Q&A Forum - April 2011 (best of Elise)

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Q. Dear Elise, I read your book and I was having a debate with a friend about the origins of Christmas and Easter and how in your book you said that these holidays were originally Goddess女神 — a woman treated as divine worship崇拜侍奉 — adoring service holidays, and not Christian. She didn’t believe me and I no longer own your book (gave to someone else to read) so I was wondering if you could go over that again, seeing we are entering into the Easter Holiday.

A. Many of our western Christian Holidays were in fact founded as Goddess女神 — a woman treated as divine holidays. The Christmas holiday is an adaptation of the pagan winter solstice rites. Called Yule, it was one of the traditional Celtic fire festivals and marked the return of the light after the longest night of the year. Pagans (peasants, rustic people) in northwestern Europe conducted a yearly celebration, which is remarkably similar to the Christmas we know today. The Christmas Tree is left over from the pagan winter solstice rites. As Europe was evangelized by Christians, the pagan holiday was replaced with a Christian holiday celebrating the birth of Christ. Many Biblical scholars believe that Christ was probably born in September, but since there was already a celebration in December, Christmas was substituted for Yule.