Winterval

Apparently, there is are one or more UK councils trying to rebrand Christmas as "Winterval". At first, this seems ridiculous but is it really? Let's face it, modern Christmas - as Christians nationwide berate every year - has less and less to do with Christ each year. Why not just dump the pretence and separate the capitalist money machine that starts earlier each year from the religious festival behind the name? Who knows, maybe re-branding Christmas itself would let people reassociate what "Christmas" is really supposed to be about, rather than simply what the Christmas holidays have come to represent?

Then, of course, one must not forget that Christmas itself (the festival, not the "event",) is simply a rebranding of the old pagan winter solstice festival. When Christianity swept the land and did away or assimilated all the old traditions, it was perfectly happy with such behaviour. Now, that it appears to be suffering the same at the hands of (albeit probably misguided) intentions to make the main public holiday of the year equally open to everyone irrespective of religion, it kicks up a fuss. Of course times, and therefore standards, have rightly changed since the Dark Ages but I cannot help but detect a whiff of hypocrisy.

Furthermore, many of the religious aspects of Christmas, namely the nativity, actually have very little to do with the actual biblical account of Christ's birth. (Assuming that even this is historically accurate, which is contentious to say the least. e.g. Luke timeline of famous figures does not appear to agree with contempories; Joseph is the son of Jacob in Matthew and the son of Heli in Luke etc.) If one moans that "Winterval" has nothing to do with the "true Christmas" then one should also do away with a lot of religious twaddle along with the commercial tat.