The Real Meaning of Christmas
This time of year we are continually reminded of the real meaning of Christmas. Unfortunately, this message is nearly always delivered by politically naive and historically disinclined individuals with an agenda the size of Texas and an aversion to non-fiction books. Perhaps that is at the root of the problem;  it often seems that those with the most to say are the least well-read.

Jesus was born to Mary and Joseph – you may have heard about that. As both parents were the rightful royal heirs within their politico-religious factions, this was indeed a powerful union. The dream was that their offspring would help to unite rival religious groups so that one day the Jews might work together as one nation against a common enemy. I have more realistic dreams involving Charlize Theron.
For the purposes of pub philosophers, Jews are always lumped together into some splungy homogenous mass. Judaism is certainly far from monolithic today, currently occupying a huge ideological-theological spectrum. If anything, the Jews of two thousand years ago inhabited an even wider range of beliefs than today. 

The three main strands of Judaism back then were the Sadducees, the Pharisees and the Essenes. It is difficult to draw parallels with modern political and religious groupings. Today these strands would approximate to extreme neo-conservatives, even more extreme conservative nationalists and, on the less liberal right of the political spectrum, a ragged bunch of pedantic rigid constructionist fundamentalist fruitcakes.

Despite being Jewish (or, arguably, because of it – infighting is always about heterodoxy), these three groups had been pissing on each other's bonfires for hundreds of years and saw no reason to relax their congenital hatred of each other for something as trivial as, say, The Roman Invasion.

The Nobility Meets the Nubility
The arranged marriage of Mary and Joseph was, as you might suspect from its description, arranged. In fact, it was a stitch-up of Biblical proportions. The two most important religious factions of the time came together in a dynastic alliance that just happened to be represented by the deliciously nubile Mary and the antique Joseph Ben Viagra.  Well, somebody had to bonk it and Joseph got the job.

Sadly, Joseph's enthusiasm got the better of him, because he couldn't keep his hands off Mary. He opened his Christmas present early (as it were), and instead of waiting until December they engaged in some serious horizontal folk dancing in the heat of the summer. Ordinarily, this would not have been a problem, for they were married and morally entitled to some sloppy anytime conjugating, were they not?

Well, no, not really, they absolutely were not. They were royalty and therefore obliged to deliver a male heir. By tradition they had a sort of trial marriage affair; in other words, they were only slightly married. If they produced a male heir, then the marriage was considered royally consumated and legal. If not, it was of course Mary's fault and the poor long-suffering Joseph would have to get sweaty again with the next available teenage Princess. (This was before air-conditioning.)

Fortunately, Mary became rather more than slightly pregnant. The problem being that the long-awaited infant was not awaited for quite long enough. Rather than September, the holy month when the future king had to be born, the new sproglet had the nerve to appear six months prematurely in March. No biggie you're probably thinking, at least it was a boy, although this was scandalous at the time and made a laughing stock of the ancient prophecies. The new king absolutely had to be born in September.

Six years later, Mary and Joseph were busy again, and this time it really was around Christmas, even though Christmas had yet to be invented. As a result, their second child arrived in the holy month corresponding to September, and about bloody time too, for the chief anal priests were still in a hissy fit over the last little episode. Far from clarifying the issue, this next boy only made things worse. Now, the rightful primogeniture-but-wrong-birthday heir to the throne Prince Jesus had some competition from none other than his own brother, the ultimogeniture (so far) but-at-least-we-got-the-birthday-right Prince James. You can read more about the Messiah-gate scandal, birth order indecision and his kid brother here.

So, whatever you've been told about The Real Meaning of Christmas, this is how it happened:

1) Loinfruit Number One
Born 19th of March, 7 BC.
Real name Yehoshuah.
Later known by the curious Greek pseudonym of Jesus the Christ.

2) Loinfruit Number Two
Born 23rd of September, AD 1.
Real name Yacov, aka James the Just.
(Subsequent children not relevant here.)

When James was born he was already one – they didn't have zeros back then. Because he was The Next Big Thing a whole new calendar counting system (the one we use today) was started in his honor, again beginning at year one because of the acute lack of zeros around MM years ago. James was initially the favored prince but a more liberal priesthood meant he was soon to be overshadowed by his big brother.

Jesus was royalty so he also had a special Royal birthday at the beginning of the season. In our calendar his Royal birthday is January 6th, the day still celebrated as Christmas in the Orthodox church. Not just the Orthodox – pretty much everywhere else, as it's only the Western churches that follow the outrageous moving of Christmas by Constantine The Ingrate that celebrate the 25th of December.

Looking at this from the viewpoint of sibling rivalry, while James got the year and the whole calendar reboot thing in his favor, Jesus came out on top with a staggering three birthdays, even though one of them unfortunately clashes with Christmas. Way to go, JC.

What has this got to do with Christmas?  Not much, really. Jesus was born on 19th March. Because he was royalty his royal birthday was the 6th January. Constantine worshipped the Sun (just like the people that run the planet today) and the big social event of the year was his royal birthday, the winter solstice and the rebirth of the Sun.

Constantine didn't see the point of allowing the smelly Christians their independent holiday thingy which resulted in two celebrations only a few days apart, so he moved Christmas to 25th of December. The Son (Sun) dies on the the Winter Solstice, the 21st of December. Let's count: 22nd, 23rd, 24th, and is resurrected three days later on... wait for it... Christmas. You can read more background to our current celebrations here.

Christmas only came about because of a screw up, some political expediency and serial whitewashing. You couldn't make this stuff up, and so far we've only covered the raw history before the religious nonsense was stuck all over it.  What was made up, of course, is the pack of lies that we force-feed our children. Someone, somewhere invented the laughable Christmas fairy story trotted out every year.  If we're lucky, we learn the truth about Santa Claus in the course of growing up, but nobody bothers to tell us that the rest of the Christmas story is also a crock.

Moving the birth of Jesus to Christmas was only one step in the gradual assimilation of Christianity into Sun worship. Early on even Paul warned about the adoption of pagan holidays, and he should know, as he single-handedly invented Christianity. Paul's warnings were ignored, so much so that an ancient Roman would recognize most of today's Christmas, although he might be a little surprised to find that our modern Christmas was in honour of Jesus and not a more familiar solar deity like Mithra or Tammuz.

Long before Constantine, the Church Father Tertullian wrote:
By us Gentile Christians who are strangers to Jewish Sabbaths, new moons and festivals, once acceptable to God, the Saturnalia, the feasts of January, the Brumalia, and Matronalia are now frequented, with gifts being carried to and fro. 

The battle was well and truly lost by AD 450, when Pope Julius decreed that all good Catholics should celebrate the mass of Christ – or Christ Mass, the origin of our word Christmas.

Yours in peace and service,

Ken