As I read Olive branch offer aside, priestess should realize Christmas isn’t a ‘vanilla’ holiday I can do little more than wish I would have caught this earlier.

The battle over the holidays is silly Our house celebrates Yule and Christmas. Yule for the spirit and presents, Christmas for the presents ;o). However, I am one of those poor shmucks who understands the difference between what was/is Christmas/Yule and what Christians would like to think it is.

I won't add fuel to the fire except maybe to say that any somewhat and seemingly intelligent Christian would be hard pressed by the facts to believe that their saviour was born at Christmas... and to those other half that think we are just trying to lump Christmas into some simple winter solstice celebration: WRONG! For Wiccans, the Winter Solstice reminds us that the ultimate result of death is rebirth, and that in all things, the darkness gives way to a new light. Yule is full of deep and profund meaning for us spiritually and religiously.

I don't care if a Christian believes Christmas is "their" holiday or not. But as for some food for thought:

The winter solstice is the time when the sun is lowest to the equator, where it resides for three days and then begins to rise into the sky again... sound familar?

Hah! Okay, I will leave that alone. My point is, Wiccan holidays are a synthesis and adoption of holy days common to many and varied pagan religions and traditions. They are not "ours" to begin with, but we choose to observe and adopt them because of their spiritual signifigance and symbolic value. So, whether I am observing some ancient pre-christian holy day or stealing the Christian's is of no relevance or consequence to me... and neither is their acceptance or reconginition of its origin.

What is most important to me is that these holy days are times for myself and other Wiccans to remember to look within, remember the spirit of our Path, and be moved by the soul of the season. To be changed year after year in comfortably predictable ways which lead to a depper connection with spirit and the divine. That is what value these days have, and it does not matter their name, or who claims to "own" the holiday.

And by the way, what the snot is a "cultural Christian"?

Okay, I really don't want to know.





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