Christmas

aka Ash

aka Ash

New Member
I want to make everyone think. This may be too controversial of a topic though. If it is please feel free to delete it.

Should we celebrate Christmas? If so, how?

Just give your general thoughts on this highly commercialized holiday.

Is Santa Claus ok? How about Christmas trees? Flying reindeer? Exchanging gifts? Why do we celebrate it? Do we celebrate it on the wrong day? Etc, etc, etc.

I'll give some of my opinions later after I see where we head with this.
 
Well Sure, just leave it kind of vague...

AS far as I know, December 25th is not the actual day of Christ's Birth.

My Family celebrates Christmas by Volunteering and giving gifts to those outside the immediate family. (I.e. THose who live in the same house) We send gifts to everyone else though.

We give gifts to eachother on New Years, the gifts are reminders of the gift of the new year God has given us.

Santa Clause? Well the original guy was. But the commercial icon he has become is not cool... Santa Clause is a guy who was supposed ot remind us that God gave the greatest gift of all.. His Son, Jesus.

I like Christmas Trees! The Evergreen is supposed to be a symbol of Gods Neverending Love for us.

Flying Reindeer? See above with Santa..

Celebrating Christmas Is important, but not for the monetary gifts. It should be celebrated in much the same manner as Good Friday or communion. With reverance and celebration with much Joy.

Think of how the angels reacted when Jesus was born. That is how we should react when celebrating His birth... At least hwo I feel.
 
the_great_eskimo_pie said:
Think of how the angels reacted when Jesus was born. That is how we should react when celebrating His birth... At least hwo I feel.
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That is a great answer from The Great Eskimo Pie.

I left it kinda vague on purpose. There is so much with Christmas nowadays that I was curious where this topic could lead. While answering Corpfox on his questions about Jesus...I began to wonder why we celebrate his birth on December 25th (cause I am sure he wasn't born on that day), why do we put up trees, and if all this hype about Christmas is a way for the devil to distract us from celebrating the birth of Christ. Why do some people say X-Mas? LOL...more questions, sorry.

I have talked to Jehovah Witnesses and they don't believe in celebrating Christmas or Birthdays. Only the Kings of old used to make their Birthday a holiday, and Jesus would not want to be associated with that. That is their belief anyway.

I honestly believe Santa Claus, the jolly old man in a red suit with flying reindeer, distracts kids from Jesus. I know as a child I was more worried about Santa visiting than I was about Jesus visiting.

I have also heard that December 25 was a pagan holiday and the Roman Catholics made it Christmas. I know that God can take a bad situation and make it good. Is that what happened? To overshadow the pagan holiday did we, as Christians, overshadow it as a Great Day? And is the Devil combatting that nowadays with the commercializing Christmas? (or as they(retailers) sometimes call it X-Mas.*Shudder*)

Random thoughts from a random person :)
 
A lot of Christian holidays are scheduled around pagan holidays in hopes of converting the pagans to Christianity. Many of the traditions in our holidays are also carried over from pagan traditions.

The pagan holiday around Christmas is Yule, Winter Solstice. The Yule Log, wreathes of Holly, mistletoe, tree decorating, gift giving and even some of the foods we now enjoy are carried over from then. In wicca, the rebirth of the son god was celebrated during this holiday.

This being said, should we celebrate Christmas....my answer would be yes. As cliche as it may sound, we do need to remember what we are celebrating and the reason behind the celebration. My daughter is not growing up with Santa. People ask her if she is ready for his visit and she says "we don't do Santa, we do Jesus". It gets mixed reactions. But, the purpose of the holiday is to celebrate His birth and remember why He was born. Although we have a candlelight service at church on Christmas we, we also have communion. It really drives home the purpose of Christ's birth.

Gen

p.s. You are not a random person, God knew you would be here now :)
 
Yeah man we should celebrate Christmas! Christian or not, it's the time of year where everyone is thankful for everything (along with Thanksgiving) and loves to be generous and try to be good people and stuff. The POINT of Christmas is to remember that our Lord Jesus was born on that day and we owe it to him to celebrate it!! Saint Nickolas or however you spell it, was a real dude. He actually did in fact deliver gifts to people through their rooves at night! The commercial grabbed a hold of this character and inflated him into a huge thing. Do I think Santa distracts children from Jesus? Yes! Like Ash said, I was more excited about Santa than Jesus when I was a child. I understood the full importance of Jesus and Christmas but Santa was so much cooler to me, which is the case with most children nowadays. Giving and receiving gifts is great no matter how you look at it. The trees and wreaths and all that was made by the Pagans. All the decorative stuff for most holidays is. Yeye, thats mah 2 cents yo!
 
Genesis1315 said:
p.s. You are not a random person, God knew you would be here now :)
Click to expand...

Thank you, I know that, guess I was trying to be funny...TRYING being the key word. God has a calling and purpose for all of us.


My children tell people we don't do Santa Clause we do Jesus, also. Many people have gotten onto me for that saying I was ruining their Christmas. LOL. I appologize, but that is a silly statement to me. I tell them the following.
1.) I will not allow another "Man" to take the focus off of Jesus in my house.
2.) I will not lie to my children...which Santa is...for good or bad.
3.) We set up a tree, lights, a nativity set, and exchange gifts. The gifts were bought by Mom and Dad, but provided for by God.

At first I thought about the Pagan Holiday thing as bad, but to take the focus off of it is a good thing. It is definately too commercialized now though in my opinion. By commercialized I mean that it's become a Retail Holiday. Kind of like Easter and the bunny that delivers eggs and candy, except probably worse.
 
I celebrate christmas as the birthday of my Lord and savior Jesus Christ.

God gave us His only begotten son as gift and in him is eternal life.

I accepted this free gift and the reason I give gifts on Jesus birthday is because of God's example in giving and lets not forget that it is better to give then to recieve.

Dec.25 is most likely not his actual birthday but it represents it as if it was and thats good enough for me right now.
 
Wow, this is some good discussion. :D

Yes the Christians used the Pagan Holidays to set up the "new" ones for the faith. More so because everyone already knew when the holidays were, the early Christians simply changed the names and the meaning of the day.

Giving and recieving gifts is great no matter how you look at it, however, One of the reasons people give gifts on Christmas is because the three wise men did. (At least that is something I heard a while back)

And I agree with you Jesh. Now if only we knew the exact day... That would be awesome..
 
Here's a recent Q&A with my three year old son, Joshua:

Bill: Hey buddy, who was born on Christmas?
Joshua: JESUS!!
Bill: And what do we do on Christmas?
Joshua: GIVE PRESENTS!
Bill: Why?
Joshua: Cause the wise men gave presents to Jesus.
Bill: What do you think about Santa Claus?
Joshua (ponders): Well... he's like Barney.
Bill (taken aback): What do you mean, he's like Barney?
Joshua: In our magitation. (imagination)
 
The way i see it is like.... Holloween. Holloween celebrates something overall paganistic. However its set aside for doing fun stuff. We can turn it into a really pagan holiday or an oppurtunity to spread the gospel. christmas is a good holiday overall, and we can use it as an excellent oppurtunity. Gifts i think are special for kids, and just a fun tradition. the way its commercilized i think is wrong though
 
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