聖誕樹與熱朱古力

剛喝了杯mocha﹐天寒地凍﹐沒什麼比一杯及時的熱咖啡或熱可可好(找次再說說這種全球七萬平方公里也在栽種著的植物罷)﹐cinnamon, nutmeg 等香料也總給人一種節日的味道。聖誕總是有如此大的魔力﹐可令人不計後果的瘋狂消費﹐是在寒冷之中尋求一點心靈上的溫暖罷? 溫暖還溫暖﹐卻要衡量一下銀包﹐否則聖誕的孤獨感殺不了你(*1)﹐之後的手尾也很長﹐正是「吾雖不殺伯仁，伯仁由我而死」《晉書‧周顗傳》﹐哈哈。

其實自己一向也十分討厭聖誕﹐從來感不到有什麼值得普世歡騰。本來聖誕也不是為了什麼聖人誕生﹐純粹是權力和政治扭曲出來的副產品﹐原本就是個醉酒﹐暴力﹐強姦﹐血腥和屠殺的節日(*2)(不是比現代的聖誕更刺激嗎?)。當然最重要的還是己有過幾段不愉快的經歷﹐聖誕感到過孤單﹐感到過絕望﹐感到過出賣﹐還有在孤獨的聖誕夜爆過屎渠﹐污水入屋(超惡感)。第一段分手﹐第一次食煙(好像不是聖誕﹐不過賴得就賴啦)﹐第一次沉醉(至今未醒)。那幾年一到聖誕前後有種莫明的厭惡感﹐不過後來在零三年的聖誕罷? 趁著伴上了學﹐拿出了千多元的積蓄﹐跑到附近的商場買了聖誕樹﹐買了裝飾﹐糊亂的佈置一番。其實要開心幸福﹐不過是種心意﹐可以自己製造出來﹐不需要什麼神佛﹐不需要什麼特別日子﹐心內也可很充實﹑溫暖。突然間一個個裝飾﹐一盞盞微弱的燈光﹐不知在何時又變得可愛。

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*1: Despite the common believe of "Holiday Depression" and "Christmas Blues", the fact is that the holidays are not much associated with suicide rates: "Suicide and the Media". It's association is very much again obliged to our trustworthy inaccurate media.

Above Graph: is my own theory explaining the rates of suicide from an economic viewpoint. Haha!


*2:How Did Christmas Come to Be Celebrated on December 25?

December 25th occurs about the time of the Winter Solistice, the shortest day of the year. The shortening days were taken as a sign that the Sun was getting weaker. After the Solistice, the days begin to get longer ...... and pagan peoples thought that was an indication that the Sun was getting stronger. Roman pagans first introduced the holiday of Saturnalia, a week long period of lawlessness celebrated between December 17-25. During this period, Roman courts were closed, and Roman law dictated that no one could be punished for damaging property or injuring people during the weeklong celebration. The festival began when Roman authorities chose “an enemy of the Roman people” to represent the “Lord of Misrule.” Each Roman community selected a victim whom they forced to indulge in food and other physical pleasures throughout the week. At the festival’s conclusion, December 25th, Roman authorities believed they were destroying the forces of darkness by brutally murdering this innocent man or woman. The ancient Greek writer poet and historian Lucian (in his dialogue entitled Saturnalia) describes the festival’s observance in his time. In addition to human sacrifice, he mentions these customs: widespread intoxication; going from house to house while singing naked; rape and other sexual license; and consuming human-shaped biscuits (still produced in some English and most German bakeries during the Christmas season). In the 4th century CE, Christianity imported the Saturnalia festival hoping to take the pagan masses in with it. Christian leaders succeeded in converting to Christianity large numbers of pagans by promising them that they could continue to celebrate the Saturnalia as Christians. The problem was that there was nothing intrinsically Christian about Saturnalia. To remedy this, these Christian leaders named Saturnalia’s concluding day, December 25th, to be Jesus’ birthday. Christians had little success, however, refining the practices of Saturnalia. As Stephen Nissenbaum, professor history at the University of Massachussetts, Amherst, writes, “In return for ensuring massive observance of the anniversary of the Savior’s birth by assigning it to this resonant date, the Church for its part tacitly agreed to allow the holiday to be celebrated more or less the way it had always been.” The earliest Christmas holidays were celebrated by drinking, sexual indulgence, singing naked in the streets (a precursor of modern caroling), etc. The Reverend Increase Mather of Boston observed in 1687 that “the early Christians who first observed the Nativity on December 25 did not do so thinking that Christ was born in that Month, but because the Heathens’ Saturnalia was at that time kept in Rome, and they were willing to have those Pagan Holidays metamorphosed into Christian ones.” Because of its known pagan origin, Christmas was banned by the Puritans and its observance was illegal in Massachusetts between 1659 and 1681. However, Christmas was and still is celebrated by most Christians. Some of the most depraved customs of the Saturnalia carnival were intentionally revived by the Catholic Church in 1466 when Pope Paul II, for the amusement of his Roman citizens, forced Jews to race naked through the streets of the city. An eyewitness account reports, “Before they were to run, the Jews were richly fed, so as to make the race more difficult for them and at the same time more amusing for spectators. They ran… amid Rome’s taunting shrieks and peals of laughter, while the Holy Father stood upon a richly ornamented balcony and laughed heartily.” As part of the Saturnalia carnival throughout the 18th and 19th centuries CE, rabbis of the ghetto in Rome were forced to wear clownish outfits and march through the city streets to the jeers of the crowd, pelted by a variety of missiles. When the Jewish community of Rome sent a petition in 1836 to Pope Gregory XVI begging him to stop the annual Saturnalia abuse of the Jewish community, he responded, “It is not opportune to make any innovation.” On December 25, 1881, Christian leaders whipped the Polish masses into Antisemitic frenzies that led to riots across the country. In Warsaw 12 Jews were brutally murdered, huge numbers maimed, and many Jewish women were raped. Two million rubles worth of property was destroyed.