Christmas (Part 2) – Co-opting the symbols

Once more unto the personal stuff. I live in England, this means that what I see everyday is the flora and fauna of Northern Europe. The stars that I see are oriented based on the latitude that I live in too. So, whether it's looking down, across or upwards whatever I see is based heavily on where I live, and whatever I see is going to be a heavy influence on what I believe.

As the seasons turn the flora change. Every Autumn the deciduous trees shed their leaves and the ground is covered with browns and golds as nature appears to go into shutdown. Nights become longer, days shorter, colder and wetter. In the midsts of these changes some flora do not change – ivy, holly, mistletoe continue to grow, the latter even on a tree that otherwise appears to be devoid of life. Whereas most plants fruit from Spring onwards the holly tree bears fruit in Winter, and eating very, very small amounts of those berries can induce hallucinations and heighten awareness (I bet you lot didn't know that), although taken too excess will result in poisoning and maybe death. Mistletoe is often thought of in conjunction with holly, and is asserted to be an antidote to poisoning as well as a cure for barreness in animals (which obviously explains the whole kissing thing excuse).

Tree worship more generally has a long history, again dating back to pre-Christian times in many countries and there are tales of Christian missionaries taking steps to eradicate it using force (or just an axe). During the leafing months the strongest and oldest tree is the Oak, but during Winter that mantle passes to the Pine or Fir tree as the tallest evergreen. In most cases the tree is not on it's own on a windy hill but in a sacred grove (if one did not naturally exist then there was nothing wrong with some judicious woodsmanship to create one).

The point that I'm trying to get to is what is the history of the symbols that we associate with the season ?

I think that a case can be made that people used whatever was around them and picked on whatever was odd amongst the noise of the mundane. People in England, generally speaking, do not worship grass, or brambles, or nettles, or dandelions, or privet for that matter (Monty Python and the Knights who say “Ni !” notwithstanding).

Christians, in seeking to obliterate any existing faith path were not above using force, or appropriating festivals, symbols and stories and overlaying them, sometimes with the most amazing use of spin, to turn those things into reinforcements of the Christian worldview.

If an oak was sacred to Thor then chop the thing down (thanks St Boniface). Otherwise co-opt whatever it was and invent an appropriate back story. As an aside I was in Paris in June and climbed the Eiffel Tower (well it was rude not to) and on the way down from the Second Level to the First I passed a family from the USA where the mother or auntie was speaking to a younger girl, about 14, who was clearly impressed by the structure and was being instructed

“This should remind you of your baptism ceremony, that was awesome too.”

I thought “It's a fucking marvel of human engineering not an excuse for brain-washing.”

Nonetheless it was being co-opted to reinforce the faith.

Anyway, my point is that many of the things that we associate with Christmas have actually got nothing to do with Christianity, they are the renamed refugees from earlier beliefs.