Ironically, as Christmas emails flood inboxes everywhere (mom!) reminding people about Christian reasons to override the ACLU’s secular winter holiday, most people choose to forget (or simply never knew) the historical origins that predate their beliefs. Those origins being the celebrations that actually took place on the Winter Solstice by the pagans whom the Romans threat… beat… happily converted into Christians nearly 400 years after the so-called birth event took place. Anyway, the total lunar eclipse of 2010 actually makes this particular winter holiday more inclined towards its pagan origins as a rare celestial event coinciding with the actual solstice (having not occurred on this date since 1638). After all, our ancestors tied their calendars and livelihoods to the agricultural cycle and were celebrating the forthcoming longer days as the Earth marched towards planting and harvest season. Celestial events to these ancient peoples were often signs from god, a lunar eclipse simply added a bit of magic to their revelry (or fear).

This article was edited after publication by the author on 21 Dec 2010. View changes.