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Growing up in a Christian-oriented household, the Christmas holiday has taken on many different meanings. I spent 14 years of my life as a Roman Catholic, when I reached the crux of fate and personal decision to abandon my family's faith in search of something more personally meaningful. Within two years after I left Catholicism, I adopted a Pagan faith. Raising myself Pagan through my teenage years led me through some difficult times, but I could always count on the togetherness and fulfillment that Christmas provides. Since early youth, the Christmas holiday was rife with symbols of light and hope, and every activity was very ritualistic, from decorating the tree, to bringing out the candles and leaving votive offerings for Old Saint Nick. After I became a Pagan, I started to see outlined divisions between Christianity and Paganism, which made me believe erroneously that there was some inherent difference between the two practices with regard to the Winter Solstice.

As any student of history and spirituality may cite, Christmas' Pagan derivative came to us from Roman Paganism and the festival of Saturnalia, combined with the Celtic festival of Yule, which recognizes the winter solstice and the Scandinavian mythos of a man, possibly red-haired or red-faced with great girth, such as a giant - old Odin himself. Celebrating Christmas as a Pagan, through a deeper understanding of my own spirituality, has not lost any element of the way I practicised it when I was Christian. If anything, it has deepened the experience. The candles, the lights on the tree, symbolised the hope that springs eternal from the dark and cold world outside.

Although my family and friends views this celebration with gifts as an allegory to the gifts bestowed upon the infant Christ by the three Magi, I know that when I look upon the candles and led lights, that I will see the light of hope for the future and the seasons to come.

Learn more about this author, Dorean Malandra-Dara.
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