On the last day of christmas

What do you mean, I don’t have to take a walk on Christmas day? My body needs a fresh air walk every day and December 25 is no time to let down my guard. Well really, a day of celebration and relaxation won’t hurt you, will it? Of course not, but Christmas is the celebration of the winter solstice and I walked that day, too, celebrating on December 21 when it really was the shortest day as celebrated for the millennium since humans figured it out.
How can the most relevant christian holiday possibly have anything to do with the shortest day? That is an interesting historic study. The catholic church decided to be the world leader but couldn’t prevent the solstice celebration so it said, ‘what the heck’ we’ll just celebrate with them using our christian ways to let those natural folks learn the way to righteousness. And the day became the day of the birth of god. I know, it is on December 25, days after the shortest day. That’s because the church arbitrarily decided to change the calendar and so the date of christmas changed. In fact the church changed calendars several times throwing a glitch into the record keeping of fastidious accountant types all over the orderly world.
The church made other decisions that put a twist on history - like the inquisition - or when a pope, I think it was Benedict, divided the known world down the center of the Atlantic ocean and decreed that the Portugal could have the eastern half and Spain the western half. Portugal got the African gold and Spain got the Mexican gold and all other connected riches until Britain and the Dutch got hoity toity and interfered with some humogous warships and devastating guns.
However, natural celebrations did not change so arbitrarily. The sun only crossed over a certain parallel once in the spring and once in the fall and the church couldn’t compete with that because the sun had been used too long in special ways to mark the day. Think of Stonehenge or the serpent at the base of the pyramid in Chichen Itza. Those ancient landmarks let the sun make its own point by the way the rays shown on the stones.
There is no date, as such for the spring celebration and the church follows the same reconciliation of the sun and moon calendars in an interesting manner. Easter is set in a sort of backward method. Count from the first Sunday following the first Friday following the first full moon after the spring equinox so it varies from year to year at the whim of the moon. Well, not a whim, to be sure, but based on reality, because in that way nature is predictable.
And I must take care of my body, because if I stand still and forsake exercise, a supernatural pie in the sky will let me get fat and fall into very bad health.
Naomi Sherer