In the 13th century Marco Polo brought it to the West from China. After the Roman Empire fell, ginger all but disappeared from Europe. Though the Romans used ginger for medicinal and culinary purposes, we don’t know if the spice was an ingredient in Saturnalia biscuits. Carousing became caroling and gift-giving recalled the Magi’s offerings to the baby Jesus. As Christianity spread through the Roman empire, religious leaders replaced Saturnalia with Christmas and cleaned up the festivities. Celebrants gobbled down man-shaped biscuits representing the culminating event of Saturnalia-human sacrifice as a gift to appease the gods. The decadent festivities included excessive drinking, eating, and carousing. Precursors to gingerbread men played a role in the Saturnalia, the Roman winter solstice celebration. The sweet treat’s history made it perfect for Gingerdead Man, my contemporary Christmas mystery. Over the centuries the gingerbread pendulum swings between dark and light. Win.The pudgy gingerbread man with his candy eyes and icing smile has a sinister backstory-a link to death and the demonic. Sure, but we've got Black Friday and TV-induced paranoia. Maybe some elements of Saturnalia were best left behind, as “there are joyful and utopian aspects of careless well-being side by side with disquieting elements of threat and danger.” This way I don't hamper the games of my people and they don't hinder my work or studies.” especially during the Saturnalia when the rest of the house is noisy with the license of the holiday and festive cries. Say it again! - and not everyone loved the holiday anyway, such as Pliny the Grinch who would retire to rooms in his Laurentine villa “. Greek iterations of the holidays began to merge around 200 BC - War! Hunh! What is it good for? Cultural assimilation. There was a master of ceremonies at Saturnalia, a princeps, a kind of Lord of Misrule which lives on more or less in Carnival celebrations today, and of course Heath Ledger's outstanding performance in “The Dark Knight.” Gag-gifting began then, too, because some thought holy days were not times to show off one's wealth therefore, presents were often tokens, candles or simple homemade items. Saturnalia featured a gift-giving day, sometimes accompanied by verses. Saturnalia-orthodox - but the Romans really dug the kissing part, as do most folks, so that stuck. Other beliefs persist about mistletoe, like that it wards off bad luck or evil spirits - possibly by killing them with its poisonous berries, so keep kiddies and pets away, unless you're Though maybe not for Loki, except and unless played by that cool actor, because who can stay mad at him? Baldur was reborn, like gods and goddesses of myth often do, so mom Frigga hung the mistletoe up to celebrate, kissing anyone who passed beneath as a sign of love and forgiveness. Yes, Loki shot Baldur through the heart, and he's to blame, with an arrow of mistletoe, which gives family a bad name. Decking the mead halls at or around the solstice was practiced by the Druids, the Egyptians, the Saxons and really pretty much all the folks overrun by the oh-so-dangerous Romans, who flat-out stole the trees and holly idea for Saturnalia, a tribute to the god of seed and sowing. Most folks of the northern hemisphere, where this darker nights time o' year suggested the sun's fading interest in our two-legged infestation of mother Gaia, adorned homes with greens - holly, ivy, or the oak Irminsul (Great Pillar) for the Saxons - to represent, or magically summon, the return of the sun and spring, with its magic rabbits producing chocolate eggs out of hats. The wizened, not to be confused with wise, ancients venerated life and green things because they hadn't invented iPhones yet.
By now even a Faux News squawking head should know that, aside from mangers and Baby Jesus, pretty much everything we think of now as Christmas-y was borrowed from pagan religions, aka “anything that's not my belief.” Statius, 1 A.D., writing on the holy days of SaturnaliaĪt least as far back as 2005, I have been decrying the War on Saturnalia.
“For how many years shall this festival abide! Never shall age destroy so holy a day! While the hills of Latium remain and father Tiber, while thy Rome stands and the Capitol thou hast restored to the world, it shall continue.”
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