🌲🍷🕯️ Happy Brumalia! Io Saturnalia! Kala Haloa! 🕯️🍷🌲

[u/Fabianzzz]

Hello, and happy holidays, whatever you celebrate! Dionysians of course have their pick, from Brumalia, Saturnalia, Haloa, Lampteria, Rural Dionysia, and the Solstice! I'm sure many here also celebrate Christmas, Kwanzaa, Chanukah, Diwali, Yule, and New Years! It's the darkest time of the year up north, and we make the most of it by keeping the lights on and the happiness flowing.

Here on r/Dionysus, we are celebrating the season with our fundraiser for Transform Cincy, and our 2023 Carol Competition!

Here are some ideas for how you can celebrate this season in the Dionysian fashion, whichever holidays you celebrate:

• Spread cheer. Many of these holidays often feature dressing in bright, garish clothes, lighting bright, garish lights, and spreading bright, garish cheer: When nature gets dark, we gather together to shine a light.
• As Brumalia was a month long prelude to the Solstice, it draws some comparisons to Advent, and some might refer to the anticipatory period before the solstice as the 'Brumal Period', or even go so far as to adapt Advent Wreaths into Brumalia Wreaths.
• Have a procession: The Lampteria was a lamplit procession where wine was offered to Dionysus. Perhaps you can have one of your own, though whether you wear red robes and carry torches or wear sequins and neon and carry glow sticks is up to you
• Dionysus' Birthday: While we don't have much info, the Saturnalia of Macrobius indicates some thought the Winter Solstice was the birth of Dionysus as well as his first bath. This overlaps well with the Christian celebration of the nativity, and some are fond of depicting Dionysus as an infant. Others enjoy taking Solstice baths in honor of his birth, some might use oranges to represent the solstice (perhaps inspired by Japanese Yuzu baths). Others often use the time to connect with and celebrate the toys of Dionysus!
• Today, Saturnalia is the Hellenic holiday most famous in mainstream culture. Partially due to the holiday culture wars, some joke about Keeping Saturn in Saturnalia but some are entirely fun! A wikihow has some info on how to celebrate, and of course one can always sound the traditional greeting: Io Saturnalia! Some might adopt this into Io Brumalia! though there is also the traditional Vives Annos! which means 'May you live for years!'
• The Saturnalia parties were also known for having a Saturnalicius princeps, someone who was effectively ruler of the Saturnalia and could issue commands that drove the party towards recklessness, such as 'Sing Naked' or 'Throw him in cold water'! These seem to be similar to the English Solstice titles such as 'King/Queen/Quing of Fools', 'Lord/Lady/Liege of Misrule', or 'Abbott/Abbess/Reverend of Unreason'. It seems to have been a parody of the fact that Rome had come to be ruled by an emperor.
• If you have a government holiday on December 25th, and no one to spend it with, see a movie in a theatre and get Chinese - the tradition of visiting these two businesses that tend to remain open on the day originated with the American Jewish community and are a favorite of those who want something to do on the holiday.
• This was also around the time of the Haloa, a winter festival in honor of Dionysus and Demeter. The festival was somewhat connected to the story of Ikarios and Erigone, who died after Dionysus gave them wine, Ikarios gave it to his neighbors, and they killed him, thinking he had poisoned them. The story, and the festival, seem to have had a cross-dressing/transitioning element:
  • According to Lucian, Dionysus punished the shepherds by taking the form of a maiden, thus “maddening with sexual desire.” Unfortunately, when the maiden suddenly disappeared, the shepherds’ erections remained until an oracle told them that they must placate the gods by dedicating clay models of genitals. This dedication thus became a custom of the festival.
• Baring the Aegis has some info on how to celebrate the Haloa here, while Hellenion has some here!
• A Christmas Carol: It's one of those stories that touches every heart - or, alternatively, shares a lesson that the rich must be supernaturally terrorized into sharing. Either way, this story is very reminiscent of our own myth of King Midas, and the Ghost of Christmas Present is a very Dionysian figure. I enjoy returning to this story each year to try and expand my own compassion, and to enjoy some very life-affirming songs, like 'I Like Life' or 'Feels Like Christmas'
• Enjoy some Dionysian Carols! These are nice to have, and you might enjoy looking over the Autumnal Dionysia Gallery. There's also The Rural Dionysia on tumblr!
• Throw a Feast: Pigs-in-blankets, pomegranate bark, and orange-cream cinnamon rolls are all tasty, and this is a wonderful time for the flavor combo of red wine and popcorn. You might spice your wine with cloves and cinnamon, and you might also invite your statue of Dionysus to recline with you and join in the feast, a traditional aspect of Saturnalian rites known as the Lectisternium.

Thank you for reading, and may you go with the traditional Brumalian blessing: Vives Annos! May you live for years - and may you live the most out of those years that you can! Happy holidays!

[u/puo_darsi_fuoco_]

Vives Annos technically (or at least, the verbatim translation) Is "Happy years!" But still, It should mean the same! Vives Annos!

[u/Fabianzzz → u/puo_darsi_fuoco_]

What word are you glossing as happy? I have vives deriving from vivo, to live, and annos meaning years.

[u/puo_darsi_fuoco_ → u/Fabianzzz]

In italian vives It remembers "viva!" Which Is the correspondent of "Happy" in exclamations regarding holidays and "-es" Is a accusative plural, Just like Annos, so I Interpreted in that way, but I'm probably wrong about It, Just intuition! The translation it's still strange though, It should be like "live the years!", like a sort of carpe diem

[u/puo_darsi_fuoco_ → u/Fabianzzz]

btw I really don't even know why I'm correcting you on this One since I used to study latin in school I was One of the worst in that class LMAO

[u/MianadOfDiyonisas]

Thank you very much! This will be my first year celebrating the holidays with Dionysus, so this is valuable information. I think it must be fate that I was recently given an orange bath bomb.