alternatehistory.com
Christmas Special!
Merry Kalėdos!
Oh, you thought I'll say Christmas? Well, this thread is Lithuania's special corner, so we are celebrating Lithuanian holidays here.
Kalėdos are an ancient Lithuanian holiday that celebrates the winter solstice, and are marked by usage of spells and future telling on what we would call Christmas Eve, as well as a visit from the name-mark Kalėda, a representative of the spirits of ancestors and pagan priests who would make grain and other sacrifices to the gods for a good harvest next year. The meat of pigs and boars are the most common food eaten on the Kalėdos table, and the celebrations themselves extend to January 6th, the day we would call "Day of the Three Kings", during which nobody works and every one spends their free time at their leisure.
With the introduction of Christianity, this holiday was shaped into what we would call Christmas, though retaining their original name. The priest spirit Kalėda became Kalėdų Senelis (Christmas Grandfather), or just Santa Claus. However, some pagan traditions, like telling the future on Christmas Eve, withstood the test of baptism and are still practiced today in Lithuania.
Merry Kalėdos, Merry Christmas.
We will eventually return to your scheduled programming.
What can you expect in Chapter 22? Well, for one, we'll see the introduction of something that Lithuanians used a lot in OTL and can even call their own, but will become the bane of their war effort in this timeline...
Oh, you thought I'll say Christmas? Well, this thread is Lithuania's special corner, so we are celebrating Lithuanian holidays here.
Kalėdos are an ancient Lithuanian holiday that celebrates the winter solstice, and are marked by usage of spells and future telling on what we would call Christmas Eve, as well as a visit from the name-mark Kalėda, a representative of the spirits of ancestors and pagan priests who would make grain and other sacrifices to the gods for a good harvest next year. The meat of pigs and boars are the most common food eaten on the Kalėdos table, and the celebrations themselves extend to January 6th, the day we would call "Day of the Three Kings", during which nobody works and every one spends their free time at their leisure.
With the introduction of Christianity, this holiday was shaped into what we would call Christmas, though retaining their original name. The priest spirit Kalėda became Kalėdų Senelis (Christmas Grandfather), or just Santa Claus. However, some pagan traditions, like telling the future on Christmas Eve, withstood the test of baptism and are still practiced today in Lithuania.
Merry Kalėdos, Merry Christmas.
We will eventually return to your scheduled programming.
What can you expect in Chapter 22? Well, for one, we'll see the introduction of something that Lithuanians used a lot in OTL and can even call their own, but will become the bane of their war effort in this timeline...
- Augenis
- Word Count: 240