Such riotous goings-on might not sound especially Christmas-like. 'Saturnalia, with lots of fanfare, celebrated the bounty and looked forward to a new year filled with plenty,' he said. 'Saturn was - among other things - the god of bounty and agriculture,' said Floyd Moreland, originally from Passaic, director emeritus of City University of New York's Greek/Latin Institute. There were other ways, however, in which Saturnalia resembled Christmas less than Mardi Gras, or even April Fools' Day. 'The poet Catullus complains that someone gave him an inferior book of verse,' McDonough said. Ring a bell? The Romans even suffered from post-holiday letdown. In one account from the first century B.C., someone is heard grousing about his Saturnalia present. Some scholars have suggested that greenery was brought into the home: Saturnalia was a winter solstice festival. There would have been extra candles and lamps in the house, to provide light in a season of darkness. 'Little dolls, things like that.' People greeted each other with special holiday phrases. ' 'Io Saturnalia!' is Greek,' McDonough said.

'It was usually minor gifts, little gifts,' McDonough said. 17 to 23 would have been typical, though there were variations over time - that involved feasting, merry-making, and gift-giving. What's definitely true is that Saturnalia was a December festival - Dec. 'This idea that the Saturnalia was somehow baptized as a Christian festival just doesn't add up with the way the early church functioned.' Holiday time

'I don't buy the theory, largely because the early church was really strident about not being pagan, and not being accommodating of pagan ways,' Messner said.