See what I did there? With the V? For versus? God, that looks so douchey. Anyway…
The two greatest holidays of the year in one arena! Which one will reign supreme? In one corner, you have an ancient Pagan holiday usurped by the Christians to garner converts. In the other corner, you have an ancient Pagan holiday usurped by the Christians to… WTF. Seriously?
Halloween started as Samhain in Ireland. It was meant to be a celebration of the end of the Fall harvest and serve as light-hearted merriment ahead of the encroaching cold of winter. The Christians were like “Nah, that’s All Hallows Eve now, bitches.”
Likewise, Christmas started as Yule in Germany. You know, the whole Yule log thing, cutting down evergreens and stuffing them in your house cuz everything was dying, etc. The Christians (SURPRISE!) were all like “Nah, Jesus got popped and this is birthday and FUCK YOU, weird Pagan people.”
Christians can be… forceful. Now obviously, that’s painting with a very broad brush, but it hits close enough to the truth for a zoo-based entertainment website. At any rate…
Eventually, the two holidays found their way to the new world and grew and developed in the United States. The early results were um, mixed.
Okay well, it was a bit of a learning curve. Then again, living through two world wars and the Great Depression probably didn’t help. So what have we learned so far?
- The Christians like to steal holidays.
- Both Halloween and Christmas started off looking creepy as hell.
- Christmas took longer than it should have to stop looking creepy as hell.
Right. So what would happen if we pitted the two holidays against each other? Where do we even start? Well, let’s look at the major players, shall we?
We’ll start with Halloween. Pretty straightforward, right? If you ask Christians, the lord of Halloween is Satan himself.
That’s of course on top of Dracula, the Wolf Man, Frankenstein’s monster… That sounds pretty one-sided, actually. I mean, Christmas has baby Jesus, an exuberant fat man that breaks into houses, several little people… Although, that one Santa…
Yeah… no. He’s probably just working for Satan. I’ll have to give this one to Halloween. I mean, Satan. Even beyond him, a whole legion of legendary horror monsters and the living dead are going to wipe the floor with a bunch of elves and a man one cookie away from a coronary.
Now okay, baby Jesus has the force of God behind him and all but come on. He’s just a baby. And if ancient portrayals of baby Jesus are anything to go by, he’s also a wee bit on the special side, if you know what I mean.
Wow, okay. Halloween wins on that front. Let’s look at something else, though: MONEY.
Now I’ll grant you that Christmas has a lot going for it on this front. You have present-buying, Black Friday, decorations, music, egg nog, professional actors to send to the in-law’s in your stead, etc. that said, Halloween has been surging like a motherfucker these last few years.
People are buying more and more elaborate costumes costing into the hundreds of dollars. Haunted house attractions are booming. Everyone’s throwing parties with expensive props and decorations. That surely adds up, right?
It does, but not like the Christmas season. People spent six hundred billion dollars on the “winter holidays” between 2012 and 2013. That’s compared to a teeny-weenie seven billion dollars spent on Halloween in that same time frame. In fact, even Mother’s Day saw more than double the spending. Then again, I mean
Yeah so maybe she should win? Anyway, Christmas takes that fucking cake by at least like, a few dollars. I don’t know, I’m bad with money.
So in conclusion, in the battle between Halloween and Christmas, clearly big business is the winner.
CHAMPION:
