ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 15, 1996 TAG: 9612160073
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-17 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BERKELEY, CALIF.
SOURCE: Associated Press
It just wouldn't be Christmas without a pagan candle-lighting?
Civic officials covered all the holiday bases this year with a tree lighting ceremony that took note of Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Diwali and the pre-Christian festival of winter solstice.
``We wanted to incorporate as many faiths as possible,'' said Rachel Rupert, executive director of the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce.
The lighting ceremony in early December was traditional in many ways.
Busloads of schoolchildren were brought in, many of whom had made luminarias, candles inside decorated paper bags weighted with sand. Some snow was trucked in as well, a rare delight in the persistently mild climate of the San Francisco Bay area.
Mayor Shirley Dean threw the switch illuminating the multicolored lights that are the only decorations on the ``Holiday Tree,'' a 60-footer growing behind City Hall.
Then the five holidays were commemorated. Candles were lit for Christ's birth; Hanukkah, the eight-night commemoration of a second-century B.C. Jewish battle victory; Kwanzaa, an American black celebration of community and family begun in the 1960s; Diwali, a centuries-old festival in which Hindus illuminate their homes; and winter solstice, the year's shortest day.
Solstice candle-lighter Pat Cregan said the holiday is celebrated with a fire or candle ``as a sign of our faith that in fact the sun will return and that life will return.''
The multicultural approach to Christmas is not new.
In New York, the Muslim symbol of the crescent and star and Kwanzaa candles appeared this year as holiday decorations at Grand Central Terminal.
But Berkeley's pagan addition gave pause to some.
``It was different,'' said Salvation Army Lt. Ivan Wild, who represented the Christian faith at the Berkeley tree-lighting. ``I know that they're trying to be politically correct, but I'm more concerned about being biblically correct and being politically polite.''
Wild said he decided it was better to participate than be silent.
Still, he wondered, ``If people don't believe in Christ's birth, then why celebrate it?''
University of California-Berkeley folklorist Alan Dundes pointed out that what may pass for a traditional Christmas is really a multicultural collection, borrowed from many sources, including the numerous pre-Christian ceremonies around the solstice that celebrate light in the middle of the dark winter.
``They had it first; they're just reclaiming territory here,'' he said.
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