December, the month of Christmas. But also of Saint Nicholas and Saint Lucia, of New Year’s Eve and of the Winter Solstice. It is a month pregnant with traditions and spirituality: in it, Christians all over the world celebrate the coming of Christ on this earth, but it is today common knowledge that, even before then, the last month of the year was replete with magic and spiritual power.

The Celts and the Romans celebrated the Winter solstice and Mithraism, a cult coeval to early Christianity, worshipped the Sol Invictus, by many seen as a mirror to the figure of Christ. The very date when we celebrate Christmas, it is believed, was “borrowed” by Christians from pre-existing Roman celebrations for the solstice, an easy way to enhance the popularity of the “new” by using habits related to the “old.”