As if there wasn’t enough preaching the rest of the year. Can we at least celebrate without the contaminating influence of religious misinterpretation?

We’re all raised, in varying degree, to understand Christmas as the day when the Christ-child, the savior-baby, was born. Whether or not “to save us all” or “as the son of God” completes that sentence is up to your particular religious convictions. What isn’t up to you is that this didn’t happen in December.

Think about it. According to Luke’s part of the New Testament, your Virgin Mary and her husband Joseph are on their way from Nazareth to Joseph’s ancestral home, Bethlehem, to take part in a census.

Nobody tended to travel much during winter, as it was too cold–instead, most people traveled in the fall, when the summer heat had subsided a bit and there might be edible bits along the way, fruits and such, “gleanings” if you will. (Lev. 23:22)

Additionally, the Nativity story describes that shepherds were out in the fields, watching their flocks at night. (Luke 2:8) Who does that in the dead of winter?

More in keeping with tradition (and reason), shepherds were out with their ruminants after the end-of-summer harvest, where they could eat the stalks of grain and the miscellaneous crap leftover, and in so doing fertilize for the winter crops’ success.

When it comes to Jesus’ conception, it’s a slightly more difficult path to trace. So: Zecheriah and Elizabeth, quite elderly at the time, were told by an angel that they would have a son, John. Zecheriah “belonged to the priestly course of Abijah,” of which there were 24 such “courses,” named after the heads of priestly families. Each one got half a lunar month, to demarcate temple service, starting with Nisan 1 (our March or April); the Abijah was the eighth, which would make the first round for that bunch somewhere late May.

Don’t leave me yet. Zecheriah returned from whatever it was he did in the early part of June, which is when Elizabeth was alleged to get the baby bump started. Now: it was the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy–December–when Gabriel came to tell Mary of her own immaculate, er, conception. Nine months from that would be September.

This Bible stuff gets tough to follow.

Actually, a good deal of astrological research puts the date of Jesus’ birth at pretty close to September 11th, so make with that what you will.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, with all of this out of the way I think I’ll celebrate Krampus during the first part of the month, until the big celebration–Sol Invictus, or Rod Serling’s birthday, whichever you choose–on December 25th. Not too many shopping days left.

Cody Bishop can be reached at [email protected]