On January 5th, the day mariner is writing this post, his wife noticed that their decorations were the only ones still in place along our street. In olden days, January 6th was known as the Epiphany, the day the wise men visited Jesus. This day wasn’t the end of holiday spirit, which continued until Candlemas, held on February 2nd. So from the Feast of Saint Martin celebrated on November 11th at the beginning of Advent to Candlemas – 93 days existed for which Christmas was the major social activity during the the period of 500AD to 1500AD.
It also was during this period that what is familiar to us as evergreen trees, green trimmings, candles, and decorations became traditional. In an age when more than 90% of the population were farmers, what was available for decoration was the forests, the fruits and flowers, and the prolific use of candles in many religious ceremonies. It is a common acceptance that Saint Francis of Assisi created the first nativity scene in 1226.
Looking back on this period from our recliners, air conditioning and industrial accomplishments, modern folk believe sincerely that farmers et al were miserable. Actually, this isn’t true. Human life was much more focused on survival through shared local crops, family and friends. Even arrangements with landowners who rented to farmers were quite civil, allowing for a comfortable existence. There were many extended periods when farmers could take breaks and spend a lot of time with the local family, friends, and mercantile folks who generated the local GDP.
An entertaining comparison between then and now is cooking the holiday meal. In the old days those big meals were cooked on a shared fire pit that all the locals used to save the expense of lumber and oils. Today this tradition continues on each family’s self-owned gas grill.
Today’s celebrations would suffer in contrast if plastic didn’t exist, if electricity didn’t exist and as far as the horses would travel in a day was limited to 20 miles. So there was a lot of time for humans to experience the life of being a human – all the things that vanish as AI increases its consumption of human reality.
Ancient Mariner