Christmas and it's sole purpose was to celebrate the birth of Jesus. It's not the literal birth date of Jesus, but is the designated date that we all celebrate. In history, it has also become a time of gift giving and family gatherings. Nonetheless it is a Christian based holiday.
Sadly, Christmas has lost it's meaning to the masses. It now spending spending spending. Money, money, money. Christmas sales everywhere, Christmas in July sales, Christmas summer sales, it's all enough to make a person sick! In my town, Christmas started to be celebrated commercially the day after Halloween!! Not even Thanksgiving yet and Christmas trees, and decorations are being put up. Not to celebrate Christmas but to remind people YOU NEED TO SHOP. Subconsciously they tell you Christmas has arrived and you need to SHOP NOW! Never mind the fact that in the pre-holiday season, prices jump so when the holiday season does arrive they lower the prices back to normal so they can say CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY SALE! People fall for it every year. "look at this great deal!, I remember when this was $20 more back in August!" failing to remember that the same items was really cheaper this past May, June or July. We're all suckers, we fall for it every time and not even realize it.
On the religious side of things, we have now become so "politically correct" that the Christian faiths are discouraged from celebrating the birth of Jesus publicly. All due to fear of offending other faiths, religions or those with lack there of. I just heard on the news this morning that somewhere someone tried to read a passage out of the Christian Bible in public, in celebration of a Christian holiday, and was stopped from doing so because it was ILLEGAL and NOT POLITICALLY CORRECT. This is a Christian holiday for crying out loud! Let the man celebrate his faith with others who share the same things. I'm not a Christian, I am atheist, though I may not agree or believe like others do, they should have the right to their religious beliefs, and to celebrate it how they see fit. For me if I don't like it, I can go home , not participate or change the channel. It is CHRISTmas after all, a Christian holiday, let them celebrate it and their faith.
The last thing that bothers me most about Christmas is it's used as an excuse to spend time with family and friends. This makes me sick most of all. Why do we need an excuse to spend time with family and friends and to give gifts. Shouldn't we do this anyway all year round? Our time on this Earth is short, and we need one day a year to make sure we show appreciation and love to our friends and family? Screw political correctness, shopping sales, and what not. Love and appreciate your friends and family all year round, don't just wait until Christmas or any other holiday to do it. Put some thought in your gifts and really make it count all the time. It will mean something, it will mean more when you do.
5 comments:
I am not a religous man. By NO means. Christmas is nothing more than a Retailers Holiday. This yea PISSED me off royally Before Halloween stores were setting up Xmas displays, to the extent that I couldn't find new ornanments for halloween, which I will go on record as saying is my Favorite Holiday.
Wow, I wonder how Grexis feels about Christmas....
This really reminds me of an old Futurama episode where Christmas had been renamed to Xmas because Christ hadn't been involved for years and it was exactly like you said a corporate driven shopping day.
Now unlike most of you, I actually am Christian and grew up going to church every Sunday, went to Catholic school, etc. In my family Christmas has usually been more about being together with family than it has about gifts. Sure we buy things for each other, but really the whole point was to get together. I will say however that even in my family I can't say that Christ was front and center. We usually went to church together however so He wasn't completely missing.
I will both agree and argue your point about using Christmas as an excuse to spend time with friends and family however. I fully agree with you that you don't need a special occasion to do it though it seems that many times it is true. I make time to see my family throughout the year, however holidays are usually the only time that everyone can get together at once. On my dad's side of the family there are around 40 of us so there has to be some event to coordinate around.
At the same time I believe that people making time around the holidays to spend with family is again business driven. It tends to be the time that many businesses shut down to save money and many of them force people to take time off anyway. It seems to be a very GOOD time for people to get together. If I was in just about any other job for the state then I would be part of that large number of people that is forced to take time off during the Christmas Season.
Please don't get me wrong. Christmas is a great time for everyone to get together as much as possible. I don't have the problem with Christmas at all. It's the the people that I work with, and the rude ass people I have to deal with when I want to go pick up a loaf of bread.
Most everyone is off work at the same time so by all means take advantage of it. My main problem with it is everyone seems to make it the sole reason to get together far too much. The rest of the year, it's hard to take off work to see those people who also have the same problem taking off work.
A lot of the reason I'm especially bothered by people using Christmas as the only excuse to get together is recently a girl I grew with died in a car wreck. Her brother, who is pretty much a lazy shit to begin with, was putting off spending time with his sister during the summer and Thanksgiving holidy because he would spending time with her over Christmas. Guess what, he didn't get the chance to spend time with her. He had all this free time and couldn't even pick up the phone to talk to her.
LOl Nykk I grew up Lutheran, was a Sunday School Teacher before I left for College. I was "Full" of the Christmas spirit back then, now after finding/researching many religions I find that Christmas really was created as a Reatailing Holiday. Jesus, the man not the myth, was born in late to mid June. The Governments got involved and determined to announce Dec. 25 as a day to exchange gifts, they used Jesus(the myth) as the cause for these gifts. So Xmas is really not so much a holy day but a day of gifting.
The family part of the discussion I half agree with Grex but for some that can only afford to see their families once a year it makes for a great day. Of course the Airlines/trains and gas stations raise their prices then to steal more money from the masses.
Well I was going to post a response but then it wouldn't work and deleted my text so all I have to say is this.
Jesus was born in the early part of the year between March and (as Geeon said) June. His celebration (Christmas) was moved to December to coincide with the winter solstice so early Christians would not be persecuted and to more easily convert the "pagans" to Christiantiy.
However, as Grex said, it is now a corporate money maker like every other holiday and those who are part of the actual religion that founded it cannot even express that religion. Hey, if some guy wants to say Merry Christmas, good for him. This political correctness movement of the last few years is pathetic. As long as someone's religion does not physically harm another, who cares.
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