Christmas - What's in a Name?
I love good literature, and for that reason, I am on several discussion boards to discuss writers like C.S. Lewis and J.R.R.Tolkien . I was somewhat bemused that when people began to post their holiday greeting between December 21 and 25, 2007, the posts all had titles like: Happy Yule to All! Happy Holidays! Happy Hogswatch Night Happy Solstice In fact, I was the only person on two such lists to wish my fellow Tolkien and Lewis enthusiasts a Merry Christmas! The yule was a Germanic festival featuring a sacrificial feast some time in late December to early January on a date determined by the Germanic lunar calendar. The winter solstice is an actual astronomical event which occurs between December 20 and December 23 each year in the northern hemisphere. Hogswatch is a fictional holiday occuring on Dec, 31 and Dec. 32. None of them has anything to do with the celebration on December 25 which is known as Christmas unless the yule actually falls on December 25 by coincidence some year. The...