Coard: Dispelling Christmas myths and respecting Christmas

I’m gonna say this at the very beginning so nobody gets it twisted: Although I am not a Christian, I respect Christianity.
I respect it because it was created by a Black man (with woolly hair and bronze skin exactly like mine) who was a Palestinian (born in Bethlehem, which is in the central West Bank, which in turn is in the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, which therefore is precisely where Palestine is located) and who was a revolutionary (executed by way of capital punishment for defying and subverting the government).
I also respect Christians, primarily because the rebel Nat Turner was one as was the agitator MLK.

In addition, and most pertinent in terms of this article, I respect Christmas because it’s a holy day that brings many Black families together and puts a smile on the faces of many Black children.
But I don’t respect misinformation and lies about Christmas. And much of what people think about Christmas is based on misinformation and lies. Accordingly, I’m writing today’s column not to disparage Christmas in any way but to tell the truth about it because, as that great spiritual Black Palestinian revolutionary once said, “Know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” Therefore, here are nine of the most important truths about Christmas and the Christmas season that you didn’t know.
1. Sorry, We Missed Your Birthday: Jesus wasn’t born on December 25. First of all, the Bible (if you accept its version) doesn’t mention a date or even a month for Jesus’ birth. Instead, it merely says that during his birth, shepherds were in the field. However, shepherds couldn’t have been in any Bethlehem fields in December because it would’ve been too cold to have their sheep exposed outside and nothing grows during that time of the winter season. The Bible also says Jesus was born while Mary and Joseph were traveling to participate in the census. But during that time, censuses took place only in September or October.
The truth is that December 25 was selected in 325 AD by Roman Emperor/Conqueror Constantine because he and the church leadership wanted to stop people from celebrating the widely popular December 25 pagan festival honoring the annual return of the sun following the December 21 winter solstice. The week before the solstice was the Saturnalia, which was celebrated with an alcohol-filled and sex-fueled party and feast that concluded with gift-giving and candle-lighting. In other words, Constantine and church officials stole that date from hedonistic party-goers and distracted people for so long that people eventually forgot what that date originally represented. By the way, most Biblical scholars, after reviewing ancient writings, have concluded that Jesus was born sometime around the last week in September.
Furthermore, Jesus wasn’t born 2017 years ago. If you accept the historical veracity of the Gospels of Luke and John, Jesus was born around the time King Herod died, which was as many as four-to-six years from 2017 years ago.
2. Party On: Christmas initially wasn’t about Jesus’ birth. Instead, it was about “Christ’s Mass,” which comes from the Old English word “Cristesmaesse” that was first printed in a public document in 1038. “Christ” means the “anointed one” and “mass” means the “feast day” or festival, which was a major social event that the gluttonous wealthy people organized. Therefore, Christmas means the food festival (supposedly) in honor of the anointed one. It was (allegedly) based on his work, not his birth. By the way, in the Middle Ages, Christmas celebrations weren’t solemn and religious. They were rowdy and secular, similar to today’s Mardi Gras parties. Moreover, from 1659 to 1681, Christmas celebrations in Boston were so out of control that they were declared illegal.
3. Well, X-cuse Me!: The use of “Xmas” in place of “Christmas” isn’t disrespectful or sacrilegious. In the Latin language (from which English is derived), the Greek word for Christ is “Xpiotoc” and Christians often referred to themselves in writing as “Xian.” That first letter, “X,” is “Chi” in the Greek alphabet. Consequently, “X” and “Chi” are synonymous.
4. No Room For Myths: The “no room in the inn” story is a complete myth. It never happened. There was no pubic inn or innkeeper. The building was actually a private home. And the reason there was no room is that another family was already occupying the only “upper room” space in that home long before Mary arrived. And that room was the only space in the home where visitors could be comfortably lodged. Most homes in Palestine during that time had a common area on the main or lower floor that included a manger where animals were kept. The only space inside the home that Mary went to was a section in or adjacent to the manger.
5. Nobody Likes A Wise Guy: Three wise men named Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar didn’t follow a bright star and travel to see the newborn Jesus. Although the Bible does say that some “magi” (meaning astrologers from the East) did come seeking the “King of the Jews,” it doesn’t say how many there were and doesn’t say what their names were. People assume there were three of them simply because three gifts, namely gold, frankincense, and myrrh, were given to Jesus. And most important, the Bible doesn’t say these maji arrived when Jesus was an infant. It says when he was an approximately one or two-year-old toddler. And it doesn’t say they greeted him in a manger or stable. It says that scene happened in a house.

6. Like The Apple, The Myth Also Doesn’t Fall Far From The Tree: Christmas trees were never part of the story of the birth of Christ. In fact, there were no evergreen trees in Palestine. But there were in Germany. And they were quite popular in pagan rites long before Jesus was born. Much later, during the German Renaissance, Christmas-celebrating Protestants in that country began a tradition of cutting down trees, bringing them home, and decorating them. German emigrants later carried their decorated tree tradition to England and ultimately to the U.S. in the mid 1700s where Americans a century later began widely copying it.
7. Santa Who? Nickolas of Myra, who was born in Turkey about 270 years after Jesus’ birth, was a wealthy man who dedicated his life to helping the poor. As legend has it, he would toss bags of gold into chimneys of poor people’s shacks and those bags would fall into wet washed stockings that were drying over fireplaces (which was how home clothes dryers worked back then in that region). Following his death, he was canonized as St. “Nicholaos,” which subsequently became known as St. Nicholas and then St. Nick. Later, Dutch immigrants to this country called him Sinterklaas, after which Americans pronounced it Santa Claus.
8. Wrong Song: “Jingle Bells” isn’t about Christmas. It doesn’t even mention the word once. That’s because this song, written by James Pierpont, is about nothing more than his sleigh-riding experiences in Massachusetts in the early 1800s. It was copyrighted as “One Horse Open Sleigh” in 1857 and renamed “Jingle Bells” when republished two years later. It didn’t become popular until Bing Crosby and The Andrew Sisters recorded it nearly 100 years later in 1943.
9. Kiss My Grits: The tradition of kissing under the mistletoe was based on a completely false and sexist rumor that those plants enhanced a woman’s ability to conceive.
There’s much more for me to say here. But I’ll end it with this: Merry Christmas, Conscious Kwanzaa, Wonderful Mawlid, Happy Hanukkah, and simply Peace & Prosperity to everyone. And remember to constantly seek truth.

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