There were other ways, however, in which Saturnalia resembled Christmas less than Mardi Gras, or even April Fools' Day. "The poet Catullus complains that someone gave him an inferior book of verse," McDonough said. In one account from the first century B.C., someone is heard grousing about his Saturnalia present. Ring a bell? The Romans even suffered from post-holiday letdown. There would have been extra candles and lamps in the house, to provide light in a season of darkness. Some scholars have suggested that greenery was brought into the home: Saturnalia was a winter solstice festival. " 'Io Saturnalia!' is Greek," McDonough said. "Little dolls, things like that." People greeted each other with special holiday phrases. "It was usually minor gifts, little gifts," McDonough said. 17 to 23 would have been typical, though there were variations over time - that involved feasting, merry-making, and gift-giving. What's definitely true is that Saturnalia was a December festival - Dec. "This idea that the Saturnalia was somehow baptized as a Christian festival just doesn't add up with the way the early church functioned." "I don't buy the theory, largely because the early church was really strident about not being pagan, and not being accommodating of pagan ways," Messner said. This scenario seems dubious to Roman historian Brian Messner, who teaches at Lincoln Christian University in Illinois. In the fourth century - so the story goes - the early church fathers deliberately re-branded a popular pagan holiday as a Christian festival, in order to make their religion more attractive to converts. No more gifts?: Stop buying holiday gifts, says activist and 'Reverend' of The Church of Stop ShoppingĬhristmas lights: The most spectacular holiday houses in North Jersey Holidays: Celebrate 'It's a Wonderful Life' and other classics with anniversaries this Christmas Historians argue about the exact relation between Saturnalia and Christmas - the holiday that, by many accounts, grew out of it.
"This was a festive season for the Romans, that was continued by the Christians in a sense," said historian Scott McDonough, who teaches ancient history courses at William Paterson University in Wayne. It's almost as if there was… a war on Saturnalia!
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