. Nicholas is the patron saint of Greece, Rome and the City of New York. Ole Nick is supposed to have died in 321 AD. The citizens of Bari, Italy sent a delegation to Turkey to dig up his bones and placed them in a basilica in their town.


His feast day is on December 6th.


In the 1960’s the Roman Catholic Church started investigating Nick trying to separate fact from fiction. Eventually at a religious conference called Vatican II, St. Nicholas was demoted and dropped from the Roman Catholic Liturgical calendar. In other words, his feast day need not be celebrated.


One of the reasons the RC church was worried about ole Nick is that there is a strong feeling that his legend evolved from various Gods of the Sea and other ancient evil pagan characters. It is thought his legend may have been one part Pan – the mischievous nature spirit and one part Eros the randy man. Pan had a goatee beard and the hindquarters and sexual habits of a goat. The sight of Pan could sow fear into people, which is where we get the word “panic.” He was also pictured as a god of the sea.

Pan 
You’ll notice that in some older images of Santa he is holding a branch in his hand. The older evil gnome character used to whip children if they were bad. This stuff gets way too involved and depresses people to no end. So, if you are interested in learning more about the horny-toad version of Santa read a book called “Santa was a Shaman” by Tony Van Renterghem it will make your head spin.

In olden times the Germans had a strange version of St. Nick. He was called Pelznickel (pelz as in pelts—furry Nick). He wore furs and tattered clothes and carried a sack and chains. Pelznick would break into a home, rattle his chains and threaten to kidnap children if they weren’t good. Sometimes forcing them to recite poems and answer questions before he left them treats. Kind of like a reverse trick or treat on kids. Explains a lot about the Germans. When German immigrants got to the U.S. his name was corrupted into Belznickel.

The nice legends of Bishop Nicholas are numerous. In one he learns that some young women lack a dowry to get married and he tosses three bags of gold into their open window. Thus he became the patron saint of brides. His coin tossing also made him the patron saint of moneylenders.

The 3 gold balls in front of a pawnshop were originally St. Nick’s 3 bags of gold.

In another, Saint Nicholas was onboard a ship during a storm. He caused the storm to subside (think Sea God) and was thus was also considered the patron saint of sailors. And that’s how ole St. Nick immigrated to America.

The Dutch were big sailors. In the 1600’s they brought the patron saint of sailors with them to New Amsterdam (New York.) The Dutch called Saint Nicholas “SinterKlaas” and a bastardized, anglicized pronunciation of that became: Santa Claus.


Okay so if you’re a concerned Protestant parent who has been told that you’re supposed to reject Catholic Saints, how do you replace beloved Saint Nick?


It was at that point that many of the Protestant countries went ransacking through their cultural attic and pulled out an old pagan custom. They reinvented their old god of winter. A large portly man in a green fur lined coat and turned him into a non-Catholic Saint version of Santa. The ancient figure who went by the names: Father Winter, King Winter, King Frost, Jack Frost, was now called Father Christmas. In Dicken's Christmas Carol, it was Father Christmas who visits Scrooge, not Santa. Notice he carries a wreath with him and has holly in his hair. He is a holdover of the Pagan Green Man.

Father Christmas

The Germans tried to pull Christ back into the story by inventing  Krist-Kindl, or the Christ-Child. Instead of St. Nick giving gifts to kiddies the Krist-Kindl would do it. In German villages a cherubic child would ride a mule into town and deliver gifts. The mule couldn’t fly, didn’t have a red nose or nuthin, so he couldn’t compete with Santa. Eventually all that was left of him was that he became a nickname for Nick –Kris Kringle.

Okay, so if we can’t have St. Nick we can have Father Christmas.
But Christmas still looks like a Fergilicious video. What to do? What to do?


In the 1800’s Victorian Society had had enough. It decided to wrest control of Christmas away from the lower classes and re-direct the holiday to a more family focused event. One reason it was able to do that is because of the Industrial Revolution had begun. People were moving off the farms and starting to work in factories. They didn’t have as much dangerous leisure time.


The major cultural forces for the Upper Classes taking control of Christmas came out of New York and London. The London part probably makes sense to you --  Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol. Scrooge and all that.


But why New York?  Because hordes of low class immigrants, mostly Irish Catholics, were beginning to settle on the island. And it was scaring the bejazzus out of the old Knickerbockers and Yankees who were becoming minorities in their own town.  This was touched upon in the movie “Gangs of New York”


So 3 WASP New Yorkers got together and decided to reinvent Christmas. They were, Clement Clarke Moore, Washington Irving and Irving’s brother-in-law John Pintard.


These were the people who invented Santa Claus, as you know him.
Pintard was one of the founders of the New-York Historical Society, which chose St. Nicholas as their patron saint and made him the official Patron Saint of New York. At a Society dinner in 1810 Pintard whipped out illustrations showing Nicholas, two children, and stockings hung from a fireplace. The bedrock upon which the story would be built.

Pitard's St. Nick.

Moore, of course, is credited with the poem “A visit from St. Nicholas.” commonly known as “Twas the Night before Christmas.”

But two years before the poem Pintard described to him a scene at his Wall Street home on New Year’s Eve.  He heard a racket outside his door. And in effect…From outside heard such a clatter rose from his bed to see what was the matter. What he spied outside was a group of drunken rowdy men banging pans, kettles and playing tin horns. Groups like this were a common sight and were called Callithumpian bands. Probably from the Greek Muse Calliope, the Goddess of Eloquence, this in an ironic sense. The callithumpians were out for some holiday misrule. ( The French word for Callithumpian bands was “charivari.”) Misrule and mob violence was pretty normal this time of year.  In 1828, after one particularly violent Christmas riot the city decided to form the New York Police Department.


Pintard’s brother-in-law, Washington Irving, wrote extensively about Dutch New York and the Hudson River valley, inventing Rip Van Winkle and Ichabod Crane. In the 1800’s, he wrote a hit book called “Diedrick Knickerbocker’s History of New-York.” It was the faked diary of old Dutchman. It became so popular that a “knickerbocker” became a nickname for a native New Yorker. And that’s why NY’s basketball team is called the Knickerbockers –the Knicks.


In his book, Irving explained that it was Santa Claus who told the Dutch to settle here on Manhattan Island. Since he mistakenly thought Santa was Dutch, Irving invented some supposed Dutch Christmas "traditions" making up the idea that this Saint could disappear by touching the side of his nose.  He also fabricated from whole cloth a picture of how the traditional Dutch Christmas celebrations centered around family with peace and love between the classes used to be celebrated in New Amsterdam. It wasn’t true but he had invented “tradition.” And then he and his friends went around lamenting how as New York was growing larger “the old ways are being lost.”


Charles Dickens wrote to Irving telling him that he was greatly influenced by his Christmas interpretation. He also said that his Jacob Marley character was inspired by shackled prisoners he saw here in NY at the infamous Tombs prison downtown near Foley Square. (You can see an original copy of “A Christmas Carol” on display at the Morgan Library on Madison Avenue.)


Washington Irving’s co-conspirator, Clement Clarke Moore, owned the Chelsea Section of New York and was therefore decidedly not of the lower classes. Moore is generally given credit for writing the poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas."  Some claim a relative of his in the Livingston family was the actual author. Here’s a site that explains the debate: www.education-world.com/a_lesson/02/lp290-04.shtml

Moore’s Santa --
Skinny and wearing plebian garb and a stub of a pipe. 
The upper classes smoked long pipes.

One interesting thing in the poem is -- since Moore thought Santa was Dutch he gave some of his reindeer Dutch names. Their original names were Donder and Blixem –thunder and lightning. Over the years that has become corrupted into Donner and Blitzen.


The poem borrowed a bunch of cross-cultural myths and inserted them into the St. Nick story. The Teutonic God Thor used to fly across the sky in a sleigh pulled by goats. The poem turned them into miniature reindeer. (If you listen closely to the poem you’ll realize Santa was a dwarf – a right jolly old elf) Moore also borrowed the LaBefana Witch Epiphany story from Italy. And thus Santa is now coming down chimneys. One reason why Santa was tiny may have been so that he could get down those chimneys.


The most important thing this poem did was to move Santa's wanderings from his usual trekking on his feast day Dec 6th, to the night before Christmas --Christmas Eve. Linking the fat man with the Christ child. An original draft of the poem is on display at the New-York Historical Society (that’s not a typo New York used to be called New-York.) Each year on the Sunday before Christmas the poem is read uptown at the Church of the Intercession, afterwards there’s a procession to the grave of Moore in the Trinity Cemetery at 155th Street.


One other thing to help you understand the mindset of Moore as he wrote the poem was the fact the City had just laid out it’s street grid and plotted Ninth Avenue to go right through the middle of his estate. The City claimed the land for 9th Avenue using the right of eminent domain. Moore really wished things could go back to the way they were before and really wanted all those low class people going past his home to learn how to behave.


The poem helped to make Christmas the child-centered holiday it is today. It also deftly took the Saturnalia concept of inverted class structure and shifted it to family. The adults would now serve the children.


It worked like gangbusters.
But of course, from our vantage point 180 years later it’s easy to see the irony that Santa was moved to Christmas Eve in an attempt to counteract the Pagan influences upon Christmas. The outcome being that the fat man has edged out the Christ Child in the Christmas story.


If you need further proof that Christmas was “invented” in the 1800’s here’s a little test. Try to find a Christmas visual before the Victorian era. You’ll only find Christ in the Manger visuals, because Christmas as you know it didn’t really “exist” until the 1800’s.  Further proof is to look at the dates when our “ancient” traditional songs were written:

Silent Night 1818
O come All Ye Faithful 1841
Joy to the World 1848
Hark the Herald Angels Sing 1856.




The New York influence: 
As I mentioned, New York has had an outsized influence on the modern celebration of Christmas. One reason was that in the 1800’s it was becoming a major force in popular culture.

Nast's Santa

During the American Civil War A NY illustrator, Thomas Nast, gave Santa his face, even had this Greek Bishop hold a long Dutch clay pipe because he read in the Irving stories that he was Dutch.  Nast chubbed Santa up. He was no longer a scrawny little elf, no longer lower class.

Nast was the person who put Santa’s home in the North Pole. Most European legends held that Santa was from Lapland. A NY financier, Morris Jessup, was paying for an American expedition to be the first to reach the North Pole. It was a big story in the paper that Nast worked for. Nast imagined that they would find Santa there.

Nast’s Northpole Santa

Actual genuine Dutch tradition held that Sinter Klaas came from Spain. He was also accompanied by a helper, Black Peter, Zwairte Piet who would punish bad children.


The New York Sun wrote the editorial “Yes Virginia there is a Santa Claus”. It stood where Pace University stands today across from City Hall.

Go read the editorial, it’s pure pleasure:

beebo.org/smackerels/yes-virginia.html

Clement Clarke Moore’s home was at 21st street and 9th Ave. The place where the world’s first Christmas Eve Santa sighting took place.


O'Henry wrote the classic story of Christmas sacrifice " The Gift of the Magi" in Pete's Tavern on of all streets Irving Place.

Currier & Ives had their shop at 115 Nassau Street in the Financial District and sold millions of lithos of sleighing and skating scenes in Central Park.

The world premier of Handel’s Messiah was held at the City Hotel across the street from New York’s City Hall.


The first American Christmas cards were printed in 1851 by a New York engraver, Richard Pease.


New Yorker Joshua Lionel Cowen invented Lionel trains. And helped make New York the center of the American Toy industry.


Norman Rockwell worked and published all his Christmas favorites at the Saturday Evening Post on Madison Avenue.


In the mid 1800’s a New York man started a shipping company by placing an ad in NY papers that said every Saturday he took his wagon up to Boston. Contact him and he’d take your parcel.  His express shipping business was engulfed with Christmas parcels. He encouraged people to ship them before December and invented a tag to place on them that read: DO NOT OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS. The firm is still in business a few blocks from where it started. It is now called the American Express Company.


Irving Berlin, a Jewish New Yorker wrote "White Christmas" right here in the city Jesse Jackson called “Hymietown.”


The world’s first Christmas ads appeared in the NY Post.


And as we all know when Santa isn't working at the North Pole he's temping over on 34th Street at Macy's.

In 1874 when Macy’s only store was still at 6^th Ave and 14^thstreet, they set up a tableau in their windows of hundreds of dolls illuminated by gaslight. The crowds were so huge that they lined the steps of the old 6^th Avenue Elevated train causing delays.  By 1883 Macy’s had introduced steam powered moving mechanical figures. A new tradition had begun --decorated Christmas window spectaculars.


The New York celebration of Christmas became all the rage across America. Other cities added things —Boston had the first Department store Santa. A Chicago department store invented Rudolph the Red nosed reindeer as a poem on their shopping bags. Santa had been Americanized and commercialized.

And eventually like all American things The New York Christmas became a cultural tsunami that has rolled across the world. Today you’ll find the New York Santa in Tokyo department stores and standing in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

So to come full circle, in the end did Christmas really shuck off its pagan undertones?


Well…


The Christmas tree is pagan.
The Christmas wreath is pagan.
The Holly and evergreens are pagan.
The Yule log is pagan
The Mistletoe is pagan

(And is perfect for the hidden sexual side of Saturnalia.)




Santa, Father Christmas and Pere Noel come from Pagan tradition.


The carolers are still wassailing.


The mummers are still parading.


The callithumpian bands still come out with their noisemakers each year in Times Square.


Saturnalia’s inversion of the class structure and kowtowing to the lower classes still exists in the concept that at Christmas you have to give a gift to anyone who is lower than you on the social ladder: the doorman, the mailman etc. Similarly, bosses give bonuses to their slaves, err workers. Officers in the Royal Navy still have to serve common sailors on Christmas Day.  The Brits still celebrate Boxing Day on Dec. 26th a day to give gifts to those below you. (Workers used to walk around with a little “Christmas box” where you would place your tip, thus “Boxing Day.”)


The excessive drinking, carousing and sexual side of Saturnalia remains alive in the office Holiday party and New Year’s Eve bashes.


So as you can see, over the years Christmas has changed and it hasn’t.


In 2000 years we’ve turned a late December agrarian orgy into a holiday that has the twin billing of the Christ Child born in a manger and a fat old Greek bishop in red religious robes, smoking a Dutch clay pipe, with flying reindeer doing his global breaking and entering routine.


Man my head hurts.


Merry Christmas.


Happy Saturnalia. And a wicked Wild Women Day to all.


Dano 
Lord of Misrule