Merry Winterval
I'm getting a bit fed up with believers wittering on about Christmas, saying it's a Christian festival and all that and that we shouldn't say "season's greetings" or send Christmas cards with non-religious themes.
I'm sorry, but I don't have faith. But I still enjoy Christmas.
When you think about Christmas, there's not a fat lot of Jesus stuff going on for a lot of us. Father Christmas himself fails to get a mention in the good book. Neither do the three wise men, come to that. Or turkeys. And not one donkey makes it into the Jesus birth story, in spite of all those nativity plays and a couple of songs.
For most people it's simply not a religious time, just a good opportunity to get together with friends and family, maybe eat and drink too much and have a good time.
But if anyone acknowledges that and doesn't use the word "Christmas" all hell (or should that be heaven) is let loose.
So perhaps we should draw these complainants' attention to the etymology of "Easter".
In his 'De Temporum Ratione' the Venerable Bede wrote that the month Eostremonat (April) was so named because of a goddess, Eostre, who had formerly been worshipped in that month. That begat Easter. Not much to do with nailing a bloke to a cross, then. In fact, it's completely heathen.
There's some questioning of the derivation of the word Easter now. But let's accept the father of English history's version for the sake of argument.
If Christians can nick a pagan term (as well as time of year and traditions) for what they themselves believe is the most important religious festival of the year, atheists and pagans should be able to wish each other a merry Christmas without any worrying about any of that baby-born-in-a-stable-to-a-mother-whose-hymen-was-intact malarkey.
So merry Christmas.