THE MORON’S ALMANAC™

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Almost as reliable as the Farmer’s Almanac®, but without all that crap about farming.

*** Volume 4, Number 8 ***

*** Wednesday, December 22 through Friday, December 31 ***

--- EDITORIAL NOTE ---

This is the last edition of 1999. The Almanac will resume with the first issue of Volume 5 on January 11, 2000. See last week’s almanac for more information about changes to this website for the year 2000.

--- MORONIC TRIVIA ---

(Answer below)

What do Finns traditionally visit on Christmas Eve?

a. The forest

b. The beach

c. The sauna

d. The cemetery

e. Sweden

Bonus: what kind of plums are used in plum pudding?

--- CHRISTMAS, AND HOW IT GOT THAT WAY ---

Christmas is one of the most widely celebrated holidays in the world, although the shape of its observation varies widely from nation to nation. Here in America, our cultural kleptomania has allowed us to assimilate the most enjoyable of those traditions while discarding any primitive or stupid superstitions that may be associated with them.

This week’s special holiday edition of the Moron’s Almanac is pleased to present an almost factual historical look at this patchwork holiday.

The winter solstice had long been celebrated by ignorant barbarians throughout the northern hemisphere as that time of the year when the sun stopped getting smaller and smaller and finally started getting bigger and bigger again. The sun was important to these poor primitive bastards, in much the same way that we poor modern bastards find it so important. It was, after all, the sun.

To avoid having to go out much during the darkest and coldest days of the year, the poor shivering Norse bastards of Scandinavia would bundle up and hurry out to bring home great big logs which would often burn for as long as twelve days. As long as the log burned, they would stay in and eat and drink and fornicate. (They believed that every spark their log set off foretold the birth of a calf or pig in the new year, which only underscores the irony of the Nobel prize being awarded in Sweden.)

They believed the sun was a big wheel ("hweol") that rolled away from the earth until the winter solstice, at which point it began rolling back toward us. This quaint ignorance charmed the weak and flabby peoples over whom the Vikings later swept like an apocalyptic affliction. However, these peoples could not pronounce hwoel, and therefore called it "yule." This irritated the Vikings and eventually forced their withdrawal.

Even while the Norse were hauling those logs into their houses, others throughout Europe were enjoying some of the finest dining of the year. Since it was too expensive to feed and shelter animals through the cold weather, those in northern climes killed their livestock at the onset of each winter. This provided their only steady supply of fresh meat of the year, and went nicely with the wines and ales which had finally become fermented. The resultant digestive problems are probably to blame for the primitive Germans’ fear that the god Odin was flying around the sky above them during the solstice, deciding who was naughty and who was nice. It was not entirely academic, as Odin’s invariable verdict for the naughty was death.

Primitive bastards everywhere also liked to bring sprigs and boughs of evergreens into their homes around the time of the solstice to remind themselves that sooner or later all that awful cold and snow would end and it would get warm enough to go outside and eat, drink, and fornicate in the fresh air. The Druids brought evergreen boughs into their temples every winter as a sign of everlasting life, and the Vikings thought that evergreens were the plant of their own sun-god, Balder. Even the Egyptians worshipped their sun-god Ra’s "recovery" by bringing palm rushes into their homes.

Meanwhile, in Rome, the festival of Saturnalia began the week before the solstice and lasted a full month. Romans ate and drank and fornicated during this festival in honor of Saturn, the god of Agriculture. They filled their homes with evergreen boughs to remind themselves that everything would be green again eventually. They also let slaves become masters for the duration of the festival, and the plebians were put in charge of the city. It was a crazy, topsy-turvy time, with all sorts of nutty mix-ups. Overlapping with Saturnalia around the time of the solstice was Juvenalia, a feast to honor the children of the city.

The winter solstice fell on December 25 in the year 274, and the pagan Roman Emperor Aurelian declared that day a holiday: the festival of the Birth of the Invincible Sun. The Invincible Sun was also known as Mithra. Mithra was an infant god who had been born from a rock--presumably virgin rock. The Roman upper classes, with their special fondness for rocks, honored this holiday as one of the most sacred in the year.

Christianity, for long a mere sect, had by now begun to gather some steam.

St. Nicholas was born around this time in what is today Turkey, but was then just another primitive desert backwater full of bickering barbarians. One popular story about St. Nicholas was that he had saved three sisters from being sold into slavery or prostitution by sneaking money for dowries into their shoes and socks. He died on December 6, and this was subsequently celebrated as his feast day. It came to be considered a lucky day on which to buy things or get married, or both. He was honored as a protector of children and sailors. By the Renaissance he had topped all the European charts to become the most popular saint ever.

In the fourth century, church leaders decided to begin celebrating the birth of Jesus, since it seemed morbid just celebrating his death. No one is really sure when Jesus was born, although most scholars are pretty sure it wasn’t late December and most astrologists are quick to point out that Jesus doesn’t seem like a Capricorn. Pope Julius I chose to make his birthday December 25, since people were already used to celebrating at that time of year. The holiday was called the Feast of the Nativity, and by the end of the eighth century it had spread across all of Europe, even to those remote and primitive corners where people still thought the sun was a big yellow wheel.

By the middle ages, Christianity had penetrated almost all of Europe, but Christmas was still a blend of ignorant barbarian superstitions and unbearable religious seriousness. Christians would attend a Christmas mass on December 25, then eat, drink, and fornicate like they did in the old days. They would crown some wretched beggar the "lord of misrule," and the drunken revelers would happily and laughingly obey his every command. The poor would show up at the doors of the rich and demand food, and drink, and if they were denied they would often laughingly burn down the house, beat its inhabitants, and rape the womenfolk before moving on to the next house. It was a very jolly holiday.

Devout Christians of sixteenth century Germany began trying to outdo the rest of Europe with their usual humorless Teutonic ambition: instead of hanging just a few little evergreen boughs about the hearth at Christmastime, they began hauling whole trees into their homes. According to legend, Martin Luther himself was walking home from a sermon one night when he was struck by the beauty of the glittering stars among the pines. When he got home he promptly decorated his own tree with candles. Despite the obvious fire hazard, this quickly became a popular tradition.

After the Reformation, puritans decided there was too much eating, drinking, and fornicating at Christmas, and that it was therefore bad. Many of them outlawed it. This was not usually popular: in England, for example, Oliver Cromwell cancelled Christmas, resulting in the restoration of Charles II and the retaliatory cancellation of Mr. Cromwell’s head.

All of this was bad for Christmas, but such was St. Nicholas’s popularity that it did little to deter from his reputation. He remained on top of the charts. Nowhere was he more popular than in Holland, where he was venerated as Sint Nikolaas (Dutch for St. Nicholas), or more familiarly as Sinter Klaas.

The puritan bastards who settled America avoided Christmas as part and parcel of their longstanding commitment to No Fun. Massachusetts Colony actually penalized anyone caught celebrating Christmas with a five shilling fine. Since it was considered an English holiday, it was ostentatiously ignored in the years of and after the Revolution, and wasn’t made a federal holiday until after the Civil War (on June 26, 1870).

Washington Irving had done his part in sorting through barbarian superstitions for things that were wholesome, pleasant, and commercial enough to be made officially American, and in 1809 he referred to St. Nicholas as the Patron Saint of New York. In 1822 an Episcopalian minister named Clement Clarke Moore wrote a frivolous poem for his daughters entitled "A Visit from St. Nicholas." Mr. Moore cleverly ignored all elements of the good saint’s biography involving slavery, prostitution, dowries, and sailors, and focused instead on sleighs, reindeer, and presents for good little American boys and girls. The poem was so silly and frivolous that it became one of the most popular American poems ever.

By 1820, American stores had begun to advertise Christmas shopping, and by 1841 children were flocking to stores to see Santa Claus. And so it was that America began applying its curious collective genius for assimilation to the vast storehouse of silly and primitive traditions from throughout the world.

Thus we need not concern ourselves with St. Lucia, the patron saint of the blind, whom Scandinavians honor each December 13 ("Little Yule") with elaborate pagan rituals involving candles, torches, and bonfires. We need not worry about the witch Babouschka, who visits Russian children with gifts each Christmas to compensate for a nasty little joke she once played on the wise men, or the Italian witch La Befana. We need not trouble ourselves with the construction of piñatas each holiday season, as Mexican parents must. We don’t have to sit around our tables as they do in Ukraine, waiting for the evening star to appear before we begin our meal. We need not fear the kallikantzeri of Greece, nasty little goblins that cause mischief for the twelve days of Christmas. We need not refrain from eating meat, eggs, milk, or cheese, as must the Iranians celebrating "Little Feast." And we need not put on trunks and gloves to beat each other bloody each December 26, as must citizens of the British Commonwealth celebrating "Boxing Day."

The Moron’s Almanac expresses its gratitude and admiration for our American traditions, which are so much better than the traditions of every other country, and wishes all its readers of every faith a very merry Christmas, a happy Hanukkah, and a shiny new century.

---THIS WEEK’S VITAL MORONIC INFO---

Full Moon

Winter Solstice

Unduvap Poya Day, Sri Lanka

Army Day, Vietnam

Unity Day, Zimbabwe

Victory Day, Egypt

Emperor's Birthday, Japan

Christmas Eve Observance, Texas and W. Virginia

Christmas Eve (Christian)

Constitution Day, Yap (Micronesia)

Christmas Day (Christian)

Boxing Day / St. Stephen's Day (Christian)

Kwanzaa begins

King's Birthday, Nepal

Republic Day, Madagascar

Rizal Day, Philippines

New Year's Eve Observance, West Virginia

Revolution Day, Ghana

New Year's Eve / St. Sylvester's Day

Republic Day, Republic of Congo

--- BIRTHDAYS ---

Maurice Gibb (1949)

Robin Gibb (1949)

Steve Garvey (1948)

Diane Sawyer (1945)

Barbara Billingsley (1922)

Gene Rayburn (1917)

Lady Bird Johnson (1912)

Giacomo Puccini (1858)

Susan Lucci (1948)

Harry Shearer (1943)

Jose Greco (1918)

Connie Mack (1862)

Joseph Smith (1805)

Alexander I, Russia (1777)

Ricky Martin (1971)

Mary Higgins Clark (1929)

Ava Gardner (1922)

Howard Hughes (1905)

Kit Carson (1809)

King John, England (1166)

Rickey Henderson (1958)

Annie Lennox (1954)

Sissy Spacek (1949)

Jimmy Buffett (1946)

Rod Serling (1924)

Anwar Sadat (1918)

Cab Calloway (1907)

Humphrey Bogart (1899)

Robert Ripley (1893)

Conrad Hilton (1887)

Rosa Luxemburg (1870)

Clara Barton (1841)

Sir Isaac Newton (1642)

Jesus (1?)

Carlton Fisk (1947)

Alan King (1927)

Steve Allen (1921)

Mao Tse-tung (1893)

Henry Miller (1891)

Charles Babbage (1792)

Gerard Depardieu (1948)

Cokie Roberts (1943)

Oscar Levant (1906)

Marlene Dietrich (1901)

Sydney Greenstreet (1879)

Louis Pasteur (1822)

Johannes Kepler (1571)

Denzel Washington (1954)

Edgar Winter (1946)

Maggie Smith (1934)

Johnny Otis (1924)

Earl "Fatha" Hines (1905)

Woodrow Wilson (1856)

Marianne Faithfull (1946)

Jon Voight (1938)

Mary Tyler Moore (1936)

William Gladstone (1809)

Andrew Johnson (1808)

Charles Goodyear (1800)

Jeanne Poisson de Pompadour (1721)

Tiger Woods (1975)

Tracey Ullman (1959)

Davy Jones (1945)

Michael Nesmith (1942)

Sandy Koufax (1935)

Bo Diddley (1928)

Bert Parks (1914)

Tojo Hideki (1884)

Simon Guggenheim (1867)

Rudyard Kipling (1865)

Val Kilmer (1959)

Donna Summer (1948)

Patti Smith (1946)

Barbara Carrera (1945)

John Denver (1943)

Ben Kingsley (1943)

Sarah Miles (1941)

Anthony Hopkins (1937)

Odetta (1930)

Simon Wiesenthal (1908)

Henri Matisse (1869)

--- ASTROLOGICAL FORECAST ---

Sadly, the moronic astrologist has joined an apocalyptic doomsday cult and will no longer be providing weekly forecasts. He will, however, provide a valuable free personality test if you can spare just a moment of your time...

Trivia solution: Actually, Finns visit both (c) the sauna and (d) the cemetery, specifically the graves of deceased family members. However, there are fine saunas and plenty of graveyards in (e) Sweden, so that can’t be ruled out entirely. Some saunas are surely on the coast or in the woods, as there isn’t a whole hell of a lot else in Finland, so it wouldn’t be fair to rule out (a) the forest or (b) the beach, either. In other words, you win. Congratulations. Bonus: plum pudding contains suet, flour, sugar, raisins, nuts, and spices. It is topped with plain cream.

--- THIS WEEK’S FARMING TIP ---

Farmers, be not afraid! The great yellow wheel in the sky is not dying! Even today, it begins to grow well again, and soon will melt the frosts and warm the life-giving earth! This farming tip is our holiday gift to agriculturalists everywhere, whom we have spurned all year. However, we make no promises of future farming tips, and remind all farmers that the tip provided above is purely speculative. The Moron’s Almanac in no way guarantees or accepts responsibility for the accuracy of its content. Farming tips can be found with reassuring regularity in the Farmer’s Almanac®. This is not the Farmer’s Almanac®. This is the Moron’s Almanac™. Please try not to get us mixed up again: it confuses us and embarrasses the farmers. Thanks.

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