“Before anyone was celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanzaa, the Western world had Yule and Saturnalia; late-December holidays commemorating the winter solstice, when the days (finally) start to get longer. December 21st is the shortest day of the year, and the whole world agrees the beginning of the end of those long winter nights is worth celebrating.

How did people celebrate those original pagan holidays?

With booze — and lots of it.”