Here we are with 12 days before Christmas, not the beginning of Epiphany (the 12 days from Dec. 25 until Jan. 5).

  The only divine manifestation now is the revelation of a mathematical equation: The sum of your purchases divided by the shipping costs is equal to the square of the late charges on your credit card.

  A happier thought is the winter solstice, Dec. 22 this year, which marks the beginning of longer days and shorter nights.

  This day has been greeted by wild celebrations since the Stone Age (about 10,000 B.C.), which is coincidentally near Dec. 25, as are many newer religious celebrations.

  The coincidence is not surprising. Back in the bad old days of western civilization, beginning with organized farming (c. 4000 B.C.) life was a craps game, a roll of the dice, betting on the weather. The losers died.

  Why? Because crops planted and harvested in the previous nine months were now stored in the food bank, with no chance for a loan.

  April was the first chance for new planting, weather permitting, but the first harvest wasn't until late June. Starvation was not uncommon, and starvation for more than one or two months can cause permanent organ damage.

  That kind of anxiety could drive you to drink, which it did, and to big-time religions, which it also did. In 354 A.D. The Roman Christian calendar posted Dec. 25 as Christ's birthday. (Changes in calendar calculations jiggered the corresponding dates of Christmas and the winter solstice.)

  Although the date of Christ's birthday was formerly Jan. 6, now the ending date of Epiphany, most pagans, while keeping their celebration of the winter solstice in mind, converted to the new religion anyway. So who was counting?

  The new, and apparently prosperous, religion (Rome owned the world) carried with it similar allegorical stories of the pagans' hope of new beginnings.

  The new religion included a bonus, Easter, a celebration of resurrection calculated as the first Sabbath after the first full moon, after March 21, the vernal equinox, spring, the first day of equal darkness and light, and, allegorically, death and life.

  Better yet, these calculations coincided with a full moon, which pagans worshiped, and the month, usually, of April, new crops. Along with those pluses, came the egg (the beginning of new life) and the bunny (fertility, in every meaning of the word.)

  And for folks down to their last dollar in the food bank, Easter eggs and bunnies were plentiful protein.

  For us, down to the last dollar in our credit cards, maybe we should just relax and enjoy what matters most: food, shelter, family and friends.

  Happy Holidays.