io Saturnalia!
Saturnalia is an ancient Roman Festival that is the root of modern Christmas celebrations. We love celebrating this holiday as a lead-in to Christmas.
Saturnalia is a feast to honor the God Saturn, who is described as a god of time, generation, dissolution, abundance, wealth, agriculture, periodic renewal and liberation. Saturn's reign was depicted as a Golden Age of abundance and peace.
Saturnalia's theme is "excess is the minimum". It's a time when class and rank structure is ignored or even reversed. Everyone rich or poor, slave or free was allowed to mingle, feast, and party as equals. Often times roles would be reversed and the rich would feed and serve the poor or enslaved. A King of Saturnalia would be elected from the lower class, and they would be allowed to give orders to anyone during the feast. The feasts were large public events and free for everyone, and libations flowed freely. Gambling, which was normally outlawed, was allowed in public during this time.
Gift giving was also a huge part of Saturnalia. Because expensive items are a sign of status, people usually exchanged small trinkets like hand-made wax or pottery figurines and toys. All items were received and welcomed regardless of their intrinsic value.
The greeting of io Saturnalia is a ritual exclamation used to celebrate, announce triumph, or punctuate a joke. It is pronounced either with two syllables (a short i and a long o) or simply as one syllable, pronounced yō. It's similar to shouting Huzzah at a renaissance festival or saying Merry Christmas to someone during the holiday season.
Saturnalia was originally held on December 17th. It was later extended to 3 days and then to 7 (ending on Dec 23). In the 4th century, Pope Julius I chose December 25 as the date to celebrate Christmas. This was the date of the Winter Solstice in the ancient Roman calendar, on which they celebrated the rebirth of the Sun God (Sol) or the first day of the new sun.... birth of the Sun God became the birth of God's Son, interesting right? Pope Julius I adopted many of Saturnalia's practices and customs for the new Christmas celebration.
We celebrate Saturnalia in our household by feasting, drinking, and giving small presents.
If you have made it this far I thank you for reading, but there are no Bingo calls here.
