The Real Meaning of Christmas - PARTY!

The Christmas holiday season dates back thousands of years, and it’s always been a favorite amongst party animals.  The long December nights and extreme cold give plenty of reasons to stay in and curl up with a bottle of vodka.  Since there isn’t much work to be done on the farm in the winter, ancient people treated the entire holiday season like Spring Break -but without the bikinis.

In spirit of the holidays, I’ve done a little research to find 5 ways that mankind has partied on Christmas (and the Winter Solstice) throughout history.

5)  Magic Mushrooms:  Why We Really Put Gifts Under the Tree

Some ethnobotonists (and dreadlocked stoners) suggest that many Christmas traditions –including leaving gifts under the tree –can be traced back to ancient magic mushroom use.

A psychedelic mushroom known as the Amanita Muscaria grows under evergreen trees in Siberia.  Reindeer are quite fond of eating them, and are known to prance around like maniacs afterwards.  How else do you think reindeer learned to fly?

When these mushrooms fruit, Siberian Shamans rush to collect these “gifts” from under the trees before the reindeer come and eat them all.  Once these Shamans got their haul of ‘shrooms home, they’d string them up and hang them on their fireplace to dry.  Then they’d use them for “Sacred Shaman Rituals”.  In other words, they’d eat a bunch of mushrooms, put on a Pink Floyd album and look at some Magic Eye Posters.

These mushrooms make the user feel much stronger.  Some believe the Vikings ate them before their berserker raids to increase their endurance.  I think that Santa uses them too –how else could he deliver all of those packages in one night?

Ever wonder why Santa still uses reindeer, even though they are an obsolete form of transportation?  That’s because the urine of an intoxicated Reindeer is just as hallucinogenic as the mushroom itself.   Technically, it’s safer to drink the urine of an intoxicated person or animal than it is to eat the mushroom directly, since many toxic compounds are removed on the first pass through the body.  Siberians would often drink each other’s piss to keep their trip going.  No wonder Santa is so attached to Rudolph and his friends!  The milk and cookies are just to get rid of the aftertaste.

If this evidence of the link between Amanita and Christmas isn’t enough for you, take a look at some Amanita Muscaria Christmas decorations:

Santa has got to be high on magic mushrooms ALL the time.  The man lives on the North Pole in a toy factory full of Elves, for crying out loud.  If he isn’t on drugs, he’s got some serious problems.

4)  Cannibalism in Ancient Greece

The Maenads were the crazy female worshippers of Dionysis, the Greek god of mystery, wine, and intoxication.  They were known as wild, violent women that would get wasted, dance around in skimpy outfits, and overindulge in sex.  Just like that girl you met at Spring break!

The Maenads had a winter solstice ritual was called Lenaea, or the Festival of the Wild Women.  Just the name makes most guys think of hot, bi-curious women running around naked -like some sort of ancient version of Wild Woman Vacations.  As you can imagine, they never had any shortage of willing male participants.

Sounds erotic, doesn’t it?  It wasn’t –they’d dress the guy up like Dionysis, kill him, and serve him for dinner.  The poor guys thought they were getting into a wild group orgy, but instead were torn to pieces and eaten by a gang of cannibal women.  It was just like the 1989 Bill Maher film, “Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death”.

3)  Naked Boys Singing:  Our First Christmas Carolers

Back in the good ole’ days in Ancient Rome, the Christmas season was a week-long period of lawlessness known as Saturnalia, during which young men would get drunk and run through the streets naked and sing for their neighbors.  I don’t know why anyone would want to go caroling naked in the snow, but I’m pretty sure it started as a Fraternity prank that spiraled out of control.  Anyway, it was the one time of year when you could run amok and do whatever the hell you want.

Another popular Saturnalia tradition was that slaves and their masters would switch roles –masters would prepare the food and serve the slaves.  We still have a similar tradition today –the Office Holiday Party.  It’s the one time of year your boss is actually nice to you.

2)  Human Sacrifice in Ancient Mesopotamia
Marduk sounds like the name of a monster from the World of Warcraft, but he is actually one of the head Gods of Babylonia.  Every winter, this idiot God would somehow get trapped in the Underworld.  In his absence, the Gods of Chaos would devour the sun.  To ancient Mesopotamians, this idiotic story explained why the days got shorter in the winter every year.

The Mesopotamians never stopped to think that maybe a God that allows himself to get captured every year isn’t worth worshiping.  Yet every year, they’d throw a twelve-day festival called Zagmuk to help him out.  On the eighth day, the high priests would sacrifice their King so his spirit may travel to the spirit world to help Marduk fight the monsters of Chaos.  I don’t know what kind of God would need help from a mortal, but he sound like kind of a shitty god to me.

After a while they realized that they were wasting perfectly good kings, so they started dressing up prisoners in royal clothing and executing them instead.  Then the real king would select a “high priestess” to have sex with.  This ritual intercourse was thought to regenerate the cosmos through a re-enactment of the primordial coupling of the cosmic parents An and Ki, who brought the world into being at the dawn of Time.  I’ve tried this line on girls, and I can’t believe it actually worked back then!  The best part of all was that these priestesses took a vow of refusal to bear children, so the king didn’t even have to wear protection or worry about paying child support.

To this day, Marduk lives on –not as a God, but as a nineties Swedish metal band.  You can friend them on MySpace here.

1)  The Original War on Christmas

Every December, FOX News does a story about how the “War on Christmas” is destroying our mainstream American way of life.  The War on Christmas is nothing new –it’s been going on ever since the first colonists landed in Massachusetts.

The Puritans celebrated Christmas by outlawing any celebration at all.  They hated the debauchery of the old-World Pagan customs, and outlawed the celebrations from 1659 until 1681.  Anyone caught celebrating or enjoying themselves was fined five shillings.  The only celebration allowed was quiet and respectful prayer.  Even after Christmas was legalized, many colonists still abstained from celebrations because they were too prude.

In 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant signed a law to make Christmas a national holiday, essentially telling the Puritans that remained in Boston to suck it.  To this day, Massachusetts is still lame.  It’s still impossible to buy a six-pack on Christmas Day, so you’re on your own when it comes to dealing with your annoying Aunt Patty.

Massachusetts wasn’t the only place to ban Christmas revelries.  A similar ban took place in England in 1647, when England’s puritan rulers banned Christmas.  Pro-Christmas rioting broke out in several cities -led by some angry parents that just needed to have a Tickle Me Elmo for their kids.

The True Meaning of Christmas

The true meaning of Christmas has been lost because it’s become such a commercial holiday.  Just remember -it’s not about the presents.  It’s not about the birth of Christ either.  It’s about getting smashed, getting naked, and sacrificing small mammals in the streets.  Don’t ever forget that.