Serious Ways To Celebrate Saturnalia (updates)

While the philistines at the FOX Not-News channel wage their ungodly war on the pagan festivities, it might behoove me to pass along some tips on how to honestly and sincerely celebrate the Roman winter solstice holiday known as Saturnalia.

1) Decorate your home with sun and moon iconography.  Apply garland wreaths where appropriate.

2) Hang out with Vestal Virgins.

2a) (update) In the possibility you cannot locate any Vestal Virgins to hang out with, you have a good excuse now to travel over to Rome, Italy and ask around for one.  Hell, this is a good time for Rome to set up a Vestal temple for the tourists...

3) Decorate all trees on your property.  They don't have to be the traditional triangle-shaped fir trees, any trees will do.  For those of us in Florida, we've been decorating palm trees for years...

image from the Minimalist Sweet Home website

Update: that photo isn't showing anymore!  The link might be broken.  Let's try this one...

from the Jen On The Edge blog

4) Drink Roman-styled wine.  There's a version called mulsum which mixes honey into the wine.  Should be interesting around bears...

5) Give small presents.  Nothing large or ostentatious.  Maybe a set of keys to a new electric-powered car.  ...what?

6) GO TO ANY TEMPLE OF THE GOD SATURN AND LIGHT A CANDLE TO EARN HIS FAVOUR.  If you can't find a temple, trick your local churches into funding a charity that you'll secretly use to build one.  That oughta learn 'em, stealing the winter solstice and all...

7) Gamble.  It's allowed during this festive period.  But do it in legally-approved areas like Hard Rock Casinos on local tribal lands or Las Vegas.

7a) Gamble using other people's money.  See 6) for hints.

8) Sing classical Roman ditties.  If you don't know any classical Roman ditties, sing "Louie Louie" off-key and no-one will notice.

9) Greet everyone by saying "Io Saturnalia!"  Now here's the tricky thing about the Latin language: they didn't have a letter J to represent that phonic in the western tongues, so they doubled it to the letter I.  It's really Jo Saturnalia! being said.  And the Romans pronounced the J not like "jay" but like "yo".  So it should sound like YO SATURNALIA (akin to YO ADRIAN).  But type it IO SATURNALIA.

9a) Do this early and often around Bill O'Reilly until he goes batsh-t insane.

10) Enjoy the holiday season no matter how and why you celebrate it.  If you're Christian, Hebrew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, Shinto, Pastafarian, what have you.  THIS IS A TIME TO CELEBRATE, TO REFLECT, TO ENJOY FAMILY AND FRIENDS TO THE UPMOST THAT WE CAN.

This message brought to you by a faction of the Unitarian Jihad.