The Finch Formerly Known As Gold

11 December 2005

A general dearth of wise men

Goldie Hawn, way back in the days of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In:

Why don't they move Christmas to July, when the stores aren't so crowded?

Why, indeed?

If you're feeling overwhelmed by the holidays, though, make sure you're blaming the right person:

Our current holiday problem started when Constantine decided that a holiday celebrating the birth of Jesus would be just the thing to make himself look good on The O'Reilly Factor. There was, however, one small problem: no one knew when Jesus was born. The Gospels simply say that the birth occurred when Quirinius was the governor of Syria. This might have been enough information in the hands of a competent archivist to pinpoint a likely date, but competent archivists were hard to find in ancient Rome due to the Roman mob's insatiable appetite for watching overweight, middle-aged clerical types with 2.7 kids and a mortgage try to stab each other to death with quill pens in the Coliseum.

Constantine, having no solid information to work with, asked the Senate and the people of Rome what they thought of July 15th as the date for Christmas. The Senate and the people of Rome, mindful of the fact that Constantine had the bad habit of feeding people who disagreed with him to lions and tigers and bears, oh my, for the entertainment of the people in the cheap seats, told Constantine that July 15th was a wonderful idea. Roman retailers, on the other hand, mindful of losing the 4th of July and Bastille Day sales, told him that while his idea was wonderful, it would be even more wonderful at some other time of the year. One clever gent who owned a shoe store on the Appian Way suggested, after giving the matter some thought, that the Emperor make December 25th the date for his new holiday.

Then someone, possibly the shoemaker who first suggested the idea of the 25th, or maybe his brother — no one could really tell them apart — told the Emperor something that emperors, as a class, love to hear: he was emperor, therefore he could put the holiday anywhere he felt like putting it. And so he did, on the 25th day of December, the high burden of historical and theological proof bending slightly in deference to Constantine's need for campaign contributions.

On the positive side of the ledger, this account doesn't put all the blame on Hallmark, which need only claim responsibility for those other 129 days a year when we're supposed to spend money we don't have on things we don't need for people we can't stand.

Posted at 1:47 PM to Almost Yogurt


... I loved reading this! It is so funny and really paradoxically close even though tongue in cheek. Of course a lot of folks don't even realize that at the time of the designation of Christs birthday tradition there was also the need to compete with that pesky little pre-existing holiday (the feast of Saturnalia and all that jazz) which of course had its origins when the Romans co-opted the old pagan holidays in favor of THEIR pick from the pantheon of gods. Who knows what was celebrated before the pagans. It really is a capitalistic world ... everything can and will be rebranded sometime :)

Posted by: Ron at 3:55 PM on 11 December 2005

Who knows what was celebrated before the pagans.

Caveman #1: "Hey, did you notice the sun was up for a couple minutes longer today than yesterday?"

Caveman #2: "It did? Cool! Let's get drunk!"

Posted by: McGehee at 4:03 PM on 11 December 2005

It's a little known fact that drunken cavemen frequently confused verb choice ("was" vs. "did"), much like their descendants.

Posted by: McGehee at 4:04 PM on 11 December 2005

"God bless those Pagans!" — Homer J. Simpson

Posted by: CGHill at 4:13 PM on 11 December 2005

I'll drink to that :)

Pass the creme' de Narnia.

Posted by: Ron at 9:54 PM on 11 December 2005

Hawn's joke reminds me of the dumb astronauts who planned a mission to the Sun. "But it's too hot!" they were warned. "We know." they explained. "That's why we're going at night!"

Posted by: Mr. Snitch! at 2:58 AM on 12 December 2005