This article in the Daily News out of Jacksonville, NC is a pretty simple one-- just a column with a brief rundown of the winter holidays of various religions, each of which includes links to sites with more information.
It's not exceptionally comprehensive, since it doesn't even include some of the Christian feasts surrounding Christmas nor does it touch on festivals like the Zoroastrian mid-winter festival of Sadeh or the Buddhist Bodhi Day (which is unrelated to other winter holidays but is celebrated in December). I'm going to give the writer the benefit of the doubt and guess, though, that her intention was to create a primer for the holidays that her readers would be most likely to encounter.
The reason I point this article out is that it includes a paragraph about Yule as a Pagan holiday, and the information link it includes is from Circle Sanctuary (definitely a reliable source for information about Paganism). I was pleased to see it included alongside the Big Three without any qualifiers or judgments. It was also nice to see the mention of some of the historical facts around the evolution of Christmas, including the fact that it assimilated some pagan customs and the fact that Dec. 25th was set as the date for the holiday in the 300's CE.
Considering all the intolerance and acrimony that's getting slung around this holiday season, it's refreshing to see someone writing for the mainstream press with a goal of real information, understanding and tolerance.
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