It’s right after the section where they explain that God wears a blood red fursuit and flies around on a sleigh dispensing presents in return for propitiating behaviors like not stealing cookies from the cookie jar. That’s how he holds Mass for his son.
To be fair, we do have some pretty weird mixed messages about Christmas. Is it about a fat guy in a red suit cleaning your chimney with presents, or an ancient Jewish guy getting crucified because he pissed off too many powerful people?
it was work for the Judean carpenter’s union and a family-friendly show for the public, all on the Imperial denarius, you know, economic stimulus plus public entertainment at taxpayer expense. IOW it was ‘good’ for someone.
That’s because Christianity is and always has been a death cult. They don’t really care about the birth, but any good little Christian gets just a little bit hard* thinking about people dying. (Yes, I am aware that “good” in this context has the connotations of “holy” or “divine” – think “the good book” = the Bible. But my explanation is more fun.)
* Yes, hard. Christianity may not be as rabidly misogynistic as Judaism, but that’s like saying cutting your hand off with an axe is not as painful as sawing it off with a saw. The end result is still the same.
I thought it was about an ancient colonial warrior named ‘Claus defeating 3 eastern muslim knights (alternatively, saving three eastern roman officers), them being representated very small, misread as saving three kids, then being promoted protector of the children therefore giver of gifts.
In his account of his encounter with Claus, Clement Moore describes him as a tiny but fat elf. This makes the whole chimney and “eight tiny reindeer” deal make more sense.
I think Santa became human-sized after Coca-Cola bought the rights to his likeness and retconned him.
He was fairly human sized in the Oz books by Baum (and the life and adventures of santa claus by him as well) before Coca Cola started those ads though.
I always though that the date was chosen to be close to an already existing pagan feast, to make it easier to convert heathens.
As solstice is between December 21st and 23rd, this sounded like a thing people thinking about power would do.
Jehovas Wittnesses do not do Christmas because of this.
When the Julian calendar was adopted in 46 BC, the southern solstice was set to 25 December. But the Christian festivals etc. (especially Easter) weren’t fixed until the First Council of Nicaea, in 325, by which time three-ish days of drift had occurred. Then when the Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1582 it was contrived to restore the solstices and equinoxes to the dates they had been on at the time of the First Council of Nicaea. And that’s why the midwinter and spring equinox festivals (Christmas and Lady Day / the Annunciation) are off by three days.
So, early Christians figured that Jesus was conceived on the same day that he died (thus linking his conception and death), and then calculated since he was conceived in late March, he must have been born in late December? Wacky.
This was all linked to a presumption that the year (and day) were divinely ordained fundamental periods and that God’s acts would naturally span whole years rather than weird fractional periods. The idea that a year might be basically an arbitrary duration whose length wasn’t universally important was alien to the ancient and mediaeval minds.
Given that the year isn’t arbitrary – but a natural and thus created feature of the world and that the concept of other worlds around other stars wasn’t even a fantasy yet, that’s not too surprising.
Numerology was also a thing. Numbers had significance.
Reasonably, it’s probably the Feast of Sol Invictus thing. That was a Roman holiday, and it was a Roman emperor that swapped the State religion over to Christianity. It’d make sense to just say “Okay now this big festival we’re already having? It’s Iesus’ thing now.”
funny enough, I always assumed it was moved as the various calendars were corrected, then re-corrected, and wound up being slotted with Saturnalia as a matter of convenience, since most taxation (the reason Joe and Mary were going to Bethlehem) happened in the fall after harvest, and before winter’s sledgehammer hits. (recall your nativity-they were there to pay taxes, which is also why every inn was full and they needed to rent the stable.)
Why after harvest and before winter? because that’s when there’s money, and agricultural goods and such to TAX. Mid-winter is when everyone is broke and there’s no extra food, taxing in mid-winter reduces your available live workforce for working the fields and such come spring time. (Enough people wil already starve to death or freeze without adding to the public health burden of more unburied bodies thanks to insufficient food in the remainder population). Mind the SE Mediterranean is pretty nice and Judea is in a more temperate zone for not-freezing-to-death, but starving to death is a real concern even with the long growing season.
but the doctor in the link gives a pretty solid THEOLOGICAL reason for the date being original, even if it kind of ignores the practical realities involved in when and how to levy taxation for your continental empire.
The whole birth narrative is likely not historical anyway. It doesn’t appear in the earliest Gospel. There are discrepancies between the two Gospel narratives – to the point the motivations are completely different. The census and taxation appear in Luke, but Matthew has them fleeing Bethlehem for fear of Herod.
Not to mention the fact that there is no roman records of a census happening at that time period, and even more important, when they did do a census, they didn’t make people return to their place of birth anyway.
Incorrect: Irish Roman Catholic here. When the eldest child of the youngest generation is less than 14 years old, you attend Christmas Eve Mass, then you return home with your grandparents in tow and have a Christmas dinner together. after the meal, everyone, elders included opens ONE present. Then you go to bed.
The next morning, the youngest generation gets up at six, goes downstairs, prepares themselves breakfast and watch whatever’s on their preferred channel at that timeslot(In my and my sister’s case, we watched the morning news as we valued routine.) When the rest of the family has awoken of their own accord, the rest of the presents are opened.
Once the eldest child of the youngest generation is over 13, the tradition is altered, as you have moved to a different state. Presents from the Grandparents are opened immediately and, in the case of video games, the box is placed under the Christmas tree with a bow taped to it, but the game disk/cartridge is allowed to exit the box for use.
Meals remain the same, although the youngest generation no longer go downstairs to eat breakfast and watch TV, instead cooking in the upstairs kitchen and watching the news in their bedrooms on their computers equipped with TV-tuner Video Cards.
We moved when I turned 13. Old House was two floors above ground, all bedrooms on the upstairs floor. New house was ground floor+basement, all finished bedrooms on the ground floor.
Of course you are! On Christmas Eve, you decorate the tree, then you wait till sunset. You leave the living room for a few minutes, then a bell tinkles, and the presents are there.
The German Christkind is a lot faster than Santa Claus.
What my family has always done is that we do family presents on Christmas Eve, then first thing on Christmas Day you do Santa gifts for any sufficiently young family members, and make an obscenely big meal for everyone. And if you’re still observing, you go to mass some time in there.
I was raised Catholic, but I am given to understand that’s less a Catholic thing and more of a German/Scandanavian thing.
I’m just impressed that Joe name-dropped Y’shua as a relative. That brazen awesomeness increases Joe’s coolness in my eyes by a not-insignificant percent.
OH! Can we have a cartoon in which a Rosenthal ancestor is hanging with Historical Jesus back in early 1st century Galilee? Please!! (Btw, we have a friend who resembles Historical Jesus to a remarkable degree, so why couldn’t the Rosenthal men resemble someone from that time?)
Meh. Do Christmas how you like it.
No matter HOW you do it, SOMEbody will say you’re doing it wrong.
At least there were no red or green coffee cups involved.
I say, as long as there’s presents, it’s a successful holiday.
That, and eggnog. GOTTA have eggnog.
I’m not I’ve just accepted we probably won’t resolve this in an enjoyable or timely manner. See you next year when we *finally* have a serious conversation about mikes death
Knowing Willis? The confirmation/resolution for it will come out of nowhere right as it seems like we’re diving into another lighthearted plot arc.
You know, like how Toedad showed up at College. Or everyone getting kidnapped during a fake fire alarm. He has a thing for the whole “Reality doesn’t care if you’re ready for drama” thing.
I would expect the resolution for Mike’s death will come slowly, in a lot of small conversations which acknowledge the fact that the characters have probably already dealt with most of the immediate feelings.
I must admit, I wouldn’t mind doing all the christmas stuff on christmas eve and then using christmas day to rest and relax. It would also mean that you can spend all christmas day enjoying your gifts and your family.
Maybe also a Mexican-American tradition? One of my friend’s family does Midnight Mass then opens presents. Christmas day they get up late for a big breakfast and then…
People argue about whether or not Jesus had a wife and kids, but theology aside, historical Jesus was probably a broke jamoke and couldn’t afford to get married.
I . . . *think* there is a thing where they tried to track down the descendants of Christ and his other bodily relatives but apparently the family lines died out?
And that quite a few of the old Monarchies claimed descent directly from Christ but I never quite saw a reasonable or persuasive enough argument for any of the Royal Lines for that to fit.
Dont forget his brother Bob, everybody always forgets Bob Christ, Jesus always stole all the attention, getting invited to all the parties with his “Water to Wine” trick, befriending all the prostitutes, Making the fisherman and bakers go out of business by multiplying all the fish and bread.
Bob stayed back to continue his family’s Carpentry business, building crosses and other furniture.
When a Jewish person complains about the lack of Christmas spirit you know there’s something wrong in a suppossed Christian family. I don’t believe in Christianity, but I am all for the secular wintery celebrations, present exchanges and food.
Fair enough, but I want them in July. Not in the middle of a blistering Australian summer. What can’t we have a big feast and gift exchanges for the anniversary of Apollo 11?
That’s like saying you can only celebrate Oktoberfest in Germany, El Cinco de Mayo in Mexico, or Syttende Mai in Norway.
Or saying that if you’re not black you can’t celebrate Kwanzaa.
Any holiday, from any culture, can — and should! — be celebrated anywhere.
That used to be my Family Tradition. It, sadly, is fading away. It depends on certain ethnic restaurants being run by staff who are immigrants from countries without Christian majorities, so they don’t know that they could be taking the day off. Unfortunately, those darn Asian peoples insist on LEARNING stuff ! Tjhere’s no fun going for Chinese food if you have to search all over town to find the restaurant that’s still open. Oy Vey!
Knowing how bad Amber’s life actualy is, im getting a feeling there is a reason they dont celebrate Christmas on the day, maybe something bad happened that they dont want to remember.
Or its just a weird family tradition.
It’s really not unusual for Catholics. Christmas Mass and your family’s traditional fish dinner happens on the 24th, and some families exchange gifts the same night, especially between extended family because everyone is there. But it’s also not unusual for Catholic families to open gifts on Christmas morning, especially if they have little kids who still think St. Nick delivers all the presents overnight. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ My family did the extended family gift exchange on Christmas Eve and then we opened the rest on Christmas morning because we liked playing the “Santa” game. But honestly, by a certain age, definitely Amber’s age, I would have preferred to open everything on Christmas Eve after dinner so I could get a head start on the video games I knew I was getting and sleep in late the next morning.
I’m not sure if this is a protestant thing, a german thing or just a thing with my very atheist family but for me this seems pretty much the default (except for mass ofc). I was very confused by American Christmas movies growing up
I always thought this was a German thing. I know Stephen Fry once made fun of the royal family for doing it, saying it was something they brought with them from Germany.
Since we’re talkimg traditions, allow me to share with you the way most Norwegians celebrate!
First off, the evening of 23rd, there’s a Christmas show on tv with music and guests and a chef showing how to make Christmas dinner. It’s optional to watch the whole show, but at 21.00 comes the important thing: Dinner for one, a sketch from 1963, where a little old lady is so old all her friends are dead, but she still invited them to dinner, and so her butler has to impersonate them, going round the table, drinking their drinks and getting increasingly drunk. (One year they sent the sketch too early, and was flooded with angry calls by people who turned on the tv at 21.00, so they had to send it again later that evening.) No Christmas without!
When you wake up the 24th, there’s usually candy, and special Christmas comic magazines, often in a Christmas stocking. The kids turn on the tv and watch the Christmas programming. This always includes: Snekker Andersen og Julenissen (a story about a carpenter and santa switching so they visit each other’s family), Tři oříšky pro Popelku (a Czechoslovak/East German version of Cinderella, set in winter, with horseriding and hunting) and Reisen til Julestjernen (a story about a king losing his daughter and cursing the Christmas star because of it).
In the day/evening, some people go to Church. In the evening, there’s Christmas dinner. After dinner, if there’s small kids in the family, a family friend or relative sneak out and dress up and pretend to be Santa Claus. Then we finally open the gifts.
The 25th many people have Christmas breakfast. Some go to church, other’s stay home and have fun with their gifts, and other invite people over to dinner.
Of course traditions differ, but this is how most of the people I know do it.
(Loud banging on door)
“Who’s there?”
“Santa Claus.”
“Santa Claus is dead! Go away!”
“Guess I’ll have to throw these presents away then.”
“No, no! Come in, come in!”
Funny thing is, if that was actually true, pretty much everybody with any European heritage probably would be. To some degree or another. Couple thousand years of descendants mingling and everything gets all mixed around.
Less likely Jewish actually – if those conspiracy theories were true, since the Merovingians were European kings and Jesus’s descendants wouldn’t have identified as Jewish. (Though if his brother James had kids, they might have.) Of course, there’s a lot of admixture with European Jews, so it’s possible that way.
When I was Tricycle Bill, my parents would wait until my younger sister and I had gone to bed on Christmas Eve. Then, and only then, did they spend the night putting up and decorating the tree and putting the presents underneath it so that they could say “Santa brought everything!!” when we got up the next morning.
Up until too many family members died off for this to work, the tradition in my family was that on Christmas Eve my dad’s sister (originally sisters, but the older sister died Christmas Day ’99) would come over, or we’d go over to the younger sister’s house, and unwrap a bunch of presents from that side of the family. Then the next day we’d have a more traditional Christmas with more gifts, then go hang out with my mom’s side of the family for the evening.
Now they’re all dead except my dad’s younger sister and I’m 900 miles away so I don’t know what the plan is anymore. I’m kinda over it anyway — my family has a habit of dying around the holidays, which kinda puts a damper on my enthusiasm.
Jeez, stopped lurking because, yeah. Christmas Eve, dinner with lots of desserts, presents from the core part of the family, lots of fun. Christmas day, driving around the country to all the other parts of the family and stuffing ourselves with dessert and presents at those various places.
Now everyone has passed, or is too old, or is in mourning. I live in a different country. Christmas is… not much really right now.
I have been trying to sorta set up a New Years’ friendsmas mashup, trying to make my own tradition.
We’ve always opened presents on Christmas Eve in my family, but we’re also pretty non-religious and celebrate only the secular aspects of the holiday, so I don’t really know if doing that on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day is normal for some types of Christians or not.
Rituals and tradition are healthy (when not used to exclude or oppress). They provide another part of a sense of belonging and familiarity. They can be part of the beneficial part of tribal identity. Very much part of being cultural and human.
Dogs have rituals too. Turning circles and digging at their bed is driven by an instinct to soften up the floor of their den before sleeping on it. Makes no sense now that they are pampered and have their own beds etc… but they still do it.
Joe: AND that giant poster of Dab they hung up in the living room was creeping me out. I dunno if that’s an Irish-Catholic thing or an Amber’s family thing, either, but I’m glad they ritualistically set it on fire afterwards.
Danny: What?
Joe: You know, Dab. Looks like a cartoon from a newspaper comic strip I wouldn’t be familiar with, has octopus tentacles for legs. I assume he’s some sort of Catholic saint.
Catholic, here. Don’t know for other families, but Christmas is basically a 2 days things. though we live in Europe, so Santa Claus isn’t really that big of a thing, but on Christmas Eve, we usually wait till midnight to open the presents (sometimes it’s after we come back to the midnight mass, if we go to it (we don’t always) and then the next day there is present again, but usually open between dinner and the dessert.
The celebration of Eve and Christmas day allow for a nice trick the first day can be spend with family of my father the next one with the family of my mother, or vice-versa, as it’s not always easy to synchronise everything (siblings of my father and mother also have their step family reuniting on the alternative day.
I guess that kind of organisation work less for non-nuclear families.
Now I feel jealous that everyone else seems to have “This is how Christmas works in my culture” stories, and I was raised atheist-but-defaulting-to-Church-of-Scotland, so my Christmas is the ordinary version you see on TV: Tree up mid-December, presents from Santa/Father Christmas arrive Christmas morning, big lunch, and afternoon spent complaining that Doctor Who isn’t on till New Year, and doesn’t Chris Chibnall respect tradition?
My Irish family does this the way Joe says, afaik. They go to mass on Christmas Eve, have presents on Christmas Day.
It’s a German thing to have presents an Christmas Eve. Afterwards you have two days of official holidays to meet with all of your families.
When I was little, the whole German side of the clan assembled for Christmas dinner on Christmas Day. For most others I know, they spend the 26th with the other side of their clan, but Ireland was a bit far away for that.
Nowadays, some people expect me to show up at my mother’s. She couldn’t care less about presents and stuff to eat, Last time, I’ve seen her open the presents she gets and repurpose them for other people who show up giving her presents. She’s 89 and my impression is she would ignore the whole thing if people would only let her.
In the meantime, my own tradition to invite people I feel close to has lapsed and I expect this year will be strange. Probably ignoring it will be best.
Another raised Catholic here. Christmas was a massive thing. We had an advent calendar and a Nativity that was set up throughout December and early January. The baby didn’t go in the cradle until Christmas Eve after we go home from midnight mass. The wise men were slowly moved over to the scene, but they don’t actually arrive until something like January 3rd.
Christmas Eve was giant fancy dinner with the whole family, open 1 gift, and then walk around the neighborhood and admire the decorations. Then, whole family goes to midnight mass and then goes home and goes to bed. In the morning on Christmas Day, unwrap all other presents and then go to a second giant family party.
This is all terrible when you do not get along with said family.
Former Irish Catholic: Start some of the cooking Christmas Eve (especially chilling the chocolate chip cookie dough), deliver presents to friends and non-family and look at other people’s lights (especially on the rich side of town), Mass Christmas Eve Midnight, crash, then open presents Christmas day, start the cooking for the big meal, eat in the early-to mid afternoon, stay quiet and out of the way so everyone can digest and enjoy new loot. Ex-Protestant husband agrees with everything up until “start cooking the big meal” and then it’s “carry huge meal to mama’s house, eat, play board games with loud, squabbling family until only child wife begs almost in tears to go home and rest from the noise”
Raised agnostic here, and the way my family celebrates Christmas (aka “Secular Celebration Of Capitalism Day”)? Christmas morning, we go through the stockings when we wake up, chat a bit, make breakfast and coffee (something simple but nice usually, like bacon, eggs and muffins), then head to the tree and, one at a time, open a present, giving plenty of time for the gifter or giftee to talk about the present or give a story behind it or just look over it for a bit.
But hey, you do you, I ain’t gonna judge that shit, it’s fucking supposed to be fun, have fun!
Swedish atheist but raised in a proteststant country.
We open our presents at christmas eve as well. In the afternoon. After eating WAY too much christmas food (yes, meatballs is a part of that). And after watching a tv-program comprising of severeral short snips of Disney movies, old and new.
After that, the younger people often drop off, and the elders stay glued in front of the tv, watching a movie about a kid that befriends an old guy in order to get a grandfather and after that, a movie about how a young postal worker redirects christmas gifts of the rich to the poor. Its not expected for younger folks to see them every year, but at least once.
This happens every year. Its tradition. Any change, even variations on who presents the Disney clips, can lead to a lot of upset people.
Joe, your great great great great great great great great granddaddy is tired of people claiming their personal opinions come from him, and also wants to know why he keeps winding up in contradictory lineages.
I dunno about americans but here in Chile we do most stuff in Christmas Eve (Big dinner, presents exactly at midnight between eve and Christmas day).
And then on Christmas day we have a big Christmas Lunch, and then we spend the rest of the day trying not to move too much because of the overeating.
Ya left out some ‘great’s, there, Joe. A whole lotta them.
Also, doing absolutely nothing around Christmas is part of the holiday! It’s the one time of year where you’re on vacation, and you don’t NEED to be worrying about anything! Read books, play with your new toys, SLEEP – best holiday ever!
i don’t know if there was a parsing error but it looks like the bottom of the strip got cut off. I think there was a comment balloon or two from Danny that only showed as white pointers
In my family we open 1 gift on Christmas Eve. The one we’re most curious about. The rest are reserved for Christmas morning. But the opening ALL t he gifts Christmas Eve is still normal. It’s a German tradition. Heck in Germany the tree doesn’t even generally go up till Christmas Eve. *shrugs*
I have to say in our family, on christmas eve we have a party at my mom’s place, where we give gifts, eat ourselves full, and then play boardgames. And then on Christmas day, we go to my dad’s place around noon, and go eat whatever him and his girlfriend decided to get that year. (it really depends on how much effort and money they’re willing to put in)
I’m really gonna miss Moemoe now that she’ll no longer be there 🙁
In my French-Canadian family, Christmas celebrations started with a big overnight feast with all our friends called a réveillon. It’s traditionally held on Christmas Eve, but since most people spend that night with their families, we’d have it on the 23rd. The 24th was basically spent unwinding from the party, and then we’d open presents on Christmas morning.
I don’t *think* it’s an Irish Catholic thing? My parents were both raised Catholic and my mom is 100% Irish (my dad has some Irish in there somewhere). We never celebrated Christmas like this. Although, past my baptism and funerals, we never once went to Church during my childhood. My older brother and I both separately came to atheism so I don’t know we’re a good mark of Irish Catholicism.
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I thought He was the one most AGAINST it
or was that Puritans
anyway, where is Christmas in the Bible, citation needed *handslaps*
It’s right after the section where they explain that God wears a blood red fursuit and flies around on a sleigh dispensing presents in return for propitiating behaviors like not stealing cookies from the cookie jar. That’s how he holds Mass for his son.
https://www.abc.net.au/cm/rimage/11028346-3×2-xlarge.jpg
Oh, Japan.
You should see the Brave Beats christmas episode… two words for ya: Pole. Dancing.
To be fair, we do have some pretty weird mixed messages about Christmas. Is it about a fat guy in a red suit cleaning your chimney with presents, or an ancient Jewish guy getting crucified because he pissed off too many powerful people?
Be fair. Christmas is about the /birth/ of the guy who gets nailed.
Easter is about nailing J to the cross to kill him. Then the rabbit hides his cholate eggs for the kiddies to find.
Easter is about his resurrection.
Good Friday’s about the crucifixion, itself. (Jesus: ‘WTF, guys? “Good”? Really?’)
As a child, I got black Friday and good Friday mixed up. I will never apologize for that. Most logical naming for a child
it was work for the Judean carpenter’s union and a family-friendly show for the public, all on the Imperial denarius, you know, economic stimulus plus public entertainment at taxpayer expense. IOW it was ‘good’ for someone.
That’s because Christianity is and always has been a death cult. They don’t really care about the birth, but any good little Christian gets just a little bit hard* thinking about people dying. (Yes, I am aware that “good” in this context has the connotations of “holy” or “divine” – think “the good book” = the Bible. But my explanation is more fun.)
* Yes, hard. Christianity may not be as rabidly misogynistic as Judaism, but that’s like saying cutting your hand off with an axe is not as painful as sawing it off with a saw. The end result is still the same.
I thought it was about an ancient colonial warrior named ‘Claus defeating 3 eastern muslim knights (alternatively, saving three eastern roman officers), them being representated very small, misread as saving three kids, then being promoted protector of the children therefore giver of gifts.
In his account of his encounter with Claus, Clement Moore describes him as a tiny but fat elf. This makes the whole chimney and “eight tiny reindeer” deal make more sense.
I think Santa became human-sized after Coca-Cola bought the rights to his likeness and retconned him.
He was fairly human sized in the Oz books by Baum (and the life and adventures of santa claus by him as well) before Coca Cola started those ads though.
That slayed me
blood red fursuit?
Ow! My eyes!
I don’t know how to do links on here so idk if anybody will be able to make this function, but here’s the general historical consensus about Christmas. Scholars never agree on anything so I’m sure somebody out there somewhere says this is nonsense but I think my profs always pointed curious students to this article. https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/jesus-historical-jesus/how-december-25-became-christmas/
I always though that the date was chosen to be close to an already existing pagan feast, to make it easier to convert heathens.
As solstice is between December 21st and 23rd, this sounded like a thing people thinking about power would do.
Jehovas Wittnesses do not do Christmas because of this.
When the Julian calendar was adopted in 46 BC, the southern solstice was set to 25 December. But the Christian festivals etc. (especially Easter) weren’t fixed until the First Council of Nicaea, in 325, by which time three-ish days of drift had occurred. Then when the Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1582 it was contrived to restore the solstices and equinoxes to the dates they had been on at the time of the First Council of Nicaea. And that’s why the midwinter and spring equinox festivals (Christmas and Lady Day / the Annunciation) are off by three days.
So, early Christians figured that Jesus was conceived on the same day that he died (thus linking his conception and death), and then calculated since he was conceived in late March, he must have been born in late December? Wacky.
This was all linked to a presumption that the year (and day) were divinely ordained fundamental periods and that God’s acts would naturally span whole years rather than weird fractional periods. The idea that a year might be basically an arbitrary duration whose length wasn’t universally important was alien to the ancient and mediaeval minds.
Of course the Incarnation lasted a number of whole years. How could it not: God’s plan is perfect.
And of course it commenced (and therefore also ended) at the Spring solstice: 25 March.
Given that the year isn’t arbitrary – but a natural and thus created feature of the world and that the concept of other worlds around other stars wasn’t even a fantasy yet, that’s not too surprising.
Numerology was also a thing. Numbers had significance.
Reasonably, it’s probably the Feast of Sol Invictus thing. That was a Roman holiday, and it was a Roman emperor that swapped the State religion over to Christianity. It’d make sense to just say “Okay now this big festival we’re already having? It’s Iesus’ thing now.”
funny enough, I always assumed it was moved as the various calendars were corrected, then re-corrected, and wound up being slotted with Saturnalia as a matter of convenience, since most taxation (the reason Joe and Mary were going to Bethlehem) happened in the fall after harvest, and before winter’s sledgehammer hits. (recall your nativity-they were there to pay taxes, which is also why every inn was full and they needed to rent the stable.)
Why after harvest and before winter? because that’s when there’s money, and agricultural goods and such to TAX. Mid-winter is when everyone is broke and there’s no extra food, taxing in mid-winter reduces your available live workforce for working the fields and such come spring time. (Enough people wil already starve to death or freeze without adding to the public health burden of more unburied bodies thanks to insufficient food in the remainder population). Mind the SE Mediterranean is pretty nice and Judea is in a more temperate zone for not-freezing-to-death, but starving to death is a real concern even with the long growing season.
but the doctor in the link gives a pretty solid THEOLOGICAL reason for the date being original, even if it kind of ignores the practical realities involved in when and how to levy taxation for your continental empire.
The whole birth narrative is likely not historical anyway. It doesn’t appear in the earliest Gospel. There are discrepancies between the two Gospel narratives – to the point the motivations are completely different. The census and taxation appear in Luke, but Matthew has them fleeing Bethlehem for fear of Herod.
Not to mention the fact that there is no roman records of a census happening at that time period, and even more important, when they did do a census, they didn’t make people return to their place of birth anyway.
Ooh, fascinating!
Oh you need to watch Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas. It answers EVERYTHING!
Watching that clown trying to explain things is hilarious, my favorite is still him trying to explain how the banana was made for us.
Wait, you’re not supposed to do the Christmas stuff on Christmas eve?
Damn right. Only the heathen savages would open their presents on Christmas Eve. Show some respect.
Incorrect: Irish Roman Catholic here. When the eldest child of the youngest generation is less than 14 years old, you attend Christmas Eve Mass, then you return home with your grandparents in tow and have a Christmas dinner together. after the meal, everyone, elders included opens ONE present. Then you go to bed.
The next morning, the youngest generation gets up at six, goes downstairs, prepares themselves breakfast and watch whatever’s on their preferred channel at that timeslot(In my and my sister’s case, we watched the morning news as we valued routine.) When the rest of the family has awoken of their own accord, the rest of the presents are opened.
Once the eldest child of the youngest generation is over 13, the tradition is altered, as you have moved to a different state. Presents from the Grandparents are opened immediately and, in the case of video games, the box is placed under the Christmas tree with a bow taped to it, but the game disk/cartridge is allowed to exit the box for use.
Meals remain the same, although the youngest generation no longer go downstairs to eat breakfast and watch TV, instead cooking in the upstairs kitchen and watching the news in their bedrooms on their computers equipped with TV-tuner Video Cards.
I feel like you’re maybe confusing irish catholic with some kind of 1970s british television show about about a cult.
Nope. Pretty sure I was trying to insinuate that my very personal experience in life is in fact universal as a form of humor.
You have both upstairs and downstairs kitchens??
We moved when I turned 13. Old House was two floors above ground, all bedrooms on the upstairs floor. New house was ground floor+basement, all finished bedrooms on the ground floor.
This is “Irish Catholics in America” right? Because… uh… this is news to me.
Of course you are! On Christmas Eve, you decorate the tree, then you wait till sunset. You leave the living room for a few minutes, then a bell tinkles, and the presents are there.
The German Christkind is a lot faster than Santa Claus.
German efficiency.
What my family has always done is that we do family presents on Christmas Eve, then first thing on Christmas Day you do Santa gifts for any sufficiently young family members, and make an obscenely big meal for everyone. And if you’re still observing, you go to mass some time in there.
I was raised Catholic, but I am given to understand that’s less a Catholic thing and more of a German/Scandanavian thing.
“My birthday’s in the spring! This is Saturn’s b-day, you schmucks!”
— Y’shua F. Christ
“And don’t get me started on all the angry texts I’ve gotten from Ēostre!”
Was she dressed in her nighty?
I’m just impressed that Joe name-dropped Y’shua as a relative. That brazen awesomeness increases Joe’s coolness in my eyes by a not-insignificant percent.
When’s Historical Jesus showing up then?
Don’t forget Mithras.
That’s a lot of bull.
Let’s see… ten generations back… that puts Y’shua Christ somewhere in the 18th century.
In fairness, judging by Joe and his father, Rosenthal men may just repeat generations sometimes.
Time travel can get confusing.
I’ve always just assumed his paternal lineage is “Joe clones through the ages”.
OH! Can we have a cartoon in which a Rosenthal ancestor is hanging with Historical Jesus back in early 1st century Galilee? Please!! (Btw, we have a friend who resembles Historical Jesus to a remarkable degree, so why couldn’t the Rosenthal men resemble someone from that time?)
Meh. Do Christmas how you like it.
No matter HOW you do it, SOMEbody will say you’re doing it wrong.
At least there were no red or green coffee cups involved.
I say, as long as there’s presents, it’s a successful holiday.
That, and eggnog. GOTTA have eggnog.
No to the eggnog. Absolutely not.
It’s gotta be Hood eggnog, too. In the half-gallon carton printed in that dark tan color.
BALTIMORE Nog!!! Even people who think that they don’t like big LOVE Baltimore Nog.
Your WHAT now?
I was wondering when Jesus was going to show up in the DOA timeline…
Ah, this is how he brings historically accurate Jesus into Dumbing of Age.
i was thinking it too
never lose hope
Anyone else still not over Mike? I’m just sitting here with emotional whiplash.
I’m holding back my shock until I see a body, tbh. Or at least a gravestone.
In accordance with Mike’s wishes…
Wow! It’s the deer that sells it.
I’m firmly attached to the witness protection theory, myself.
I’m not I’ve just accepted we probably won’t resolve this in an enjoyable or timely manner. See you next year when we *finally* have a serious conversation about mikes death
Knowing Willis? The confirmation/resolution for it will come out of nowhere right as it seems like we’re diving into another lighthearted plot arc.
You know, like how Toedad showed up at College. Or everyone getting kidnapped during a fake fire alarm. He has a thing for the whole “Reality doesn’t care if you’re ready for drama” thing.
I would expect the resolution for Mike’s death will come slowly, in a lot of small conversations which acknowledge the fact that the characters have probably already dealt with most of the immediate feelings.
I’m with Joe.
I must admit, I wouldn’t mind doing all the christmas stuff on christmas eve and then using christmas day to rest and relax. It would also mean that you can spend all christmas day enjoying your gifts and your family.
And going for surf, and playing beach cricket.
Wouldn’t that throw off the rythm of lounging around watching the Boxing Day Test the day after overindulging food and drink?
Maybe also a Mexican-American tradition? One of my friend’s family does Midnight Mass then opens presents. Christmas day they get up late for a big breakfast and then…
They go bowling.
Similar traditions, but still present exchange in the morning and no bowling.
i think catholic in general
This is a new one for me, but I very much approve of Christmas Bowling.
Bowling alleys are for children’s birthday parties.
– Rhode Island
I’mma be real. as I’ve gotten older, and I end up with more socks with holes in em, I too have learned to better appreciate socks for christmas.
It’s possible to end up with an unmanageable heap of socks. And handkerchiefs. I’m from a big family.
Same here. It’s gotten to the point where I look forward to those new socks all year.
I just wear sandals as long as possible.
I don’t put on socks until I’m at risk for frostbite if I don’t.
Are you related to Sierra?
I started loving getting socks and pajamas for Christmas as soon as I went to college and lived on my own. The transformation is real.
I liked getting socks as a teenager. My mum understood what I liked in a sock.
I’m an adult who finds holes in his socks, too.
Darn them, darn them all!
Joe… the Last Scion?
So Joe will go on a quest with Jay and Silent Bob?
If a poop demon shows up, I’m gone.
Not the last! Joe gets preggers at the end!
People argue about whether or not Jesus had a wife and kids, but theology aside, historical Jesus was probably a broke jamoke and couldn’t afford to get married.
I . . . *think* there is a thing where they tried to track down the descendants of Christ and his other bodily relatives but apparently the family lines died out?
And that quite a few of the old Monarchies claimed descent directly from Christ but I never quite saw a reasonable or persuasive enough argument for any of the Royal Lines for that to fit.
Dont forget his brother Bob, everybody always forgets Bob Christ, Jesus always stole all the attention, getting invited to all the parties with his “Water to Wine” trick, befriending all the prostitutes, Making the fisherman and bakers go out of business by multiplying all the fish and bread.
Bob stayed back to continue his family’s Carpentry business, building crosses and other furniture.
I understood that reference.
Somebody knows of the Arrogant Worms.
Okay, who corrupted all the Chipmunks music files on the Muzak?
Amber. She has the means.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TU-MYe0SL9Q
I’m assuming they now sound like this.
May I suggest my current favorite Christmas song? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srnyVw-OR0g
(The video is not at all Christmas-y but it’s definitely about Christmas.)
All those smash cuts are enough to trigger an epileptic attack.
When a Jewish person complains about the lack of Christmas spirit you know there’s something wrong in a suppossed Christian family. I don’t believe in Christianity, but I am all for the secular wintery celebrations, present exchanges and food.
Or maybe I am just used to partying on both Christmas Eve and Christmas.
Fair enough, but I want them in July. Not in the middle of a blistering Australian summer. What can’t we have a big feast and gift exchanges for the anniversary of Apollo 11?
It would be nice to adapt winter festivities for the hemispheres.
Christmas in July/Winter was pretty funny.
I am absolutely down for that. If you have a parade with floats I am traveling to Down Under when this whole plague thing is resolved.
Meant to reply to Agemegos about the Apollo Anniversary gift-giving season.
Got any interesting winter festivities that would go well in our northern hemisphere summer? (I’m all for cultural exchange.)
He’s not complaining about the lack of spirit, he’s complaining about the date.
“I don’t believe in Christianity, but I am all for the secular wintery celebrations, present exchanges and food.”
abysswatcher, might I then suggest you investigate the holiday known as “Hogswatch”?
I know of that celebration, but that only happens in the Discworld.
That’s like saying you can only celebrate Oktoberfest in Germany, El Cinco de Mayo in Mexico, or Syttende Mai in Norway.
Or saying that if you’re not black you can’t celebrate Kwanzaa.
Any holiday, from any culture, can — and should! — be celebrated anywhere.
I’m pretty sure the correct Christmas tradition is going to a movie and then a Chinese restaurant…
That is for no Christians and lazy Christians and CVhrisians who take Christmas literally as a day to rest.
Christians*
What about us CVhrisians?
Spend the day working on your resume.
“Our people know two things. Suffering, and where to get good Chinese food.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLNa-ocdryY
That used to be my Family Tradition. It, sadly, is fading away. It depends on certain ethnic restaurants being run by staff who are immigrants from countries without Christian majorities, so they don’t know that they could be taking the day off. Unfortunately, those darn Asian peoples insist on LEARNING stuff ! Tjhere’s no fun going for Chinese food if you have to search all over town to find the restaurant that’s still open. Oy Vey!
I forgot the HTML tags in the above statement, sorry.
the “sarcasm” tags. Apparently anything in a bracket gets removed, even if not a valid tag.
Just use square [brackets].
Joe is right. Joe is objectively correct. Thank you Joe.
The proper way to celebrate Christmas is to accidentally shoot yourself in the face with a BB gun
yourselfyour siblingftfy
You’ll shoot your eye out kid
[reads tag]
All we need now are a group of kids to slay a witch.
Always October, neer Halloween.
Not that we’re bitter or anything.
So Danny is gonna be the guy with funny socks instead of a funny hat?
That is Spencer’s job.
No way Amber would ever twiddle thumbs … her phone would get in the way.
To be fair, texting rapidly can look a lot like thumb-twiddling, just with a phone in hand
Knowing how bad Amber’s life actualy is, im getting a feeling there is a reason they dont celebrate Christmas on the day, maybe something bad happened that they dont want to remember.
Or its just a weird family tradition.
I suspect that it’s probably related to Blaine like so many other horrors.
My wife’s family had an absolute gift for ruining holidays, so this wouldn’t surprise me.
It’s really not unusual for Catholics. Christmas Mass and your family’s traditional fish dinner happens on the 24th, and some families exchange gifts the same night, especially between extended family because everyone is there. But it’s also not unusual for Catholic families to open gifts on Christmas morning, especially if they have little kids who still think St. Nick delivers all the presents overnight. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ My family did the extended family gift exchange on Christmas Eve and then we opened the rest on Christmas morning because we liked playing the “Santa” game. But honestly, by a certain age, definitely Amber’s age, I would have preferred to open everything on Christmas Eve after dinner so I could get a head start on the video games I knew I was getting and sleep in late the next morning.
I’m not sure if this is a protestant thing, a german thing or just a thing with my very atheist family but for me this seems pretty much the default (except for mass ofc). I was very confused by American Christmas movies growing up
Being German, I can confirm that it is a German thing, for traditionally Protestant and traditionally Catholic families alike.
It’s also French, or at least French-Canadian. My mother’s family were of French-Canadian descent, and they always did it that way.
Probably ties into Catholicism then.
My Christmas-celebrating (in tree and presents, not Mass) Jewish family agrees with Joe.
I always thought this was a German thing. I know Stephen Fry once made fun of the royal family for doing it, saying it was something they brought with them from Germany.
I thought Nunavut was the always winter, never Christmas?
Although Milwaukee makes a great claim for it, I think Canada wins, Go Leafs! Eh?
Since we’re talkimg traditions, allow me to share with you the way most Norwegians celebrate!
First off, the evening of 23rd, there’s a Christmas show on tv with music and guests and a chef showing how to make Christmas dinner. It’s optional to watch the whole show, but at 21.00 comes the important thing: Dinner for one, a sketch from 1963, where a little old lady is so old all her friends are dead, but she still invited them to dinner, and so her butler has to impersonate them, going round the table, drinking their drinks and getting increasingly drunk. (One year they sent the sketch too early, and was flooded with angry calls by people who turned on the tv at 21.00, so they had to send it again later that evening.) No Christmas without!
When you wake up the 24th, there’s usually candy, and special Christmas comic magazines, often in a Christmas stocking. The kids turn on the tv and watch the Christmas programming. This always includes: Snekker Andersen og Julenissen (a story about a carpenter and santa switching so they visit each other’s family), Tři oříšky pro Popelku (a Czechoslovak/East German version of Cinderella, set in winter, with horseriding and hunting) and Reisen til Julestjernen (a story about a king losing his daughter and cursing the Christmas star because of it).
In the day/evening, some people go to Church. In the evening, there’s Christmas dinner. After dinner, if there’s small kids in the family, a family friend or relative sneak out and dress up and pretend to be Santa Claus. Then we finally open the gifts.
The 25th many people have Christmas breakfast. Some go to church, other’s stay home and have fun with their gifts, and other invite people over to dinner.
Of course traditions differ, but this is how most of the people I know do it.
“Dinner for one” on the 23rd? That’s just silly. Everyone (here in Germany) knows that it has to be broadcast on December 31st.
(Sorry for mumbling, my tongue seems to be stuck in my cheek.)
We Norwegians are weirdos. XD
Definitely the 31st. And it’s broadcast at several different times on different channels so everyone has a chance to catch it.
(Loud banging on door)
“Who’s there?”
“Santa Claus.”
“Santa Claus is dead! Go away!”
“Guess I’ll have to throw these presents away then.”
“No, no! Come in, come in!”
Clearly Joe is a member of the Holy Grail and Merovingian Dynasty through Mary Magdalene.
Or his dad read the Da Vinci Code.
Funny thing is, if that was actually true, pretty much everybody with any European heritage probably would be. To some degree or another. Couple thousand years of descendants mingling and everything gets all mixed around.
Less likely Jewish actually – if those conspiracy theories were true, since the Merovingians were European kings and Jesus’s descendants wouldn’t have identified as Jewish. (Though if his brother James had kids, they might have.) Of course, there’s a lot of admixture with European Jews, so it’s possible that way.
huh my spanish catholic family does do that but idk if that has anything to do with it
Wait, you don’t open presents on Christmas Eve and wait until morning to open them? What is that heresy?
When I was Tricycle Bill, my parents would wait until my younger sister and I had gone to bed on Christmas Eve. Then, and only then, did they spend the night putting up and decorating the tree and putting the presents underneath it so that they could say “Santa brought everything!!” when we got up the next morning.
Ditto for Puppypaws.
I can confirm it’s a Catholic thing 🙂
Not in my Catholic family it wasn’t.
Up until too many family members died off for this to work, the tradition in my family was that on Christmas Eve my dad’s sister (originally sisters, but the older sister died Christmas Day ’99) would come over, or we’d go over to the younger sister’s house, and unwrap a bunch of presents from that side of the family. Then the next day we’d have a more traditional Christmas with more gifts, then go hang out with my mom’s side of the family for the evening.
Now they’re all dead except my dad’s younger sister and I’m 900 miles away so I don’t know what the plan is anymore. I’m kinda over it anyway — my family has a habit of dying around the holidays, which kinda puts a damper on my enthusiasm.
Jeez, stopped lurking because, yeah. Christmas Eve, dinner with lots of desserts, presents from the core part of the family, lots of fun. Christmas day, driving around the country to all the other parts of the family and stuffing ourselves with dessert and presents at those various places.
Now everyone has passed, or is too old, or is in mourning. I live in a different country. Christmas is… not much really right now.
I have been trying to sorta set up a New Years’ friendsmas mashup, trying to make my own tradition.
We’ve always opened presents on Christmas Eve in my family, but we’re also pretty non-religious and celebrate only the secular aspects of the holiday, so I don’t really know if doing that on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day is normal for some types of Christians or not.
Nice to hear that Amber and her mom celebrate julafton like good and proper people.
Joe’s channeling some inner Joyce here, with his passion for childhood rituals.
Rituals and tradition are healthy (when not used to exclude or oppress). They provide another part of a sense of belonging and familiarity. They can be part of the beneficial part of tribal identity. Very much part of being cultural and human.
Dogs have rituals too. Turning circles and digging at their bed is driven by an instinct to soften up the floor of their den before sleeping on it. Makes no sense now that they are pampered and have their own beds etc… but they still do it.
Joe: AND that giant poster of Dab they hung up in the living room was creeping me out. I dunno if that’s an Irish-Catholic thing or an Amber’s family thing, either, but I’m glad they ritualistically set it on fire afterwards.
Danny: What?
Joe: You know, Dab. Looks like a cartoon from a newspaper comic strip I wouldn’t be familiar with, has octopus tentacles for legs. I assume he’s some sort of Catholic saint.
https://www.shortpacked.com/comic/hes-the-reason-for-the-season
Praise be to Dab.
Augh, tentacle Ziggy, I had finally managed to erase that image from my memory.
you don’t know what you got for Xmas, Danny ? 😐
Catholic, here. Don’t know for other families, but Christmas is basically a 2 days things. though we live in Europe, so Santa Claus isn’t really that big of a thing, but on Christmas Eve, we usually wait till midnight to open the presents (sometimes it’s after we come back to the midnight mass, if we go to it (we don’t always) and then the next day there is present again, but usually open between dinner and the dessert.
The celebration of Eve and Christmas day allow for a nice trick the first day can be spend with family of my father the next one with the family of my mother, or vice-versa, as it’s not always easy to synchronise everything (siblings of my father and mother also have their step family reuniting on the alternative day.
I guess that kind of organisation work less for non-nuclear families.
I can see why someone like Joe really dislike a part of the holildays dedicated to twiddling one’s thumbs.
Too much potential for family drama.
Now I feel jealous that everyone else seems to have “This is how Christmas works in my culture” stories, and I was raised atheist-but-defaulting-to-Church-of-Scotland, so my Christmas is the ordinary version you see on TV: Tree up mid-December, presents from Santa/Father Christmas arrive Christmas morning, big lunch, and afternoon spent complaining that Doctor Who isn’t on till New Year, and doesn’t Chris Chibnall respect tradition?
My Irish family does this the way Joe says, afaik. They go to mass on Christmas Eve, have presents on Christmas Day.
It’s a German thing to have presents an Christmas Eve. Afterwards you have two days of official holidays to meet with all of your families.
When I was little, the whole German side of the clan assembled for Christmas dinner on Christmas Day. For most others I know, they spend the 26th with the other side of their clan, but Ireland was a bit far away for that.
Nowadays, some people expect me to show up at my mother’s. She couldn’t care less about presents and stuff to eat, Last time, I’ve seen her open the presents she gets and repurpose them for other people who show up giving her presents. She’s 89 and my impression is she would ignore the whole thing if people would only let her.
In the meantime, my own tradition to invite people I feel close to has lapsed and I expect this year will be strange. Probably ignoring it will be best.
Another raised Catholic here. Christmas was a massive thing. We had an advent calendar and a Nativity that was set up throughout December and early January. The baby didn’t go in the cradle until Christmas Eve after we go home from midnight mass. The wise men were slowly moved over to the scene, but they don’t actually arrive until something like January 3rd.
Christmas Eve was giant fancy dinner with the whole family, open 1 gift, and then walk around the neighborhood and admire the decorations. Then, whole family goes to midnight mass and then goes home and goes to bed. In the morning on Christmas Day, unwrap all other presents and then go to a second giant family party.
This is all terrible when you do not get along with said family.
Former Irish Catholic: Start some of the cooking Christmas Eve (especially chilling the chocolate chip cookie dough), deliver presents to friends and non-family and look at other people’s lights (especially on the rich side of town), Mass Christmas Eve Midnight, crash, then open presents Christmas day, start the cooking for the big meal, eat in the early-to mid afternoon, stay quiet and out of the way so everyone can digest and enjoy new loot. Ex-Protestant husband agrees with everything up until “start cooking the big meal” and then it’s “carry huge meal to mama’s house, eat, play board games with loud, squabbling family until only child wife begs almost in tears to go home and rest from the noise”
Raised agnostic here, and the way my family celebrates Christmas (aka “Secular Celebration Of Capitalism Day”)? Christmas morning, we go through the stockings when we wake up, chat a bit, make breakfast and coffee (something simple but nice usually, like bacon, eggs and muffins), then head to the tree and, one at a time, open a present, giving plenty of time for the gifter or giftee to talk about the present or give a story behind it or just look over it for a bit.
But hey, you do you, I ain’t gonna judge that shit, it’s fucking supposed to be fun, have fun!
Sounds good to me.
Hilarious!
Swedish atheist but raised in a proteststant country.
We open our presents at christmas eve as well. In the afternoon. After eating WAY too much christmas food (yes, meatballs is a part of that). And after watching a tv-program comprising of severeral short snips of Disney movies, old and new.
After that, the younger people often drop off, and the elders stay glued in front of the tv, watching a movie about a kid that befriends an old guy in order to get a grandfather and after that, a movie about how a young postal worker redirects christmas gifts of the rich to the poor. Its not expected for younger folks to see them every year, but at least once.
This happens every year. Its tradition. Any change, even variations on who presents the Disney clips, can lead to a lot of upset people.
Joe, your great great great great great great great great granddaddy is tired of people claiming their personal opinions come from him, and also wants to know why he keeps winding up in contradictory lineages.
I dunno about americans but here in Chile we do most stuff in Christmas Eve (Big dinner, presents exactly at midnight between eve and Christmas day).
And then on Christmas day we have a big Christmas Lunch, and then we spend the rest of the day trying not to move too much because of the overeating.
Ya left out some ‘great’s, there, Joe. A whole lotta them.
Also, doing absolutely nothing around Christmas is part of the holiday! It’s the one time of year where you’re on vacation, and you don’t NEED to be worrying about anything! Read books, play with your new toys, SLEEP – best holiday ever!
i don’t know if there was a parsing error but it looks like the bottom of the strip got cut off. I think there was a comment balloon or two from Danny that only showed as white pointers
Looks normal for me.
Joe this is the world where you DON’T own the store where he works!
And Danny, it’s not at all strange to be more excited by socks, given that they are a lot more practically useful.
Your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather was only born a few centuries ago, Joe.
In some Mediterranean catholic countries you do drink all stuff on Christmas Eve and spend all Christmas Day devoutly nursing your hangover.
In my family we open 1 gift on Christmas Eve. The one we’re most curious about. The rest are reserved for Christmas morning. But the opening ALL t he gifts Christmas Eve is still normal. It’s a German tradition. Heck in Germany the tree doesn’t even generally go up till Christmas Eve. *shrugs*
I have to say in our family, on christmas eve we have a party at my mom’s place, where we give gifts, eat ourselves full, and then play boardgames. And then on Christmas day, we go to my dad’s place around noon, and go eat whatever him and his girlfriend decided to get that year. (it really depends on how much effort and money they’re willing to put in)
I’m really gonna miss Moemoe now that she’ll no longer be there 🙁
In my French-Canadian family, Christmas celebrations started with a big overnight feast with all our friends called a réveillon. It’s traditionally held on Christmas Eve, but since most people spend that night with their families, we’d have it on the 23rd. The 24th was basically spent unwinding from the party, and then we’d open presents on Christmas morning.
I don’t *think* it’s an Irish Catholic thing? My parents were both raised Catholic and my mom is 100% Irish (my dad has some Irish in there somewhere). We never celebrated Christmas like this. Although, past my baptism and funerals, we never once went to Church during my childhood. My older brother and I both separately came to atheism so I don’t know we’re a good mark of Irish Catholicism.
As a Lebanese Catholic my family also does presents and dinner on Christmas Eve and almost nothing on Christmas Day.