Despite excessive heat index, how about 'Merry Christmas!'

Merry Christmas, one and all!

This is not a misprint or a recycled column from seven months ago. Merry Christmas!

In some Christian traditions in the United States, one of the Sundays between July 4 and Labor Day (a distinctly long non-holiday period) is celebrated in worship -- a summertime Christmas. Hymns are sung: it is a bit eerie to be singing "What Child is This?" when the heat index is over 100 degrees. Trees are erected: the practice of hanging of the greens is reenacted. Parishioners are invited to come in holiday colors; candy canes are distributed as folks arrive.

My grandmother used to have a word -- folderol -- to describe this sort of thing. Christmas in July she would have regarded as folderol, nonsense.

But hold on now. Let's look at this historically. There is absolutely no evidence that Jesus was born in December. Not a shred. Christmas was placed at the end of December as a counterpoint to the winter solstice. Additionally, Christians in antiquity located the birth of Jesus as a challenge to a prevailing Roman celebration, now long forgotten: Saturnalia (Dec. 17-23). Saturnalia honored the Roman god Saturn and it was marked by a public banquet, private gift-giving and parties. Any of this sound familiar?

In the late Roman empire, as Rome was beginning to crumble, Saturnalia added a renewal of light festival (the days start to get longer beginning at the winter solstice) -- named "The Birthday of the Unconquerable Sun," on December 25.

Birthday of the Unconquerable Sun Festival, the birth of Jesus Christ -- both on the same day. Want to know why we celebrate His birth when we do? The aforementioned is probably your answer.

Ergo, we don't know when in the year Jesus was born. Holding a festival for Christmas in July, then, is not such a terrible concept. But there's more to give some credence to a midsummer festival of our Lord's birth. Let's look at the matter ecclesiastically. In other words, let's examine it from a church perspective.

The Roman Catholic tradition holds that next Sunday, July 26, is the Feast of Saint Joachim and Anne. Don't bother looking for their names in the canonical New Testament. You won't find them. In the apocryphal Gospel of James, however, they are mentioned. Tradition holds that Joachim and Anne were the maternal grandparents of Jesus. There is a notion that Jesus of Nazareth received his education in the Law of Moses and about the practices of Judaism -- in which he was expert as early as the age of 12 -- from his Grandma and Grandpa on Mary's side, Joachim and Anne. True or not, celebrating the contribution grandparents make to child-rearing is enough reason to hold Christmas in July.

I remember Christmas in July and remember my maternal grandmother, Florence, the only grandparent who was active in my life. It was she who told me, when I was terrified to sing in front of a congregation as an adolescent, "Jeff, you look out at all those people and think to yourself, 'If you can do it any better, come on up here and give it a try.'" I have truly not been afraid to stand in front of a crowd and speak ever since. In fact, I'm at home there. Thanks, Grandma.

And to you, Merry Christmas (in July)!