The Devotions of Noel

Saturnalia, the pagan worship of winter solstice, the darkest tidings of the year. The birth of our Nazarene most likely September 29th. Like a used car dealer rolling back the odometer, Pope Julius I moved Christ’s birth to December 25th to sign up more pagans at the darkest tidings of the year. For this, the Puritans never celebrated Yuletide, a pagan holiday of sin. Still, rituals of the festive season endure. Sitting in solemn silence on the eve of every Christmas, the Swedes turn their TVs to Donald Duck. So too do the Japanese eat a bucket of KFC while the Ukrainians decorate Christmas trees with fake spider webs. In Greenland, men serve women whale blubber and the Catalonian’s nativity scenes always include a bare-bottomed pooping man. These are the darkest tidings of the year, Christmas is incomplete without them. These are the devotions of Noel.