Snog wrote and released Hey, Christian God in time to be enjoyed for Christmas 1993.

History is truly written by the victors. The holiday we call Christmas has origins far earlier than the birth of Jesus. The December date was set thousands of years ago by ancient peoples as the time of the sun’s annual rebirth. This time of year was slack for farmers and so it was the best season to celebrate. Romans celebrated a pre-Christian message of peace and goodwill with wild festivities. In the fourth century, The Roman Catholic Church took December as Christ’s birth to cash in on the popularity of the season and also to horn in on Mithraism. Originally from Persia, Mithraism pre-dated Christianity and was its chief rival for several hundred years. The two religions shared many similarities; the Mithraic faith included baptism, a sacremental meal, the observance of Sunday as the Sabbath and the birth of God on the 25th December. Mithraism died out because it gave no place to women, losing half of its potential converts to Christianity which gave women some, if not equal, status.

And so Christ’s birth came to be celebrated on December 25th, but it had to share the date with pagan festivals. Even the date of Christ’s death was taken from the pagan holiday Eastre, which paid tribute to the Goddess Ashtar. As a fertility goddess she was already associated with rabbits and eggs.

In the 1600’s the stern Protestant religion marked the decline of Christmas celebrations. In America the grim Pilgrims so disdained Christmas that they made it illegal from 1659 to 1684. Afer the Civil War, Christmas again enjoyed popularity, chiefly propelled by retailers who hit on the gimmick of Christmas sales. By 1870 December was the largest sales month.

Christmas as we know it has appropriated its customs from around the world. Mistletoe comes from the pagan Druid celebrations; the turkey is an Aztec bird; the Christmas tree is Alsatian and the Santa Claus we know today was first visualized by a German-American political cartoonist named Thomas Nast.