#In the words of Captain Holt - VINDICATIOOOOOON!

[breelandwalker]

Historical Blindness - A Very Historically Blind Christmas

I love Christmas: the family time, the music, the classic movies, the decorations, the aroma of evergreen trees and spice apple, the taste of gingerbread with my coffee and nutmeg in my eggnog. I am not, however, much of a churchgoer or man of faith; therefore, I have some ambivalence about this holiday which is so often and heatedly defended as a Christian tradition.

"We must remember the reason of the season, and we must keep Christ in Christmas," or so many remind us while lamenting a culture that does not encourage people to keep the nativity scene at the forefront of all thoughts throughout December.

Recently, I saw an image being posted on social media with these statements: “Christmas is based on a pagan holiday. Jesus wasn’t born in December. Christmas trees are a Heathen tradition.” And of course, this wasn’t the first time I’d heard these claims.

Being something of a know-it-all and a pedant who is only too happy to challenge preconceived notions about both history and religion, I have been known to make such statements myself. But of course, as I have learned in making this show, critical thought challenges all preconceived notions, not only the ones that you dislike and want to dispel. The claims of the agnostic, the atheist, and the anti-religious must be examined just as skeptically and fairly as any assertions made by the religious.

So this holiday season, I’ve set out to explore the veracity of these claims and get to the bottom of just how pagan or Christian are Christmas’s origins and traditions.

Join Nathaniel Lloyd, host of the Historical Blindness podcast, on a deep dive into the origins of the Christmas holiday through the lens of secular and religious history.

If you need some more historical holly-jolly, you can also check out the subsequent episodes discussing Father Christmas, the Epiphany of the Magi, Christmas Carols, and The Iconic Christ.

From what I can see, it's gingerbread all the way down....