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Christmas Customs
Dr B Boffey
If
you are fed up of going Christmas Shopping blame the Romans.
It all started with their pagan festivals which gradually
developed into the relatively modern Christmas celebration that our
speaker Dr Brian Boffey described as a
wonderful and happy time in his talk “Christmas Customs”.
Saturnalia and Kalends were the two
festivals that influenced our way of celebrating Christmas. We followed
Saturnalia, a celebration of Saturn the god of sowing, by adopting its
four tenets. The giving of gifts, reversal of rank, appreciation of
greenery and of light are the principles that are followed to this day.
The holly and the ivy are greenery brought into the house. These
were later followed by the Christmas tree first brought from
Germany
to
Britain
by
Prince Albert
the consort of Queen
Victoria
. A poem in the New Yorker in 1820 about Father Christmas was probably
the start of the commercial Christmas and the inducement to spend more
than you can afford on presents. Although initially the serving of food
to their slaves by Roman owners was the original role reversal it is
still continued in the Armed Forces where Commissioned Officers serve
the Ranks. And of course candles and Christmas lights imitate the last
of the tenets. One of the gifts is food and our attitude to this is
clearly illustrated by the Italian saying “As busy as a British oven
at Christmas”.
This
meeting, also attended by Otley Ladies Forum, was the penultimate one of
the year. Our last meeting of 2008 is in The Main Hall of Otley Civic
Centre at 10-00am on Thursday 18th
December when Mr T Eaton will tell us about being a Teenage Pit Boy.
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