"Did you know that the next two Tuesdays coincide with company holidays?  Just like most of you, I’ll be taking those days to spend time with friends and family, and will not be sending out Did You Know.  To tide you over to the first Did You Know of 2008, here’s some fun and interesting holiday trivia:  

Oye Vey!  Not one mention of Christmas in the above.  Not one.  Being a fair-minded person, the Colonel adds to this list below:

Did you know...?

The word Christmas originates from "Christes Mass"  which means The Mass of the Christ.  It was typically held near midnight. 

The Christmas tree was a German pagan tradition honoring the pagan god Odin.  Germanic people were terrified of Odin as he would fly across the sky at night observing his people and deciding who would perish or prosper.  Sacrifices to Odin were made on an oak tree.  A fir tree adorned with colorful ornaments and light (candles) slowly replaced the oak in tribute to the Christ child.

The Yule log is of Scandinavian origin.  It literally was a gigantic log, probably a sappy tree, that would burn for days.  Much feasting would go on as the log burned.

Christmas time feasting tended to be a result of livestock slaughters that would occur as grazing land feed diminished in winter.  The prime animals would be preserved by slaughtering the less than prime.  What do with all that meat of course but gourge on it in the finest pagan and Roman tradition.

Wassail, beer and other alcoholic beverages would have completed their fermentations by Christmas time hence adding to the festive nature by providing liquid refreshment for washing down that meat.

Pagan Winter Solstice, such as for Mithras, celebrations marked the end of the longest nights of winter and lengthening days leading to next year's harvest.

Christ was most likely born in the springtime since the sheperds were tending their flocks at night in Luke's account.

The 3 Magi visited and honored Christ not on the night of His birth in the manger but more likely almost two years later in a "house" as Herod ordered the slaughter of boys two years and under in Bethelem after learning the Magi ditched him with their previous information as to who the Christ was.

Christmas was slowly introduced on December 25 to pagan people and sometimes ordered upon them not in a case of spiritual hegemony but as an attempt to reduce the debauchery and drunkeness that usually accompanied Mithric and other pagan god celebrations due to all that booze and meat that was so freely available at the time.  It was an attempt to allow peacable celebrations without the usual alcohol induced brawling, raping, and pillaging that normally occurred at the time.

Isn't it amazing our "enlightened" culture believes we should return to pagan traditions about Christmas?