Hold off celebrations

I believe the celebrations, but not observance, of Christmas and New Year’s should delayed to be around the summer solstice so as to avoid spreading the COVID-19 virus.

This week’s PBS show on the history of Christianity stated as fact what I had thought to be speculation.

Several hundred years after the birth of Christ one of the popes (Julius 1 around 330 AD) declared Dec. 25 to be celebrated as Christ’s birthday because the Church wanted to supersede the pagan holiday for the winter solstice. That is the time of year when the hours of sunlight is the shortest. That was easy to do because the precise day of Jesus’s birth is not known.

The origin of New Year’s date is less certain but we celebrate it around the time of the winter solstice as well.

I suggest that for this year people be encouraged to hold off the actual celebration gatherings for these events to the week of the summer solstice. Next it is after 11 p.m. on June 21, which is a Sunday. So celebrating the solstice on June 22 would be a good day for a delayed celebration of Christmas and perhaps Saturday for the New Year.

This is six months from now, when the period of sunlight in the U.S. is the most — the longest day. It is a good time for a U.S. holiday because there are no national holidays in June for which people are entitled not to work.

Six months from now, when hopefully COVID-19 is defeated would be a great time to celebrate.

— Eugene R. Gobby, Somerville