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Zagmuk
The Mesopotamians celebrated the end of the year by supporting the god Marduk in his annual battle with the powers of chaos. At the Zagmuk festival celebrating Marduk's success, gifts were exchanged. The Xmas Story says:

“Christmas began there in Mesopotamia over 4000 years ago as the festival which renewed the world for another year. The "Twelve Days" of Christmas; the bright fires and probably the Yule log; the giving of presents; carnivals with their floats; merrymakings and clownings; the mummers singing and playing from house to house; the feastings; church processions with their lights and song-- all these and more began there centuries before Christ was born.�?

Saturnalia
In Ancient Rome, the mythical age of Saturn's kingship was a golden age of happiness for all men, without theft or servitude, and without private property. Saturn, dethroned by his son Jupiter, had joined Janus as ruler in Italy, but when his time as earthly king was up, he disappeared. “It is said that to this day He lies in a magic sleep on a secret island near Britain, and at some future time ... He will return to inaugurate another Golden Age.�?

Janus instituted the Saturnalia as a yearly tribute to his friend. For mortals, the festival provided a yearly symbolic return to the Golden Age. Thus, it was an offense during this period to punish a criminal or start a war. The meal normally prepared only for the masters was prepared and served first to the slaves by the masters. All people were equal and, because Saturn ruled before the current cosmic order, Misrule, with its lord (Saturnalia Princeps), was the order of the day.

Children and adults exchanged gifts, but the adult exchange became so great a problem -- the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer -- that a law was enacted making it legal only for richer people to give them to poorer.

According to Macrobius' Saturnalia, the holiday was originally probably only one day, although he notes an Atellan playwright, Novius, described it as being seven days. With Caesar's changing the calendar, the festival lengthened.

Mithras, Mithra, Mitra

Saturnalia may have been responsible for the pageantry of our midwinter festival, but it's Mithraism [www.uvm.edu/~classics/life/holiday.html] that seems to have inspired certain symbolic religious elements of Christmas. Mithraism arose in the Mediterranean world at the same time as Christianity, either imported from Iran, as Franz Cumont believed, or as a new religion which borrowed the name Mithras from the Persians, as the Congress of Mithraic Studies suggested in 1971.

Mithraism radiated from India where there is evidence of its practice from 1400 B.C. Mitra was part of the Hindu pantheon and Mithra was a minor Zooroastrian deity, the god of the airy light between heaven and earth. He was also a military general in Chinese mythology .

The soldiers' god, even in Rome (although the faith was embraced by male emperors, farmers, bureaucrats, merchants, and slaves, as well as soldiers), demanded a high standard of behavior, “temperance, self-control, and compassion -- even in victory�? Thus, Tertullian chides his fellow Christians for unbecoming behavior: “Are you not ashamed, my fellow soldiers of Christ, that you will be condemned, not by Christ, but by some soldier of Mithras?�?

The comparison of Mithraists and Christians is not coincidental. December 25 was Mithras' birthday before it was Jesus'. The Online Mithraic Faith Newsletter [no longer available] says:
“Since earliest history, the Sun has been celebrated with rituals by many cultures when it began it's journey into dominance after it's apparent weakness during winter. The origin of these rites, Mithrasists believe, is this proclamation at the dawn of human history by Mithras commanding His followers to observe such rites on that day to celebrate the birth of Mithras, the Invincible Sun.�?

But the actual choice of December 25 for Christmas was made under the Emperor Aurelian because this was the date of the Winter Solstice and was the day devotees of Mithras celebrated the dies natalis solis invicti (birthday of the invincible sun).

Mithraism, like Christianity, offers salvation to its adherents. Mithras was born into the world to save humanity from evil. Both figures ascended in human form, Mithras to wield the sun chariot, Christ to Heaven. The following summarizes the aspects of Mithraism that are also found in Christianity.

“Mithras, the sun-god, was born of a virgin in a cave on December 25, and worshipped on Sunday, the day of the conquering sun. He was a savior-god who rivaled Jesus in popularity. He died and was resurrected in order to become a messenger god, an intermediary between man and the good god of light, and the leader of the forces of righteousness against the dark forces of the god evil.�?
- Pagan Origins of Christmas

Hanukah, Chanukah, Hanukkah

Another festival connected with lights in the middle of winter, gift giving, and indulgent food is the 2000 year old holiday [www.ort.org/ort/hanukkah/history.htm] Hanukah, literally, dedication, since Hanukah is a celebration of the rededication of the Temple following a purification ritual.

Following this rededication in 164 B.C., the Maccabees were planning to relight the Temple's candles, but there wasn't enough unpolluted oil to keep them burning until fresh oil could be obtained. By a miracle, the one night's worth lasted eight days -- plenty of time for to obtain a new supply.

In commemoration of this event a menorah, a 9-branched candlestick, is lit each of 8 nights (using the ninth candle), amid singing and blessings.

Yuletide and Rough Nights

Early Europeans believed in evil spirits, witches, ghosts and trolls. As the Winter Solstice approached, with its long cold nights and short days, many people feared the sun would not return. Special rituals and celebrations were held to welcome back the sun.

In Scandinavia during the winter months the sun would disappear for days. After thirty-five days scouts would be sent to the mountain-tops to look for the return of the sun.

When the first light was seen the scouts would return with the good news. A great festival would be held, called Yultide, and a special feast would be served around a fire burning with the Yule log. Great bonfires would also be lit to celebrate the return of the sun. In some areas people would tie apples to branches of trees to remind themselves that spring and summer would return.

In the Alpin countries sun also doesn´t reach to bottoms of narrow valleys for months.

The "Wild Hunters" and the "Lost Souls" were believed to be around on the ground and in the air this time. Meals and gifts were left before the doors to apprease them.

And when sun came back people in disguise crowded and with much noise they tried to scare off the last bad ghosts as the good ones where shy and wouldn´t come back before all the dark ones had left.

Lots of these customs are still practised here. A bit changed and christianizated, but the old times are easy to be seen though.

Will tell about at "right time" and would like if anybody else would tell about customs of other areas.

very interesting to read.

PERCHTA

This is how, in many ways, we have kept the memory of the old heathen goddess of the Germans, Perchta or Perhata, whose name means the magnificent, the light.

Long ago, when the Germanic religion still honored Nature's power, both her blessing and devastating aspects, she was the rain-giving clouds, the spouse of the god of storms. Later, she became a sky queen who, besides mastery over clouds and winds, she also had the power of granting sunshine and prosperity to the fields, and also, as the motherly protector of women's life, she controlled feminine work, namely favoring spinning, and, as Frau Holda or Holle, she kept the souls of the unborn or dead children. In some countries it was said that her home was in a mountain, a magnificent cave, and still in some others, it was in the waters of some fountains or ponds, where it is still said that children come from [this water allows women to become fertile?].

At the turning of the winter sun, with her spouse Wodan, would she hold a procession through the land, which began as a blessing, turning later into a wild hunt.

In the Ukermark, under the names of Frick or Frau Harke, even today, she still haunts Christmas nights as a hunting cloud flying through the skies with a number of howling hounds. Also, she goes from place to place so as to check if the servants have spun all their flax. If she finds a spindle that is still full, she punishes the lazy worker by completely dirtying her spinning.

In the Priegnitz and the Mecklenburg, she takes the name of Fru Gode or Frau Gode and she appears particularly between Holy Christmas night and Three Kings day, in the form of the driver of a wild hunt with yapping and howling hounds. Doors are then kept shut, and nobody goes out in the evenings in order to avoid meeting her. She is often seen as a large and magnificent lady, driven in a car pulled by dogs and it is often said: "if a wheel happens to break, she gives the broken parts to the servant who fixes it, and they become pure gold after a few days."

In Lower Saxony, Frau Holle is a grey-haired old lady with long teeth, who dirties the spindle of the lazy weaver, hides a gift under the compartment of the spindle of the active ones [this piece of equipment is called wockenbreif in the local speech, in place of German Rockenbrief], brings new white shirts to children aged six, and who, in places where she used to be held in reverence, goes through with a car full of New Year gifts each new year's eve, between 9 and 10 p.m.. If she would crack her whip, only the devotees would hear it and go out to receive their gifts.

In the Hesse and the Thuringia, Frau Holle, Holde or Hulda, is described as a beautiful white shining woman with long golden hair of whom it is said, when it snows hard: "Frau Holle is shaking out the feathers of her bed". As the mother of all small creatures, or of the incarnated souls of dead non-baptized, but remembered, children, called "Heimchen" (small home) in Franconia, together with those souls, she takes care of the fertility of the fields that she plows with a golden plow, and she asks the "Heimchen" to irrigate those fields.

It is said that she had her old home in the Saalthal, between Bucha and Wilhemsdorf, but that she left this land due to the lack of gratitude of the citizens of Gosdorf? and Rödern. On a dark evening of the Kings day, she went to a river with her little people and asked for a ride. The driver was afraid at first of the high veiled shape that was surrounded by so many wailing children, but he did as he was asked at last. After three crossings, he found Frau Holla or Perchtha on the beach, busy at repairing her plough that the Heimchen were supposed to carry further. He was then told that his reward would be the shavings left behind. He took this with bad will, unhappy of a such a miserable reward. At home, he threw three pieces of shavings on the windowsill. In the morning he found three lumps of gold in place of the shavings. This is how Frau Perchtha rewarded all the help she received, and often she can still be seen, with her plow, on Three Kings' day, or Perchtenabend (Perchta's evening).

Three Kings' day, when these manifestations took place, was especially dedicated to her, as well as in Austria, Tyrol and Bavaria, under the names Perchtag or Prechtag (day of Perch or Prech) (earlier, in Zürich: Brechtentag), and in Swabia it was named Oberstag or …berst.

New converts to christianity, trying to shed horror on heathenism, described the formerly honored goddesses as bad spirits, and even Frau Perchtha or Holle, the sweetest and most beneficial goddesses, were made to become aggressive and punishing characters.

Frau Berch or Perch, in Higher Austria and near Salzburg [has been named Salisbury in English], started to kidnap children that were not quiet during the year, and, in order to please them, the little girls had to keep their games well ordered, and servants had to weave their whole spindle before Christmas night, and to hide it under the roof. If she found a spindle with some flax still on it, she would shout angrily:

As much hairs,
As much bad years!

In the Voigtland, on her feast's eve, fish and rolls have to be eaten. If not, Perchtha will come and cut the body of the disobedient one, fill him with chaff and sew him again with a ploughshare and an iron chain.

Carinthia is not any less mistreated, where often even the adults she met were kidnapped. She haunts places, like Frick or Frau Gode, heading a wild army, and in the morning she brings back the unfortunate she took with her, as soulless corpses, holding strange foreign flowers between their fingers and toes.

This is why Frau Holle is burnt each year at Eisfeld in Turingia.

The Sunday of Epiphany, after the divine afternoon service, young and old go to the marketplace, playing music. There, they sing a consecrated song, and they shout, by way of joke: "Frau Holle will be burnt".

St. Lucia, 13th December

Santa Lucia Day

A thousand years ago in Sweden, King Canute declared that Christmas would last a month, from December 13, the feast of St. Lucia until January 13, or Tjugondag Knut (St. Canute's Day). No one is quite sure why Lucia, a 4th century Sicilian saint, came to be so revered in Sweden. Some say she once visited the country, and others believe that Christian missionary stories of her life entranced the Swedish people. Whatever the origin, these new Christians who converted to Christianity around 1000 acquired a special fondness for the saint whose feast day marked the return of the sun and whose name itself means "light."

Santa Lucia is celebrated all over Sweden and in Norway on December 13th. The custom--a young girl dressed in white with candles on her head--has a complicated background, more fiction than fact. Its origin is from 16th century Germany, but it is combined with the Middle Ages custom of celebrating before a fast.

The Italian Santa Lucia (d. 304, Syracuse, Sicily; feast day December 13) was a virgin and martyr who was one of the earliest Christian saints to achieve popularity, having a widespread following before the 5th century. She lived in Syracuse, a town on the Italian island of Sicily. She is the patron saint of the city of Syracuse. Because of various traditions associating her name with light, she came to be thought of as the patron of sight and of the blind and was depicted by medieval artists carrying a dish containing her eyes.

According to apocryphal texts, the beautiful Lucia came from a wealthy Sicilian family. In the days of early Christian persecution, Lucia is said to have carried food to Christians hiding in dark underground tunnels. To light the way she wore a wreath of candles on her head. Spurning marriage and worldly goods, she vowed to remain a virgin in the tradition of St. Agatha. An angry suitor reported her to the local Roman authorities, who sentenced her to be removed to a brothel and forced into prostitution. This order was thwarted, according to legend, by divine intervention and Lucia became immovable and could not be carried away. She was next condemned to death by fire, but she proved impervious to the flames. Finally, her neck was pierced by a sword and she died. In actuality, Lucia was probably a victim of the wave of persecution of Christians that occurred late in the reign of the Roman emperor Diocletian. References to her are found in early Roman sacramentaries and at Syracuse in an inscription dating from AD 400. As evidence of her early fame, 2 churches are known to have been dedicated to her in Britain before the 8th century, at a time when the land was largely pagan.

One of the patron saints of virgins, St. Lucia is venerated on her feast day, December 13, by a variety of ceremonies. At one time, December 13th was the shortest day of the year--St. Lucia, the queen of light, was believed to lead the way for the sun to bring longer days. People lit "St. Lucy's fires" on the evening of her feast day, throwing incense into the flames. They then bathed in the smoke, believing it would protect them from witchcraft, disease, and other dangers. Music was played to accompany the sun's changing course.

In Sweden, St. Lucy's Day marks the beginning of the Christmas celebration. The night before, children leave their shoes outside in order to collect her offerings. Then in the morning, the eldest daughter in each family dresses in a white dress with a red sash, and wears an evergreen wreath with 7 lighted candles on her head. She carries coffee and buns to each family member in his or her room. A traditional song is sung:

Santa Lucia, thy light is glowing
Through darkest winter night, comfort bestowing.
Dreams float on dreams tonight,
Comes then the morning light,
Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia.

St. Lucia bread may be shaped in many traditional ways, including a crown, a cross, simple "S" figures (representing the eyes of St. Lucy) or a wreath. The lighted crown and saffron color dough is also said to symbolize that the sun will soon return.

Often even hotel guests are awakened and served coffee cakes on this day by a white-robed girl. Many schools, offices, and communities sponsor candlelight parades in the evenings in which carols are sung and everyone thanks the Queen of Light for bringing hope during the darkest time of the year.

St. Lucy Trivia

The candle is one of the earliest inventions of the ancient world. Ancient Egyptian tombs at Thebes bear relief carvings of cone-shaped candles on dish-like holders. The oldest known candle fragment was found at Vaison, near Avignon, in France and dates from the 1st century C.E.

The pagan goddess Freya, had a brother named Frey to whom sacrifices were offered at Yule. She was associated with love, fertility, war, and wealth. She wore a bright necklace and drove a chariot pulled by cats.

According to legend, hunger during a famine had weakened so many people in Syracuse that they went as a group to church to ask the saint for deliverance. While they were praying, a ship loaded with grain sailed into the harbor. So to celebrate Santa Lucia Day, Italians eat instead of bread a boiled wheat dish called cuccia or cuccidata.

Before the 16th-century Gregorian calendar reform, St. Lucy's Day fell on the winter solstice. Legends claimed that the saint blinded herself on this, the shortest day of the year.

An old Scandinavian custom forbade all turning motions on St. Lucy's Day, including spinning, stirring, and working a grindstone. Superstitions warned that these circular motions might interfere with the sun's change of course.

Folk belief hinted that miracles occurred at midnight on St. Lucy's Eve. Those awake at this potent hour might hear cattle speaking or see running water turn into wine.

One custom involved writing Lucy's name and drawing a picture of a girl alongside it on doors and fences in the hopes that the saint would hasten the end of winter.

Some St. Lucy-related folklore advised completion of certain tasks by her day: the threshing of all grain from the year's harvest, the completion of the season's spinning and weaving, and the completion of all Christmas cleaning and decorating. Other traditions suggested that farmers slaughter the Christmas pig on St. Lucy's Day and that cooks bury the lutfisken, a traditional Christmas fish, in beech ashes on St. Lucy's Day to be ready by Christmas.

Lucia is often accompanied by star boys, an ancient tradition which dates back to the time when boys used to go door-to-door playing tricks, singing and begging for money to celebrate the winter solstice. (It sounds a little like Halloween)

The History of Christmas.-tree

In 4th century p.C. birth of Jesus was set to 25th of December by Roman Church (Orthodox celebrate it still an other day) as all Christians should celebrate it same day.

In ancient Rome this was the day of Mithras-"Solinvictus" (the invictivle sun) - now changed to Jesus, "the invictible light of the world".

As the German word for Christmas "Weihnacht" (meant winter-solstice in old German) still tells us, this time was also celebrated in Nordic countries. Here it was usual to get some evergreen twigs in the houses this time - pine and juniper, mistles, holly and laurel if it was growing in the area.

Worshipping trees is very common in in almost all old cultures.

These evergreen twigs are surely the precursors of our Christmas-trees.

The first of them, decorated with apples and special cookies, are

mentioned in early 16th century.

"Christkind" Das Nürnberger Christkind Marisa Sanchez

(Christchild)

In some German towns a girl is elected every year to be "Christkind" at at "Christkindl-Markets" for two weeks before Christmas, talking to the children and collecting their wishes.

"Knecht Rupprecht" is the coachman of it´s sledge or coach.

(Picture shows "Christkind" of Nuernberg 2002)

Have tried to find out, where "Christkind" comes from. No chance. "As many heads, as many meanings". My opinion is, it might be a mixture of Idun the godess of youth and New Year, Perchta and Fey Befana. But maybe because it comes on Jesus Christ´s birthday, it has lost it´s femal determination. And maybe the clergymen of these times (15th to 16th century) also couldn´t imagine such an important person to be female.

..and not to forget, this tradition of Christmas too...

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