Eager saturnalia how to#

I really hope you have learned something new from the ancient pagan Roman culture and about the predecessor of modern-day Western Christmas!Īuthor, Marko, is a young pagan from Southeastern Europe, specializing his pagan path in his Native Faith called Rodnovery and dwelling into Wiccan solitary practices.

Last, but not least, celebrate freedom! Appreciate the freedom we have in the USA and Europe and light a candle for those who still live with oppression.Ĭheck out our CALENDAR of pagan holidays! Take Away.

Decorate your altar with green and gold and a picture or statue of Saturn.

Presents can include sweets, candles or something like that!

Gift-giving is a must! Small tokens of appreciation and presents are awesome to give to your close ones.

At a banquet, you may have something special like pork and sweets. Bread, fish, and cheese were common everyday foods in Ancient Rome.

Greet people with the traditional greeting - Io, Saturnalia! And then tell them all about this wonderful holiday!.

If you are a pagan of legal drinking age where you hail from, make some mulsum! Mulsum was a popular drink in Ancient Rome made with wine and honey!.

You can make all kinds of your favorite cookies and shape them in sun, star, or moon shapes and decorate with green and golden sprinkles.

Bake cookies! It’s always the right holiday for cookies.

Decorate a tree on your property or somewhere near you! You can use golden cutouts of sun and star symbols!

In Rome, trees weren’t brought indoors as in many Germanic cultures.

You should decorate your doorways, windows, and stairs with something green or gold! Wreaths for something green and golden ornaments. During the festivities, you could wear clothes in these colors.

Saturnalia has its official colors, and those are green and gold.

Eager saturnalia how to#

How to Celebrate Saturnalia Today?īut, if you’d like to celebrate Saturnalia today, what would be the things you could and should do! Let’s have a walkthrough of some of the modern-day Saturnalia celebrations! It was a strongly emotive ritual exclamation used in announcing triumph in a gambling game or to punctuate a joke. Io Saturnalia - this was the popular phrase that was shouted as a salutation of the festival.

He could give all sorts of commands during the festivities such as to throw people in fountains or to make people get naked. King of the Saturnalia - or Saturnalicius Principes, was a master elected to rule the ceremonies and their proceedings. To learn about the origin of more traditional Christmas traditions read our article Do Pagans Celebrate Christmas? Usually, people exchanged pottery or wax figurines called sigillaria, candles, or “gag gifts” which included something that made people laugh. Gift-giving - The third day of the Saturnalia festivities was reserved for gift-giving. Amongst many festivities, there are a few of them that stand out from the crowd and are worth mentioning in a bit more detail.Īfter a long day of celebrations in the public, Romans continued to celebrate at home, sacrificing a suckling pig, as a traditional sacrificial animal for earth deities. People rejoiced and called this festival “the best of days”. Slave masters had to provide table service to their slaves.Īll the people in the temple actively participated in the festivities and worship, and a public banquet followed.Ī King of Saturnalia was elected who, with the title for the festival, got the power to order people around. Gambling was permitted and dice games were popular. People in Rome were excused from working, schools were closed, and war couldn’t be declared on this day. Saturnalia was a time of equality and liberation. During the holiday, the wool was removed as an act of liberation. The statue of Saturn in this temple was huge, having wool bound to its feet. Sacrifices were frequently made to Saturn in the form of animals, wine, cheese, or bread.

It has been destroyed and rebuilt a few times over the centuries. It took over 100 years to build but was finished in 497 BCE. The main Temple of Saturn was constructed in Rome at Capitoline Hill.