A Christmas Carol is the pre-eminent example, and it shows: There is the classic movie adaptation with Alistair Sims, half a dozen other serious film versions, Scrooged with Bill Murray, a muppets version, a Disney version, and--how many others? I have no idea. Are there any other books that have been turned into movies so regularly? Is it even remotely possible that this book and all the movies it has spawned would be anywhere near as popular if it had been set in, say, June?

The strange thing is that A Christmas Carol is ostensibly Christian (something much clearer in the book, where there is much sermonizing disguised as dialogue), but the pagan influences of the ancient Winter Solstice traditions are about as clear as ice crystal patterns on a windowpane. First there is Scrooge, a mean old cuss if ever there was one, and a pretty good ringer for Winter in general: cold, shrunken, rimed with white, hard, grasping, and given to meanness (also consider that he is born innocent and good, and becomes cruel--much like an aging year). Then Death comes to take him away in the guise of a series of ghosts, and brings him back--reborn as a figure of light on Christmas Day.

Miracle on 34th Street is a bit more subtle, as Death is recast as institutionalization and the loss of faith and magic, but the themes are still there: The coldness, cruelty and murderous intentions of Winter are portrayed by characters who have lost all faith in hope and magic, and are intent on imprisoning those tendencies where they appear. Faith dies when Santa himself agrees that he is not real, and colludes in his own imprisonment: And then faith is reborn when magic is vindicated in the hallways of reason. The central characters are transformed by their experiences, from dark to light, from cold to warm.

It's A Wonderful Life is a much simpler example: A man's despair and fear of his future causes him to erase himself from the world, and so he dies: But then he is reborn and hope is restored. In One Magic Christmas--a three-hanky movie if ever there was one--Winter comes to one woman's life when she loses her husband and children within thirty minutes, right before Christmas. But these figures are literally reborn, and hope and happiness are restored.

The third theme, of magic, is so obvious that it hardly requires demonstration, but to be complete: None of these losses and then regains are symbolic. They are all *really real.* The heroine of One Magic Christmas doesn't just believe that her husband and children are dead: They are really dead, but then they aren't. In Miracle on 34th Street, it really is Santa Claus. In A Christmas Carol, they really are ghosts; Scrooge really is dead; but then he isn't, and everything is fine. Even A Christmas Story plays with these themes in a light-hearted way.

What's special about the theme of magic is that it is not intended solely for children. If someone made a movie about the easter bunny or the tooth fairy being "really real" and targeted it to adults--well, it would be ridiculous, wouldn't it? Who would see it? Ah, but Santa Claus: That's different. Even in the most adult of holiday fare (who would consider One Magic Christmas a kids' movie?) Santa is "really real." This is the one time of year when it's ok for grown-ups to believe in magic, too. (Some of us flout this and believe all year long, but it's hardly condoned.)

Magic is special; it seems at least partially unique to western celebrations (perhaps because we're worked so hard to eradicate it from the rest of the calendar). But rebirth is a common theme throughout winter solstice celebrations. If I read over the lists I linked to before, here are the ones that deal explicitly with the rebirth of the sun, or light, or a sun-god:

Celtic
Christian
Ukranian
Roman
Chinese
Greek
Egyptian
Hopi
Iranian

Even more can be related through themes of the increase of light, and victory over darkness, however symbolized. It isn't universal (nothing human is truly universal, we're such damned ornery animals) but it's pretty close, as human traditions go. And I say, instead of fighting it--instead of each sect and clan and tribe and nation having its own explanation for why this day over that, or why this party instead of that one, or why ours is better than yours which is just heathen/secular/commercialized/blasphemous, or whose holiday this really is--I say, we go with it.

Think about it: After you peel off all the layers of symbolism and meaning that we and our ancestors have attached to the winter solstice over the eons, after you look behind the ritual celebrations of rebirth or victory or life or however our ancestors understood this momentous event of the year, what are we really celebrating?

Sunshine.

Yes, folks; sunshine. All of this yearly wrangling over who gets to party, and who doesn't, and which party is holy and which isn't, and whether it's "really" Christ's birthday, and if it's ok to do Santa or Christmas trees or lights if you're not Christian (as if the Christian God somehow has a closer connection with the Noble Fir than he does with maple trees), it all comes down to nice weather. And honestly, if we as a species cannot unite behind NICE WEATHER as a universal human value, then we are doomed.

I can so easily imagine early Christians in the 10th century in Europe having exactly the same conversations we have today, but in reverse: "I'm not a pagan, but I love those Yule logs. I'm going to burn one. Do you think God will send me to hell?" This is not to say that the various cultural accretions over the millennia lack substance or value: If December 25th is the day you choose to celebrate the birth of Christ, that's wonderful and meaningful. It doesn't have to be really the day of his birth to be a good day to celebrate it, and the solstice is a good time of year to do so, if you're going to pick one. My point is only that the solstice doesn't belong to anyone, any more than the sun does; and the evergreen trees, the red and green, the holly and mistletoe, Santa, presents, food and wine, lights, candles, songs and parties ARE pagan, and therefore belong to everyone, too. Or everyone who wants them, anyway.

Let's take it further. Many pagan cultures celebrated the solstice by turning the social order upside down--women dressed as men, and men as women; masters lived the day as slaves, and slaves took over the mansion to rule; the poor ordered the rich and the king left his throne for the holiday. I think that's a great idea. Gods know there are SOME American Presidents (not naming any names) for whom it would be highly educational, and it admits to a flexibility with social roles and gender categories that is sorely lacking in our culture today.

This isn't a secularization or a commercialization; it's an acknowledgement that we are all fundamentally celebrating the same event understood through different lenses, in different ways. I believe we can celebrate the differences and the samenesses, taking from each tradition what fits with our own beliefs and impulses and brings us a sense of meaning. Because regardless of what you and your family do between now and mid-January to celebrate whichever holiday you hold dear, the sun is going to shine for you and yours, too.