Time to light up Augusta

Roman pagans first introduced the holiday of Saturnalia, a week long period of lawlessness celebrated between December 17-25. During this period, Roman courts were closed, and Roman law dictated that no one could be punished for damaging property or injuring people during the weeklong celebration. The festival began with Roman authorities choosing "an enemy of the Roman people" to represent the "Lord of Misrule". Each Roman community selected a victim who they forced to indulge in food and other physical pleasures throughout the week. At the festival's conclusion, December 25th, Roman authorities believed they were destroying the forces of darkness by brutally murdering this innocent man or woman.

The ancient Greek writer poet and historian Lucian describes the festival's observance in his time. In addition to human sacrifice, he mentions other customs of the festival: widespread intoxication; going from house to house sining naked; rape and other sexual license; and consuming human shaped biscuits(still produced in some English and most German bakeries during the Christmas season).

In the 4th century CE, Christanity imported the Saturnalia festival hoping to take the pagan masses in with it. Christian leaders succeeded in converting to Christanity large numbers of pagans by promising them that they could continue to celebrate Saturnalia as Christians. The problem was that there was nothing intrinsically Christian about Saturnalia. To remedy this, these Christian leaders named Saturnalia's concluding day, December 25th, to be Jesus' birthday.

Because of it's Pagan origin, Christmas was banned by the Puritans and its observance was illegal in Massachusetts between 1659 and 1681. However, Christmas was still celebrated by most Christians. Some of the most depraved customs of the Saturnalia festival were intentionally revived by the Catholic Church in 1466 when Pope Paul II, for the amusement of his Roman citizens, forced Jews to race naked through the streets of the city. Before they were to run, the Jews were heartily fed, so as to make the race more difficult for them and at the same time more amusing for spectators. They ran amid Rome's taunting laughter while the Holy Father stood upon an ornamented balcony and laughed heartily. As part of the Saturnalia festival throughout the 18th and 19th centruies CE, rabbis of the ghetto in Rome were forced to wear clownish outfits and march through the streets to the jeers of the croud and being pelted by various objects thrown at them.

All of you history "rookies" have your right to express your opinions ... it is our GOD given right protected by our Constitution. It just may not be such a good idea to publish how ignorant you are or how trivial and meaningless your comments are regarding this season. GET A LIFE!

So Shamrock - anyone who does not agree with you is ignorant? I would say if you don't know how this holiday came about then you are the ignorant one. I'm not saying Christmas can't be what you want it to be, I'm just giving the origin. As you notice if you read I did say in there "However, Christmas was still celebrated by most Christians." Maybe I should have put in "and is". I celebrate Christmas too as the birth of Christ especially since we can't pinpoint a date of occurance. But origins are still important to know so that civilization does not fall back to some of those ways. Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it.

Well, here comes another stupid and insipid opinion piece from the AC. The American empire is crumbling, and the AC suggests that the proletariat amuse themselves by using huge amounts of electricity and, in doing so, burn huge quantities of polluting and carcinogenic coal. It is precisely in line with the concept of panem et circenses (bread and circus) -- the scheme whereby political and big-business "leaders" encourage the dumbed-down Americans to satisfy their selfish and decadent desires in order to distract them from the evidence that the empire is disintegrating. And, how ironic that in this instance, "Christians" are being urged to spend their money celebrating a holiday that was invented and perfected by their arch villains -- those evil "pagans." ----- “It is pure illusion to think that an opinion which passes down from century to century to century, from generation to generation, may not be entirely false.”(Pierre Bayle, "Thoughts on the Comet," 1682)

Shamrock you are 100% right. I'll probably see you downtown tomorrow. Just remember Christmas is for kids, and they need all the fun and excitement that adults can provide for the season. If you don't believe me just look at the kids next time you are in a department store and think back to your own childhood.

I agree disssman. There is the religious holiday and there is the secular holiday and they are not mutually exclusive. There's room for both and there's room for people to choose either. I like both of them. I don't bring a tree into my house and worship it, I bring one in and decorate it and light it and call it a lit tree. It adds to the atmosphere like bringing flowers into the house. The parade is just that ... a parade and all of the lights and decorations are for mood. If someone gets a bad mood from them, stay away.

the Knave, life doesn't end because times are tough.

Will they have a Lynx float and a Downtown Stadium float in that "Fantasy" Parade? maybe they can have a Trolley System float as well, seeing as how they are calling it a Fantasy Parade. PT why don't you just pour a fifth of Gin into the treestand and call it "Lit" without all of the hassle of decorating it. Works for me. My father put ours in the fireplace one year after christmas. Started wit the "small" end...... I guess he thought, since it "looked" green it would burn a little as he kept pushing it into the fireplace. Can you picture a grown man running across the living room with an 11 foot flaming christmas tree over his shoulder? This did happen, only once though, and remarkably, the house survived. I know this shines a dim light on my father, but Genius and Insanity often dwell in close proximity to one another, hell, sometimes they even meet! Now I know this true christmas story made you smile. I'm just happy we all survived to share it with you. If you're reading this Yvonne(my sister) this is one of my favorite memories concerning our dear father and Christmas.

it sure is nice to live in the United States where you can put up Christmas lights or not put lights up. Christmas is the birthday of Christ Jesus. not a pagan celebration.