Our family doesn't celebrate christmas anymore. If your family does, it's cool because everyone has to decide for themselves what it means to celebrate christmas. For us, that went by the wayside when we finally acknowledged that we don't buy into the whole capitalistic slant it's taken on. Our family buys each other gifts whenever we feel the need to give them, not just one day a year. Well, that and we really think spending all that money and time on decorating is ridiculous. Personally, I'd rather see a starving child get what it costs to light up my house. Also, our family doesn't practice any religion that celebrates it for the alleged birth of christ. For that reason, it was extremely hypocritical of us when we did participate in the traditional christmas celebration, so we decided to stop.
I'm sure there many of my christian readers bristling at the suggestion that I say December 25th is the alleged birth of christ. To that, I would say please check your bible. Show me the evidence that he was born on December 25th, conclusively. You could also go to this handy website and get an education... Christmas - The Real Story. Actually, go one step further and read Nailed: The Ten Christian Myths that show Jesus Never Existed At All. For me, this does such a good job of explaining why celebrating "The reason for the season" is a complete and utter joke; only one more example of why believing this christmas nonsense makes no sense.
As I said, what you do this December 25th and how you celebrate is really your business, not mine. But I do hope that you'll take a moment to reassess why you think it's valuable to put yourself in debt for presents, gift your family for no other reason than 'it's traditional' or why you are even participating with something that has no empirical evidence to even deem it worthy of celebration. After that, if you still think you have legitimate reasons to celebrate, then have the fuck at it and enjoy! But if you don't, keep pondering and hopefully then you'll get to a point where it makes sense for you.
In the meantime, Happy Holidays and enjoy the time off! :)
And to David, who I stole the Reason's Greetings and Merry Mythmas from... I give you full and proper credit for the title! I ♥ the sentiment, man!
I think it would surprise you that more Christians than you might think realize that Christmas is not on Dec. 25. Even a very conservative commentary (New American Commentary) notes that the likelihood of Jesus' birthday being Dec. 25 is slight to none. Most conservative commentaries put the date of Jesus' birth somewhere between Passover and autumn. But anyway, I just thought you should know that not all Christians are ignorant about these things.
ReplyDeletei'm sure that all aren't, but it would be pleasant to hear more christians who aren't ignorant speaking up and schooling those who are.
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