I’ll put Christ back in Christmas when you put Thor back in Thursday.
Deal?
Well. Somebody’s getting a stocking full of coal.
While we’re discussing winter festivals, let’s not forget Diwali, celebrated by Hindus. It is yet another festival of lights. Humans seem to be compelled to find a spark in the darkness and celebrate it.
Long-burning lamps, the Sun King reborn, the Light of the World born beneath a shining star. This season, when the days become short for those whose ancestors made their homes above the equator, makes us crave light.
As much as Belrix may want this time of year to be about Jesus, it’s not. It’s about light, wherever we find it. Christians’ light comes from Jesus, and for a while there, Christians ruled the “civilized world”, therefore, they commandeered the season. Thankfully, with the intellectual advances of inclusiveness and multiculturalism, the rest of the world is getting it back. So learn to share. The rest of us did back in grade school.
I like Upside_Down_Amber. Beautiful.
I love christmas and Jesus has absolutely nothing to do with it. Why wreck a perfectly good love-filled, family holiday with religious drivel.
AnimistDragon, I like you too. Also, I wrote that post, I just forgot to log the Birthday Girl out before I ranted. I’m impulsive like that. :smack:
Belrix wrote:
It’s summer in the southern hemisphere, where Africa is.
[Krusty the Clown]Let’s all have a merry Christmas, a happy Hanukkah, a kwazy Kwanzaa, and a solemn and dignified Ramadan.[/Krusty]
I have noticed that there’s a lot less specifically Christian stuff. It all seems to be sliding further and further into Giftmas, and that’s not what I celebrate. I do like the music, though.
Hurrah! Someone likes me! Hehe.
Darn impulsiveness.
Well some of Africa anyway.
The spirit of Christmas is not about what you can make other people do. If you want to “put the Christ back in Christmas,” then take charge and become the message yourself. Work on a soup line. Participate in Toys for Tots. Visit a children’s hospital. Organize Carolers. Sing at a nursing home or for assisted care living. Or just go and talk to the people there. Just ask them about what Christmases were like when they were children. Make gifts instead of buying them. Or ask people to donate to a charity instead of giving you a gift. The possibilities are endless!
I’m with you, lola. (I read your post further down!)
That’s absolutely beautiful.
I think Christ would approve of everyone taking time to stop and spend time caring about others rather than just randomly kissing his ass while they beat their neighbors over the head with His words.
That being said, I hate how Pittsburgh always describes it as “Sparkle Season”. That’s so freaking STUPID. What’s wrong with just “Holiday Season”, if you must?
Sorry for the late-evening reply. I’ve been at Church, LunaSea for the past 5 hours rehearsing the Christmas play. It’s been my primary activity for past three weeks. I’m a member of my church’s choir and attend as regularily as a man with very young children seems to allow.
And, yes, LVgeogeek I did mean the “Hanukkah” was a relatively minor religious holiday (on the Jewish calender). Yom Kippur is, of course, quite a big deal on the Jewish religious calendar.
I have three children under the age of six. We do the Santa thing with them. We have a decorated tree. We do secular Christmas things with them. It’s fun. It’s traditional. It’s part of the common American culture. We also, however, remind them that there is a deeper reason for the holiday and that it’s not just about peppermint candy, lights, & snow. We tell them that we’re celebrating the birthday of our Savior with all this fun.
I have Jewish friends, I have Wiccan friends. I don’t wish them a Merry Christmas. That would be rude. But wishing a Jew a “Happy Hannukah” is roughly equivalent to wishing a Christian a “Happy All Soul’s Day” or a “Merry Ash Wednesday”. It’s on the Christian calendar but waaay down there.
If we’re going to all gather on the December 25th & exchange presents & call it Christmas, let’s just put Christ back in it. If you want to celebrate the solstice - fine - just do it on the 21st and go to a movie and have hamburgers on the 25th. I’ll wish you a “Happy Solstice” as we part ways rather than a non-commital “Happy Holiday”.
A few other random comments:
Zebra, While Dickens had Scrooge go to church, have you seen it done on any media production?
Diogenes, Your comments show partially why Pat Robertson is a bit paranoid. It’s easy game and fun for all to bash fundemental Christians. Try to find a Christian character on television that isn’t the target of ridicule (Ned Flanders). The supposed religious programming like the insipid “Touched by an Angel” and “Joan of Arcadia” talk lots about God but rarely to not-at-all about Jesus. My rant, though, isn’t about this - it’s about the fact that a Christian Holiday called Christmas is having Christ stripped from it. If we need a secular gift giving Holiday, then make one - call it Festivus and put it in August which, in my opinion, is a boring month. Just don’t celebrate Christmas with one eye closed so you can pretend that this isn’t supposed to be about Christ.
LeeshaJoy, I’m not trying to force you to Celebrate Christmas. Celebrate anything you want. Just if we’re talking about December 25th, we’re talking about a Christian Holiday. If we’re going to celebrate something on the 25th, let’s get the what we’re celebrating about right.
Tyrell - Yes, it’s summer in the southern Hemisphere. Harvest festivals are usually held, though, at harvest time in the fall (our springtime). Kwanzaa is placed where it is in order to syphon away Christmas celebrants. Christmas is seen by some black activists as primarily a “white” holiday.
I’m not even knocking Kwanzaa - at least not much. It needs to be recognized that it’s a secular holiday and not a religious festival. There isn’t Hindus, Christians, Jews, & Kwanzaans out there. Personally, though, after reading about the founder’s penchant for torture, it seems a bit like celebrating a holiday created by Charles Manson.
Zoe, I can put the Christ in Christmas - at least to my satisfaction. I just get fed up with this constant celebration with blinders. The big holiday on the 25th of December is called Christmas. It gets this name from the fact that this is the traditional date of celebration for the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, believed by many, including myself, to be the physical incarnation of God on Earth.
Other holidays, regardless of religion, have their names and their reasons - let’s just be clear about this one - I’m pretty clear on the reasons for the others.
Now if you’ll all excuse me - I’m going to bed.
I find the entire notion of a “black American culture” to be divisive and seperatist. I challenge you to find one cultural aspect shared by all black people in America. I bet you can’t. There’s no more a definitive “black” culture than there is a “white” culture. Now I’m sure you can point to plenty of mostly black subcultures, but how many of those really hinge on skin color rather than geography or economic class?
A race is not a culture, and for that matter it’s barely a “race” at all in any meaningful sense of the word.
Yeah, heaven forbid anyone celebrate something else on THAT day.
Jesus, be more of an ass?
People have a right to celebrate whatever the fuck they want to at this time of year. If I want to call December 25th Talk Like Beavis and Butthead Day and act accordingly, I WILL.
How does that affect your celebrating?
It doesn’t!
Now THAT would be a holiday to celebrate. I’m trying to convince my girlfriend that we should watch the Beavis and Butt-head Christmas episodes.
Uhhhhh, cause that would like…rule.
That’s a pretty stupid qualifier. Just because not all Canadians have read Margaret Atwood doesn’t mean there’s no Canadian culture or that she’s not part of it.
You can all be boiled in your own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through your hearts.
Okay, Belrix. This year, like last year, my Mom and my boyfriend and a couple of friends and I are going to celebrate Christmas in our own special way.
We’re going out to dinner at the local Hare Krishna vegetarian buffet, and then we’ll head back to my place to drink egg nog, eat cookies, and play Vice City until late at night. Nothing says Christmas to me like watching Mom beat up hookers.
My point being…
None of us are particularly religious. We don’t really want to participate in any of the madness that surrounds this holiday. But we don’t have any choice. Nothing is open Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, and chances of getting any work done are zero. My boyfriend’s office is having a Christmas party, we’re getting cards from all over, we’ll be giving presents to relatives because it’s expected, and it’s a fun opportunity to show people how much we care about them.
But Christmas in this society is an inevitable juggernaut of tinsel and good cheer, and those of us who don’t have much reverence for religions can’t avoid it. So we find secular ways to celebrate. We’re not going to pretend to be Christians for a week in December, and we’re not going to be Grinches and try and take Christmas away from whoever wants to celebrate it any other way.
If you don’t want secular people celebrating in secular ways, then start lobbying to have its status as a national holiday revoked. Then you can be known as the guy who killed Christmas.