The word "Christmas" developed from a religious service known as the Mass of Christ (Christ's Mass, after centuries, shortened to Christmas). To be clear, a Mass is the celebration of the Eucharist, the celebration of Holy Communion. "Communion," among those who easily warm to an argument about religion, is a subject brimming over with opportunity for Christians to become distinctly un-Christian. In fact, the early 1500's saw Christians in Europe kill each other by the thousands over what does or does not take place at "Communion." Those were the "good old bad days" when our Christian forefathers did not stand around and wait for the "Sword of Islam" to maim and kill them. No sir! Our forefathers took a backseat to no one, including Muslim savages, when it came to slaughtering each other in the name of religion.

Unawares, [I'm telling you now boys you might want to get your used ninety-seven cent dictionaries out for this piece, and be men enough to ask your wives for their help] I'm now feeling, and resisting, the urge to wonder way off the subject, which is supposed to be "Christmas." One fights to stay on the subject, and struggles to banish the persistent unhealthy vision of ACLU lawyers, as one imagines their terrible fate in being central to the song, "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire."

Christian customs, including the way we celebrate Christmas, often developed from times long before ["antedated" would have been a good word to use here, but better not] the birth of Jesus Christ. That is, heathen and barbaric pre-Christian tribes had seasonal, pagan, "religious" practices, with legends and traditions connected to this time of year. Those primitive savages, the nearly bestial forefathers of most of us with roots in Europe, already had pagan feasts centering around of the winter solstice (the longest, darkest day, when the sun is farthest from the equator). The primitive world was still awaiting the birthday of Jesus Christ, the most significant event in the history of the world. It was an event that would give the entire world a new date, "anno Domini," or "in the year of our Lord." All Modern Western calendars calculate passage of time from the birth of Christ.

However, in the beginning, many of the earth's inhabitants were sun worshipers, because they had connected the pain and pleasure and duration of their lives to the sun's yearly round in the heavens, and they held feasts to aid (with their simple, but still common today, use of "cause and effect" thinking) the sun's life giving return from distant wanderings. In the south of Europe, in Egypt and Persia, the sun-gods were worshiped with elaborate ceremonies in the season of the winter solstice, as a fitting time to pay tribute to the benevolent god of plenty. In northern European lands mid-December was a critical time, for the days became shorter and shorter and the sun was weak and far away, so these nearly prehistoric peoples held feasts at identically the period those future Christians would observe Christmas. They built great bonfires in order to give the winter sun-god strength, and to bring him back to life again. When it became apparent that the days were growing longer and somewhat brighter, there was great rejoicing because of the promise of longer and warmer days to follow. Thus, the central idea of the winter solstice, the return of light, became the Hope of the World with the birth of Christ, the Light of the World.

The transition from paganism to Christianity was gradual, but became apparent after the fall of Rome, A.D. 476, when the church was the one organization which had the strength and wisdom to withstand the disorganized centuries of the dark ages. After the fall of Rome, awesome progress was made by the Christian leaders in extending the new faith, Christianity.

When missionaries were sent from Rome to the outlying provinces, A.D. 601, their instructions from Pope Gregory I made clear the policy of the church: "Let the 'shrines' of the idols by no means be destroyed but let the 'idols' which are in them in be destroyed. Let water be consecrated and sprinkled in these temples; and let alters be erected . . . so that the people, not seeing their temples destroyed, may displace error, and recognize and adore the true God . . . And because they were wont to sacrifice oxen to devils, some celebration should be given in exchange for this . . . they should celebrate a religious feast and worship God by their feasting, so that still keeping outward pleasures, they may more readily receive spiritual joys." Gregory was among the greatest Christian evangelists.

For several centuries Christmas was solely a church anniversary observed by religious services. But as Christianity spread among the people of pagan lands many of the practices of the winter solstice were blended with those of Christianity, because of the brilliant "political" ruling of Gregory I, the Great, and the cooperation of the missionaries. Thus Christmas became both religious and secular in its celebration, at times reverent, at others rollicking. From the pagan accent on light it is not difficult to trace the rise of lights, and open bonfires of sun worship, and the "conversion" of the brightly burning Yule log, to the many customs centering around the candle and its legends and songs to light the Christ child.

Many of our customs, besides those of light and fire, date back in some way to these pre-Christian origins, among them Christmas decorations. The Romans, worn out, and perhaps bored, with their dissipated lives in a sort of ancient "Hollywood,"ornamented their temples and homes with green boughs and red flowers for the Saturnalia [a bacchanalian orgy]. You'd think the ACLU would have no trouble with that, but red and green decorations have been banned, because of the ACLU, in some schools. Maybe if the ACLU commie-weenies knew red and green originally signaled a "pagan" tradition they'd warm to the idea, but probably not, because red and green decorations now signal, to a transformed people, Merry Christmas, a celebration of the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The ACLU (apparently) favors the earlier heathen Roman "Season's Greetings," and the old Roman, pagan to the max, orgies of drunks, pukes, and rooms full of Paris Hilton-Ho [tel] types: the deliciously dangerous and lux-lethal promoters of what could be called "bird flu," if one wished to be polite.

We need to stop at this point, before this turns into a tirade! We'll resume next week. Until then, go to the Square, and places of other "normal" local stores, and be greeted with MERRY CHRISTMAS.

Kenneth Kinchen is an independent writer with a background in international business and foreign service contracting.