For the religious ones

Well, I've got an assignment on school which is christmas related, and I have to answer the following questions and give arguments with it why I answered it.
The question is: Are food, the christ stable, decorative lights, and the christmas tree which are used in christmas, pre-christian, christian, or contemporary?

I have no clue about the question on the food, anyone here has a clue?

Thanks in advance.
Comments
25
contemporary
the choice of food and the variety has changed over time, in addition the eating habits and tablewares. pretty much everything has changed from what it used to be during the pre-christian time
Parent
but the thought remains
Parent
it's pre-christian ofc

the tree and lights and food was a part of some old ritual which had something to do with light, not sure how it was called of who invented it...and it's a party where they would make sure there was enough food/drinks for every1 to celebrate the naturegod of light or something...i remember it vaguely but i do remember that the ppl who invented it were worshipping naturegods for something that had to do with light and the christrians who tried to christianise those ppl kept that ritual and made it into a christiantradition
yeah I agree with you, it is all connected to each other, but hey, christmas lights? well it might have developed from something more primitive like candles but still. :/
Parent
weren't christmaslights related to the stars in the sky? and therefor the peak on a christmastree resembles the northern star?
Parent
thanks brought me far.. could you try and check what it was named like?
Parent
np, chaos found what i meant...gl with ur assignment
Parent
contemporary, they've changed over time due to technological advances partially, but sometimes just people's general preferences changing

an exmaple could be that a lot of families choose lamb/beef/pork instead of turkey because they prefer taste > tradition lolz
Whereas others remember that the traditional christmas dinner is actually not turkey, but goose...

EDIT: And I think it's pre christian, the website I found certainly references Celtic traditions in the 9th century. http://www.foodtimeline.org/christmasfood.html
Parent
Wierd questions, depends on if you see everything as symbolic or simple.
Symbolic. It has to do with cultures ( its for mulitcultural studies )
Parent
Okay then, the food represents the bodyfication of gods will himself/midly moving and enlightening and is therefore ethernal and etheral.

The stable could be the konjunction with the birth of jesus and food itself/a rest, peace and fairness of that time and is therefore flawed and extremly excredential.

I could write a book about the christmas lights, or I could write nothing, so I wont bother.

The tree links with the romans weapons and/or the wooden cross which jesus, to christian believes, was crusified upon, which after a certain amount of time led to his "revival" or "reincarnation" as could be seen as a second birth which therefore leads back to the food part and is again flawed and extremly excredential.
Alternatively it could link with the male genitial and the process of baby making and therefore konjuncts with the food part and is therefore again flawed and extremly excredential.

So my final answer is that they are both pre-christian and contemporary as they represent actions that will be repeated and re-repeated for ethernity due to the fact of "real" time.

But on a more simple basis they are all simply contemporary if you think time is a line clinging to the shores of Atlantis the legendary lore.

All this is just "IMHO".
Parent
and now in the simple way? (which you mentioned as well)
Parent
Contemporary because the things have to be exact replicas of what happend before if we don't look at it the symbolic way.
Parent
It basically depends if you're talking about specifics or generalist stuff. The tree, lights (in the form of fire) and food (fattened geese, for example) have been around from pre-christian times. The exact form of all these things has changed over the centuries, so in that sense is contemporary, but the principle is still pre-christian. Constructing an argument for them being christian traditions is harder - the only real point you can make is that the christian church possibly bought all of them together into a single festival in late December, but I don't even know if that's true, and for several hundred years the celebration was perpetuated by christians.
did you check wikipedia already? l
insert smart sounding wall of text
show them "Zeitgeist" xD
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