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The Christmas Tree
A re-birth, more practicularly the re-birth of light, was a solar symbolism dating back at least to the Roman festival of Saturnalia, when evergreen decorations celebrated the death of the old year and birth of the New. In the Christian era, the lights and candles came to symbolize souls.

The evergreen tree is the Winter Solstice, the New Year and fresh beginning. It is also the tree of immortality, the Tree of Paradise of lights and gifts, shining by night. Each light is a soul, and the lights also represent the sun, moon, and stars shining in the branches of the Cosmic Tree. The Pine tree, sacred to Attis, Atargatis, and Cybele, was hung with gold and silver ornaments, bells, etc. with the sacred bird in the branches and sacrifical gifts underneath. The Yule tree was fir, sacred to Woden/Odin.

In the eighth century, a man named Boniface met the Druids. Boniface witnessed the Druids bringing oak trees into their homes at the winter solstice, decorating them with gold balls. When Boniface saw the people bringing oak trees into their homes, he diverted them to consider the evergreen tree instead, and used it to teach them about eternal life.

The Gold represents the sun, the quality of sacredness, incorruptibility. Showers of gold symbolize the sun's rays.

The Silver represents the moon; virginity, the femine aspect with the gold as the masculine.

The Stars represents the divinity, supremacy; the eternal, the undying, the highest attainment, the eyes of the night. Stars are attributes of all Queens of Heaven.

Legend has it, that at the death of Nimrod, Semiramis taught the young Tammuz to go into the groves and place a gift on a tree at the winter solstice. This was an offering to his father, Nimrod, who was now the sun.

Branches of trees came to symbolize Nimrod also, so decorating Pagan temples and homes with holly, boughs, and wreaths was the custom. The wreaths are branches twisted into circles, so the branches would be associated with the sun.

In the 18th and 19th century when there was wide spread famine in Eire Land, the only hope of escape from death was emigration. This is when the Irish came to the United States, and brought with them Catholicism. The earlier colonizers had fled to the United States because of the religious persecution of Catholic and Anglican intolerance. The Irish Catholics had the rich cultural background of Druidism, which they had blended together with Roman Catholicism. They also brought their 'Christmas tree' tradition, along with Christmas, which had been outlawed as pagan in many colonies. The Catholics in South America have assimilated the cultural background of the Aztecs. Other Catholics from around the world would not recognize many things they do--and so it is with them in many parts of the world.
But the sad fact remains, whatever Pagans were doing before they became inter-mixed with the Roman Catholic facade, this ends up forming a kind of 'crust', masking the paganism.

As mentioned above, there were civil laws enacted in the Americas which prohibited the celebration of “Christmas”, because they knew it to be a Pagan festival counterfeited as a holy-day. Here is a little irony of American history who prides itself as being a Christian Nation founded on Christian values. George Washington crossed the Delaware to attack the British on Christmas Day. George knew that because the British celebrated on Christmas , they would be drunken and unprepared to defend themselves. ( I am not a history buff, and have not verified this story. But then, how many people actually verify something that they have read. When history records something, it is often deemed as truth.) If one has eyes to see, one can see a steady progression from Paganism, to Roman Catholic practices and then to the Evangelical Church embracement of the same.

At this point some of the Readers may ask, “Knowing the true facts of Christmas and its' tinsel, how did December 25 ever become the Churches' Holy Day?” The answer is found in two concepts, namely Contextulization and Syncretism. Contextulization means, simply put, if one set of standards or rules don't work, change it, until something works. Syncretism is when a religious or philosophical behavior is united or combined with another behavior.

Let me give you another example how these concepts are used. In the western world when we see a picture of Jesus we have a handsome white man with blue/green eyes. In the Orient they have a Chinese Jesus, and in African countries we have a black Jesus. Is there a danger in this? Maybe not, however in my limited
reasonability it would tend to make this man Jesus a myth, instead of the real thing. I wonder if I made the image of Martin Luther King into a white man, or a Chinese man, and recorded it into history books, would the people find this acceptable?

Personally what contextulization and syncretism says to me is that it is a conscious attempt to disguise one thing in the camouflage of another by re-inventing a new meaning, and believing it.

As for myself and my family in our pursuit of being Politically Correct, we no longer celebrate the Messiahs birth on December 25. Pastors and Christian writers such as Grant Jeffries acknowledge that the Messiah was not born on December 25, but probably in the fall, around the time frame when the Feast of Tents is celebrated. This Feast is celebrated in September or October for 8 days.

Do I know exactly when HE was born? No, but if Politically Correctness is an issue, which I believe it is, I will celebrate His birth in the Jewishness of YaHVeH's established appointed holy day, namely on the Eighth Day of the Feast of Tabernacles and should I learn that the Messiah was born at a different time frame, such as during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, I will change my practice in order to be politically correct. I use the phrase 'politically correct' as if this is the authority, but what I hope to show you is that I will stop at nothing to walk uprightly regardless of my peers. I will go against the flow. I will not be a conformist.

In breaking the truth barrier, Christianity admits that many of its Christmas traditions were originally Pagan, but excuse them by saying that they are only in the background now. People also say, since we don't intend to be worshiping the sun now, everything is okay. However, when a person chooses to believe something, their heart follows after it. Even if it's a lie, or a fantasy, it matters not to them.

It is very important that we consider the impact that contextulization has had on our accepted customs, regardless of who is to blame, whether Constantine, The Roman Catholic Church, or the Evangelical Church, because through them all, they have acted as a ‘lens’ which filtered-out the (Jewish) roots of the faith.

Am I opposed to a winter celebration season with gift giving, etc? Not at all. I value the company of good friends and family. I enjoy the warmth of a crackling fire, dancing, playing cards, a fondu dinner with all its trimmings, sipping on warm wine......but in the case of my husband he would rather enjoy a few cervezas. There is nothing pagan about having a good old party, as long as that is all it is. However to teach people that December 25 is YaHVeH's Son’s birthday is in error.

It's time to wake up people. With today’s technology and the easy access of information via the internet, the camouflage is about to be exposed. In closing, I am reminded of a frightening message that I heard being taught by a local pastor approximately 7 years ago, saying: “If you have a truth, but if the truth causes division, you drop the truth for the sake of unity.”

Written by my wife a few years ago,
Linda
ps; it was too long for one post, sorry!