Merry Christmas!

Christmas, western culture's winter holiday, is named after a great man who influenced hundreds of people during his life, maybe thousands. Since his death large numbers of people have embraced what is claimed to be his philosophy, interpreted by his disciples and written down in the Christian Bible.  In modern times Christian religions have attracted millions of members, claiming Jesus Christ as their founder and the inspiration for their teachings, and also claiming, in most cases, that he is the son of god. Christ's influence is so great that we count our years from his arbitrarily chosen birthday. It's now 2014AD, two thousand and fourteen years after the birth of Christ. So, Merry Christmas to all people whose calendars mark December 25th to be Christmas Day, regardless of your religious affiliation or lack thereof. No need, in my book, to change this greeting to "Happy Holidays".

But Christians do not have a monopoly on this joyful winter festival simply because of its accepted name. Non-Christians, secularists, atheists, humanists, even people of different faiths celebrate the season as well. Santa Claus, Christmas trees and lights, family, friends, neighbors, feasting, gift giving, and parties play an important part in nearly everyone's Christmas, including Christians. It's a way to brighten the gloom of winter's darkest days.

Some form of winter celebration has always been a part of history. Christmas is nothing new.  Over time the feast name and reason for celebration has been changed. (A good source about Christmas in history is "Christmas Before Christ: The Surprising Truth! - United Church of God, www.ucg.org/christian-living/christmas-christ-surprising-truth.")  Where did Christmas and our traditional forms of celebration come from?

"In the Roman Empire, by the time of Christ, Saturnalia, winter festival, was well known and established. The Roman Church was unable to get rid of the pagan holiday.  So early in the 4th Century, the Roman Catholic Church, which was the dominant church in Europe, adopted the holiday and tried to convert it into a Christian celebration by declaring December 25 to be the day of the Lord's birth. They called it the Feast of the Nativity. This custom has been part of western culture ever since."  (From "What are the origins of Christmas? | How did Christmas begin ...carm.org/what-are-the-origins-of-christmas.")

"... pagan traditions remained even as Christianity took hold. The Christmas tree is a 17th-century German invention ... but it clearly derives from the pagan practice of bringing greenery indoors to decorate in midwinter. The modern Santa Claus is a direct descendent of England's Father Christmas, who was not originally a gift-giver. However, Father Christmas and his other European variations are modern incarnations of old pagan ideas about spirits who traveled the sky in midwinter..."  (From Pagan Roots? 5 Surprising Facts About Christmas - LiveScience, www.livescience.com/25779-christmas-traditions-history-paganism.html. Dec 22, 2012.)

Christmas, then, is a multifaceted holiday.  Its roots are deep; its traditions are both ancient and more current.  It's basically the celebration of the winter solstice, the beginning of lengthening days. And if you are Christian, it's also a birthday celebration.

An Alien in My Head

It's December now, a couple of months since the alien entered my head. He snuck in so stealthily I'm not even sure when it happened. In hind-sight I think I may remember a sudden little itch near the hairline, right side, while I was sitting at the picnic table with friends enjoying the warm sun and a gin and tonic. Gave it a bit of a scratch, never thought anymore about it until ... well, until I woke up next day with a fairly large bump on my head, like I had whacked it on something.  The bump proceeded to expand into a swelling. I looked like I had bags of water under my eyes. Hmm, an allergy reaction to something?

Since I had a doctor appointment coming up in 2 days I took allergy tabs and waited. The doctor said you're not taking enough allergy meds so I began taking the maximum dosage on the label. That was Thursday. By Sunday the swelling had taken over the entire right side of my face so I beat it into emergency. The doctor there gave me prednisone, a tab a day, and it worked - swelling gone by the following Thursday. Maybe I was imagining the alien? Like it says on those TV commercials - just allergies.

The kids and grandkids arrived for a welcome and infrequent visit on Friday. Overnight the alien kicked up a fuss.  I woke in the morning knowing another trip to emergency was inevitable. The right side of my face looked like it belonged to someone else, someone unrecognizable and kinda scary. This time the doctor in emergency figured I had an abscessed tooth and gave me a prescription for an antibiotic. That night we had a birthday party for my granddaughter's friend, played music, had a fine sing-a-long, a great time except for the obvious presence of the alien which we all, including myself, managed (pretended) to ignore. Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy ....

I saw my dentist on Tuesday. He couldn't find any sign of an abscess. By Thursday the alien had again slipped into hiding. I saw the doctor at the clinic and he gave me the all-clear to visit my sister in the States. As far as the alien was concerned my 2 weeks in the States were uneventful. Maybe there was no alien, never was, and, if there was he'd moved on to another host...

But the alien kicked up havoc once again. Soon after returning home from my holiday I broke off a tooth - an important tooth - one which was absolutely necessary in holding in a partial plate I'd had for years. Now how did the alien manage that? This tooth proved to be unfixable and set into motion a series of events leaving me with an entire new set of upper teeth, unable to bite, barely able to chew, and feeling like I have a golf ball in my mouth. I am adjusting. I choke a lot less now. I ate a potato chip today!

My doctor says the continual pressure I feel in my forehead is nerves that were affected by the initial swelling and that I could expect to have this odd feeling for maybe 6 months or even a year.  But I know better.  It's not damaged nerves, it's "you know who". He's sleeping in there.

This leads me to wonder, what else does the alien have in store for me?