Book Review: The Old Magic of Christmas by Linda Raedisch

Like a church in Rome, Christmas is built upon traditions of not only early Christians, but the traditions held by those who became Christians. This book looks at some winter traditions held by Western and Northern Europeans, many of which are still practiced today, and explores how and when they came to be.

There are so many points here from so many cultures that it's hard to absorb it all, much less weave it into one summary. But here's a taste of the things I learned:

• The celebration of Eves comes from Germany and Scandinavia, where in pagan times the day began at sunset, not sunrise

• In many old European cultures, instead of four seasons there were two - summer and winter. The point where the new year began started at sunset of the last day of October - All Hallow's Eve.

• The reason there are solstice holidays in different days in December (St Nicholas Day, Christmas, New Years), none of which are the actual solstice, is due to struggles to move from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar

• Scandinavian elves were not considered creatures that existed beside us - instead, they were human undead (!). And they would kidnap the sh*t out of you.

• The reason the devil is depicted with goat-like features was to reinforce the church's teachings that pagan gods were devils in disguise; Thor was one of the most popular pagan gods anywhere in Europe, and since goats were special to him those attributes were passed to the devil

• If you're a big a fan as the Krampus as I am, there are tons of other Krampus-like entities (like Black Peter, the only other one I can remember) across Europe, including some who are both gift-givers and child-takers at once!

Throughout the book Raedisch also weaves in some crafts and recipes so you can have your own old-fashioned Christmas/holiday/solstice time. One thing to note: Raedisch makes pretty clear that she was expecting a good portion of her readership to be Wiccans (no word on if my high school girlfriend ever read this). There's definitely nothing here that seems like it would be upsetting to anyone, and I don't know why Raedisch would think her audience would be so limited, but I don't see any reason why the most devout of us would have any problems with her crafts and cookies.

Again, I didn't absorb a lot of this, but I don't think that's a problem here - this is a good time read during the darkest days of Winter. Recommended - seven out of ten hot dogs.