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As many are still frantically searching for the perfect strenae to offer to their loved ones, I want to wish everyone a safe and Merry Christmas (or whatever holiday you favor). Historically, the holiday we are celebrating has several purposes, most of which tie in to the new year.

In ancient Mesopotamia, the end of the year came with the return of chaos. To battle this, the people would offer their king as a sacrifice to their god, Marduk. The line of thinking appeared to be: We kill the king, he becomes immortalized and then can help our god Marduk battle chaos and give us another year of moderate temperatures without glacial melt (or whatever pressing form of chaos existed for them). Funny how it ended up, however. Rather than killing their king, they would offer a criminal. The criminal would be a "king for a day", dressed in royal garb and treated to all the respect and privileges of the king - until sundown, when he was stripped from his royal clothing and slain. Ostensibly, Marduk wasn't peeved that he received a criminal rather than the king (or had a sense of humor) and granted another year of calm.

The Persians and Babylonians were a bit more friendly, taking only the "switching of roles" part from the Mesopotamians. Every year at the celebration of Sacaea, the slaves became the masters and the masters had to obey them. That had to be interesting.

And, of course, ancient Romans exchanged strenae to celebrate the coming of the new year. There are other variations of the holiday, most notably the adoption of the celebratory mood by Christians. In 350 AD, Roman Bishop Julius I choose December 25th as the observance of Christmas. And here we are.

To whatever extent you celebrate, please don't forget to reflect upon the year and do whatever ritual (short of slaying someone I hope) to fight chaos and bring in the new year with a calm to tackle the opportunities of 2008.

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