Avent, Advent: The War on Christmas

 

Advent, Advent ... This year, the war on Christmas in America is going slowly. For those who are on the Internet for the first day, there is a steadfast belief in America that saying Merry Christmas is not inclusive enough, because there are many, many other holidays on the same day. Not really the same day, though, they are in a two-to-three-month period, which begins with Oktoberfest and ends abruptly on December 26 because nobody cares about Orthodox Christmas or any other competing holiday later on.

 

Some people claim that there are 59 holidays around Christmas. So far, nobody has ever seen this list, but I assume this number includes the four Advent Sundays that lead up to Christmas, all the Saintly days around Christmas, the twelve days of Christmas themselves, and all eight days of Hanukkah. There is also Kwanzaa, invented by an African-American wifebeater in the 1960s. It is a recreation of a traditional African harvest festival, which is kind of odd because harvest in Africa is not in December and should never be culturally appropriated by white people and Asians.

 

Some people include Divali in the Happy-holiday-list for Christmas, the Indian celebration of light. It is at the beginning of November, so it is kinda far away from Christmas. Divali is rather in a November cluster with Halloween, Reformation Day, All Saints Day, All Souls' Day, Samhain, the last day of Oktoberfest, Yom Kippur, Día de los Muertos, Guy Fawkes Night, Sukkot, the first day of Carneval that is celebrated on November 11 (in Germany), and, of course, Thanksgiving.

 

This should be the second biggest mutual Happy-Holiday event, right after Independence Day. After all, the number of countries that are celebrating their independence from the British is 65; six more than the Christmas ersatz Holidays that only number 59 and also are partly imaginary. Whereas the British Empire was very real. Also, I feel strongly that the November cluster should not be connected to Christmas.

 

I'm entitled to make that call because Germany invented Christmas in the late Middle Ages. Martin Luther was supposedly the first one to decorate a Christmas Tree with shiny apples and candles. He coined the famous line: "Früher war mehr Lametta," we used to have more tinsel. Little did he know that people of both coasts of America would put up a "Holiday Tree," or that America would exist in the first place, because the Mayflower landed in America in 1620, nearly 75 years after Luther had died.

But is Christmas really legitimate? Christmas haters point out that Jesus was not born on December 25, and that the holiday goes back to Saturnalia, a festivity in Ancient Rome which was more of a rowdy thing, like Carnival in Germany. Think Monty Python meets Mardi Gras meets Mussolini election party. And another belief, Christmas is really about celebrating the Winter Solstice when the days get longer. In Scandinavia, it is known as Yule, although Scandinavians, as good Lutherans, emphasize Christmas more.

 

The idea of celebrating Christmas by prancing around a burning Yule log at midnight in the snow while waving torches as opposed to sipping Glühwein and hot chocolate in front of the lit Christmas tree is fascinating. But Pagan Christmas, honoring the Nordic Gods, is somewhat discredited in Germany nowadays. The Nazi leadership did not especially like to celebrate the birth of Jesus because, you guessed it, Jesus was Jewish. So they promoted the ancient Germanic Gods instead, who were also quite bloodthirsty and bear little resemblance to the adjacent Marvel Comic characters.

 

They tried to rename Christmas "Yulfest", a festival that celebrates the return of the sun, symbolized by the sun-like Swastika placed on top of the "Yultree". Also, Santa Claus was really Wotan, or, as some call him, Odin. Even Christmas songs were rewritten by the Nazis to praise New Jesus, i. e. the Führer. So it is a bit startling for Germans to see American Liberals happily culturally appropriating the Christmas of white superior Gods, including the torches and the alternate tree, and claim this is the real thing. At least they are not putting up Swastikas. Yet. But if you're into "Happy Holidays", maybe accepting that you don't have a holiday would be the honest thing.

 

Most Germans, however, never went along with the Nazi war on Christmas. A few years later, East Germany made another effort to get rid of Christmas — the Communists renamed the Christmas Angel "Jahresendflügelfigur," End-of-the-year-winged-figurine. They failed as well. Speaking of Angels, let me direct your attention once to our Wings of Desire — Angels of Berlin book, and post another couple of pictures.

 

 

Advent, Advent! On the fifth of December!

Advent, Advent! Today, on December 5, dear Friends and Fans, I will tell you about St. Nikolaus. So, Nikolaus was real. At least as real as Robin Hood. The character goes back to Nikolaus von Myra, a Bishop and a Christian Saint and martyr. According to Wikipedia, he is the patron Saint of sailors, merchants, archers, repentant thieves, children, brewers, pawnbrokers, toymakers, unmarried people, and students in most parts of Europe. The patron Saint of unrepentant thieves is Robin Hood.

 

Myra was a town in Lycia, a Greek region in the Western part of what became Turkey about 700 years later, when the Turks drove the Greeks out. So no, Nikolaus was not Turkish, the same way Geronimo was not an Englishman. At the time of Nikolaus, Lycia belonged to the Roman Empire. Around the year 300 after Christ, the Roman Emperor Diokletian went after the Christians all over his lands. He had churches burned down and Bibles destroyed, and he killed or enslaved many Christians, especially clerics, including Bishop Nikolaus.

 

Nikolaus had a testament that gave his earthly possessions to the poor, which was not surprising because also in his life time, he did a lot of charity, some of it secret. He was said to have given toys to poor children and also performed miracles. Fast forward to the near-present, Nikolaus would visit German and Austrian children on the evening of December 6 (in some other countries on December 5) and leave little gifts in their boots outside. Like a tiny bar of chocolate, two cookies, and an orange when I was young, or a Sony PlayStation and a big screen TV today.

 

Nikolaus was depicted as that old man with a white beard, a red hat, and a red coat. His helper and companion was Krampus, who had a deformed foot and a rod. Krampus gave a piece of coal to kids who did not behave, or would even spank them. I would not know because I w
as always a very well-behaved kid.

 

In America, Dutch settlers brought his story to the new world (they call him Sinterclaas), and the British also knew him as Father Christmas (sadly, they did not emphasize Robin Hood). Soon, Nikolaus would develop into Santa Claus. The New York caricaturist Thomas Nast drew the first picture of Santa Claus as we know him. His red-and-white coat was eventually picked up and popularized by the Coca-Cola company.

 

And he would no longer show up at the beginning of December, but on Christmas Eve, the night before Christmas. With a sledge, filled by his North Pole elves (also a later add-on). Coca-Cola-Santa Claus has made his way back to Europe after WWII, including Germany, with the help of Hollywood movies, but not necessarily beloved by everybody. Because traditionally, the Christ Child brings the gifts, not Nikolaus. Tomorrow, I will tell more about Christmas and why some people think Santa Claus is really Odin, the Germanic God of war.

 

In the meantime, here is an angel from our book „Wings of Desire —Angels of Berlin“. Also available in German, including in book stores.