Hola amigos, since christmas is nearly here i fel i have to post this since it has been on my mind for quite some time. Christmas, as you all know, for the Christains is about the birth of Jesus Christ, but is it me, or has the Christmas religious traditions seemed to fade over the years? It seems that Christmas has been overtaked by corperations and businesses as a way to make a cheap buck and nothing more, i have seen many "devout" Christians that celebrate Christmas by giving gifts to each others families, yes this is nice, but the message of Christianity is to help those in need correct? So why not give a gift to a homeless person, or to a charity instead. Also, i have seen Christians that have forgotten what Christmas stands for, and celebrate no aspects of Jesus in it at all. As for the Pagans, i really know nothing of Yule, but i do know many pagans and they would do a cerimony during this time to please the gods, or something like that, im not really quite sure, lol, but they stick to the aspects of it that follow their religion, and of course exchange a gift or two. So i guess my question to you is, do you feel the same way? Do you feel Christmas has been overtaken by big businesses?

It's being seen for what it is!? Capitalistic exploitation of a capitalist spiritual ideology!?

Yes, no, maybe!?


And, only 24 more shopping days till Christmas. 20 till Yule and 14 to buy all those candles for Hanukkah

Ask yourself - what does a reindeer with a red nose that glows in the dark alongside a pack of other reindeer, pulling a big sled piloted by a jolly fat man dressed in red with a white beard, originating from the north pole who is helped by a pack of flamboyant elves have anything to do with Jesus?

Related, unrelated? Help me out here.

Ohh.. concidering that Christmas is maybe 90% old world pantheonic religion (since apparently useing the modern use of the word Pagan seems to make some people confused or suddenly turns them into the word police) such as Druidic and celtic shamanism rituals and and 10% actually about the birth of Jesus...

Aside that, why should Christmas have the monopoly? It's only celebrated at this time of year because the church absorbed the holiday of Yule. If Jesus was born at all, according to the bible he was born during when the ewes gave birth to their lambs.. which was always in spring.

However, besides Christmas and Yule being at this time, the jewish have (and I'll mangle this spelling) Hanaka, then there's the African harvast fest of Kwanza, then I believe even the Muslims have a holiday about now. I know there is Ramadan, but I don't... know if it ended yet.

So it's only natural now that we have a whole huge world of ethnic and religious holidays about this time that we'll have huge companies trying to cash in on it. After all everyone's buying things for gifts that a few of these holidays have... and they are in the business to make money.

Ask yourself this one, why do those female reindeer have male reindeer names!? During the month of December all antlered Reindeer are female! Male's don't come into their antlers till the spring and shed them before winter.


That puts it into an analogous perspective. Female servants, under the cloak of a masculine implication of a father god/Christmas.

See really, it's Mrs. Santa that dresses the fat man for bracing against a winter flight down wind of 12 arses, across all the globe.

Explains the elf population hating laundry day on December 26th however.

I never celebrated Christmas in the name of Jesus when I was a Christian, it was simply a time for candy, feasting, and plenty of gifts. My family still "celebrates" so I go along with it (although I am no longer Christian) but when I have kids of my own I will not celebrate the holiday as it is now, or Christmas for that matter. Yule maybe. Regardless, an interesting idea about Santa was brought up to me the other day.

In order to make people forget that it is a day to celebrate Jesus, Santa was inserted into the holiday. We all know him as Saint Nick as well. Amusing, since Satan (Santa rearranged) is called Old Nick -- the tempter, the master of Hell. Personally, I have heard Santa Claus called Old Saint Nick before. Santa himself is depicted as an old man with a long white beard and hair, with rosy cheeks; generally pleasant and innocent. However, do not forget he dresses in a powerfully bright red suit (fire and brimstone, also the universal color of warning), wears black leather boots for an added touch, and most alarmingly is grotesquely obese. He even comes down your chimney unnoticed (sly as a fox) and wants every home to leave him food! GLUTTON. In earlier times obesity and weight proved your wealth. A man as obese as Santa must commit at least two of the deadly sins, Sloth and Gluttony, and probably also commits Greed (How does he get all those toys?!), is the epiphany of Vanity (for the same reason as Greed), and if anything he spreads envy to all the little boys and girls, easily worse than being envious himself. This "patron" of "children" therefore could easily be equated with Satan manifested into a "jolly" old man. The ultimate tempter. Whoever introduced him into the holiday did a great job, look what it's become!

I thought that was an interesting thing to bring up. Let me reiterate that I do not believe in Santa Claus or Christmas and I am not a Christian.

DP, there are always going to be "Christians" who don't even understand what Christmas is about. But don't worry, there are still plenty who still celebrate it as both the time we celebrate the birth of Christ (most of s know it is not actually the right date ) My church participates in a national program called Angel Tree. This program is intended for the children and families of parents who are in prison. The Angel Tree organization sends us a list with names of kids in our area whose father or mother is in prison; the list includes the kids age, sex, and even what kind of present they want. We write their names in little paper angels that are then put up as decorations in a Christmas Tree and people then have the opportunity to take one of the angels. These people are then responsible for buying a present for this kid. A week before Christmas we have a big party at church. All these families are our special guests. We have Christmas music for them, games, food, and then we give them their presents.

There are other organizations like this one throughout the country and the world, insuring that the message of Love and Peace to All is spread.

Actually, Raven, the bright red suit and even the cherubic appearance was added to Santa by the Coca Cola Company in the 1930's. Prior to that Santa was portrayed in somewhat Germanic or Easter European clothing, usually Green and leather-brown.

I actually like the old world apperance of Santa over the sodaized one.

No kidding? I did not know that...If that's the case, then that hidden meaning does raise some interesting questions about which gender is in service to the other - a male dominating many fems, reminds me of a lion's lifestyle.

Ah! Then we have Coca-Cola to blame! They are responsible for destroying the spirit of Christmas!

Move over Coca Cola Santa and make way for the new.

Every holiday has its share of corporate greed. The point of christmas is to buy stuff for other people...the corporations didn't even have to try.

I feel Christmas has been so paganized and commercialized that it no longer represents a Christian holday, so I'm all for it lol! As has been said already, the Santa-Satan connection, is another good reason. Christmas is a wonderful time to knock off the remainder of the seven sins for the year lol, with all the greed, gluttony, sloth, envy that Christmas entails. Lust is an easy one, it gets taken care of early in the year, thats what New Year's is all about!

PS Irish is that a real pic of the Pope? Its perfect!

I’m afraid it is, scary looking fella if you ask me!

Makes my avatar look down right hansom

I think the reason there are some many holidays this time of year in the north anyway is you need something to take your mind off the weather. Why worry about about all the hype. Just relax enjoy some coco and watch Charle Brown. Make you holiday what you want it to be and stop worrying about what other think it should be.
Happy Holidays what ever they may be.
Darkwind

Actually, with respect to lions, the male lion is a protector but also enslaved to the female of the pride, which outnumber his one lone authority. Were it not for the lionesses initiating and consummating the hunt, the male would starve for the most part.
And while a male lion will kill the cubs of a new female he seeks to mate with, so as to insure the dominance of his seed, assuming yet another female into the pride outnumbers him even more, and yet insures he eats well, through the agency of one others labors, while he sits idly back and waits to fill his belly. Making him, in no small part, largely dependent on the females to survive.

thanks for all the replies, lol at least im not the only one who thinks Christmas is a little arwy, as for what Iams said, good for you, your about one of the only Christians i know that actually does something nice on Christmas, all the ones in my neighborhood might just give like $1 to a charity and say they did a good deed.

That pic of the pope is too much Irish. I have to get a copy of that, but I think it may scare the children away. I think a great point was stated earlier in this forum and I think it is a great Idea to give to the homeless and needy. I do think the celebration of Christmas has become commercial like most holidays do. My Sis is atheist and we have Christmas there, so one day I asked her why she celebrates it, and she does it for the fun of it. Go figure.

The early Christians stole the pagan holidays and converted them to Christmas and Easter. Then 1500 years or so later, commercialism stole them from teh Christians. Kind of ironic, really.

One could also make an argument that the Christmas holiday followed by New Years Day closely mirrors the Old Testament Feast of Tabernacles and the Last Great Day. The Feast of Tabernacles ran for 7 days, followed by the Last Great Day. Christmas starts on December 25, runs for 7 days, and is followed by New Years Day. The Feast of Tabernacles is a week-long celebration of the Israelite's exodus from Egypt - liberation from slavery. Christmas, celebrating Jesus' birth and the subsequent liberation from sin (another freedom).

Gideon Mage could possibly add some further correlations (or perhaps disperse this idea altogether), but it's something to consider

Regards, PA

Well...it's related if you rearrange the Jolly red man's name and find out who he really is (taking the spotlight away from Jesus, focused on materialism, dressed in red, etc).

I think you'll find that's a myth, Iams -

The Santa Claus figure, although not yet standardized, was ubiquitous by the late 19th century. Santa was portrayed as both large and small; he was usually round but sometimes of normal or slight build; and he dressed in furs (like Belsnickle) or cloth suits of red, blue, green, or purple. A Boston printer named Louis Prang introduced the English custom of Christmas cards to America, and in 1885 he issued a card featuring a red-suited Santa. The chubby Santa with a red suit (like an "overweight superhero") began to replace the fur-dressed Belsnickle image and the multicolored Santas.

At the beginning of the 1930s, the burgeoning Coca-Cola company was still looking for ways to increase sales of their product during winter, then a slow time of year for the soft drink market. They turned to a talented commercial illustrator named Haddon Sundblom, who created a series of memorable drawings that associated the figure of a larger than life, red-and-white garbed Santa Claus with Coca-Cola. Coke's annual advertisements — featuring Sundblom-drawn Santas holding bottles of Coca-Cola, drinking Coca-Cola, receiving Coca-Cola as gifts, and especially enjoying Coca-Cola — became a perennial Christmastime feature which helped spur Coca-Cola sales throughout the winter (and produced the bonus effect of appealing quite strongly to children, an important segment of the soft drink market). The success of this advertising campaign has helped fuel the legend that Coca-Cola actually invented the image of the modern Santa Claus, decking him out in a red-and-white suit to promote the company colors — or that at the very least, Coca-Cola chose to promote the red-and-white version of Santa Claus over a variety of competing Santa figures in order to establish it as the accepted image of Santa Claus.

This legend is not true. Although some versions of the Santa Claus figure still had him attired in various colors of outfits past the beginning of the 20th century, the jolly, ruddy, sack-carrying Santa with a red suit and flowing white whiskers had become the standard image of Santa Claus by the 1920s, several years before Sundlom drew his first Santa illustration for Coca-Cola.

Source

Good ol' snopes

I haven't celebrated Christmas for nearly 20 years. For some reason I have trouble celebrating something that starts after halloween and ends in mid january (talking about store's decorations and the endless christmas songs).

Plus the amount of consumerism going on at this time of year absolutely disgusts me.

I'm no party pooper though 0 I can still have a great time with family. I just can't get into the spirit of it.

What I do celebrate are the solstices and equinoxes, stuff like that. I'm no pagan either. I just recognize them as sound holidays to celebrate - since they're ones everyone can agree on.

Personally, I'm all for a holiday where I get presents. I'm by no means a Christian, but growing up in a Christian household with an anal-retentive Virgo of a mother who had to make sure the placemats matched the holiday mantelpiece, I've gotten comfortable with the trappings of Christmas, if only in an aesthetic sense. Plus, it was the only time during the year where my mother wasn't completely batcrap insane. So I still celebrate it, but only in the sense of an excuse to give people presents and eat peppermint stick ice cream.

I tend to type (and say) "Happy <insert winter holiday of choice here>" because I know too many people who celebrate different things. Though I do tend to remember which ones to send a Hannukah card, who gets the Solstice gift, and who to send the bourbon.

I also celebrate this season by taking delight in giving back to my family in the way they gave to me for so many years. By spreading chaos and confusion. All my Christmas cards this year will be non-denominational with Hannukah stamps and the gifts wrapped in Hannukah paper. The year before last I used plastic cockroaches as gift wrapping. The year before that I ensured that all the coffee in the house would turn to jello.

This year is going to be fun.

Dang - that kind of christmas actually sounds like fun.

Commercialized.

But the thing is, is to make the holiday your own .. have fun, enjoy the spirit of the season. I was very religious, devout Catholic, making it a point to never miss Midnight Mass .. but for the past few years, I've drifted from the Church. I still hold onto my faith and celebrate the season for what it is .. just in my own way.

I agree, your quite right NC. The spirit of the season I still feel in this heart of mine, of course not as strong as when I was a child, but christmas does bring that warm feeling.

You don't need to go to church to get to know your God.

Eh, these holidays have always been "Hallmark" holidays. It's to be expected but that doesn't mean you can't make it mean more to yourself and your family.