Today is the 21st, the Solstice, the day that begins the victory of the Light over the Darkness, the day and period when our ancestors rejoiced that the Darkness had not overcome the Light. The Real Reason for the Season. Nothing whatever to do with Jesus or Camels or Shepherds. It’s also the anniversary of the day when the Pilgrims arrived here without having to go through the humiliation that immigrants now endure. But that was in 1620. The celebration of the Light is thousands of years older than that snip of time.

Back to the Christmas material:

Since I wrote about the way people deceive their children about Santa Claus in Part 2 we have had an article in the local paper giving people advice on how to tell their children about Santa. They are advised to tell their children that Santa is a nice guy so that they aren’t scared when they are plunked on his lap.

Instead of threatening that Santa will ignore them if they don’t do their little chores we are advised to tell them that not cleaning up their room will made Santa sad, and that they may not get any new toys if the old ones are left scattered all over the floor.

Just about everywhere now Santa’s clothes are red with white fur trimmings. And how come he uses reindeer, an animal probably not familiar to the original American and British artists who drew him, and why is he supposed to live in snowy lands to the north, for most children?

Well, strangely enough there is a genuine religious connection with all of the above, a connection which is more than 4000 years old, millennia before Saint Nicholas existed.

Just about everywhere now Santa’s clothes are red with white fur trimmings. And how come he uses reindeer, an animal probably not familiar to the original American and British artists who drew him, and why is he supposed to live in snowy lands to the north, for most children?

Well, strangely enough there is a genuine religious connection with all of the above, a connection which is more than 4000 years old.