[ouroboros]

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[StDonTheBaptist]

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[A.J.Armitage]

We're beginning to look a lot like pa-gans.

It's a good thing Ramadan floats around the year or we'd have to deal with it as a substitute for Christmas all the time. Ramadan is the only one that compares to Christmas in its importance to the people who practice it.

[vladog]

Christmas is a 'pagan' custom. The tree, yule log, and even gift giving can be traced to North European Tribes. The Vikings, Celts, and other tribes all had a Dec. fest of some sort. The date and time varied from tribe to tribe. All of this was before any of them heard of Christ. When they were finally converted they brought many of their customs with them.

[IronJack]

We need to reclaim Christmas. It's up to us. We can refuse to buy secular "holiday cards," refuse to let our children participate in "holiday pageants," at least the ones that don't include a preponderance of Christmas themes, beleaguer school administrators to muffle celebrations of other religions' holidays (got to keep that wall between church and state y'know), and in general refuse to patronize those establishments or traditions at odds with the Christian roots of the season.

CHRISTMAS IS A CHRISTIAN HOLIDAY! If the people who want to celebrate it refuse to acknowledge that, then they just want a day off work and a few cheap presents.

[ex-snook]

One Solitary Life

He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village, where he worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty. Then for three years he was an itinerant preacher.

He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never traveled more than two hundred miles from the place where he was born. He did none of the things one usually associates with greatness.

He was only thirty-three when the tide of public opinion turned against him. He was turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. When he was dead, he was laid in a borrowed grave.

Nineteen centuries have come and gone, and today he is a central figure of the human race and leader of mankind's progress.

All the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the kings that ever reigned have not affected the life of man as much as that One Solitary Life - Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND PEACE TO MEN OF GOOD WILL

[jmp702]

Excellent post

[GraniteStateConservative]

The Catholic Church forbade the participation in Saturnalia, but the people didn't abide by the declaration, so they surrendered and decided to try to turn it into a solemn Christian holiday celebrating the birth of Christ.

They are still trying...

[watchin]

I think it's high time for a loud and jolly "Merry Christmas" at every checkstand, to the Postal workers, the man on the street, and the waitress at your table.

I personally arrange for an old-fashioned caroling party at my house each year. We usually have 40-50 show up. 30 or so tour the neighborhood, while the less hardy stay in the house preparing hot chocolate, spiced cider, cookies, and such.

They'll only erase Christmas if we're too shy to celebrate it. Merry Christmas FR!

[Doctor Stochastic]

Obviously the author of the article is ignorant of American Christmas traditions. The piñata has been used in New Mexico (not to mention other areas of the US and Latin America) for centuries. link link

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[Thorin]

Thanks for posting this article!

[Marysecretary]

Good post, but sad as well. I will always say Merry Christmas. They're not going to take that away from me or my family. I'm so tired of multi-culturalism, blah, blah,blah. It's anti-christianity. That's what it all boils down to. Put your kids in Christian schools and you can avoid this kind of nonsense, or homeschool them. At least teach them the real meaning of Christmas at home. They need something to counteract this nonsense. MERRY CHRISTMAS, FREEPERS!

[discostu]

I blame Burl Ives. Thanks to Burl and those awful holiday specials of his (that killed clamation for decades) Christmas started sucking. Once it stopped being a fun holiday the flood gates were open to all the questioning and tweaking. Christmas is easily my least favorite holiday, while I enjoy giving gifts, and who doesn't enjoy getting them the whole rest of the holiday sucks. Most of the songs blow, the TV specials are crap, the "very special" episodes are always the worst of the year, the lights are annoying, carolers are always out of tune, and everybody bitching that their religion isn't getting enough attention should shut up (really Christian folks complaining about not enough Christianity seems to make up the majority of the opinion pieces this time of year; while I agree that Christianity doesn't get a fair shake, especially this time of year, the griping is really overblown).

Overall everything sucks this time of year, and it all starts with some bad clamations featuring awful songs that we had to watch every freaking year (why do parents make their kids watch the specials? the parents know these things suck, if the kid doesn't wanna don't make him). Of course younger people won't understand this. We now live in a world with cable and VCRs, you actually can avoid those awful movies. Not when I was a kid, 3 channels and all of them were showing something lame, and if you said they were awful people called you Scrooge. Have you actually watched this crap?! It is lame.

Now I watch mob movies this time of year, thank God for DVD. Nothing like Joe Pesci swearing like a sailor whose private parts just got shot off and stabbing people with a pen to really clean that awful Christmas time stench out of your brain and leave you ready to remember the important things about Christmas: love and giving, peace and goodwill. There's really nothing like not being forced to endure hours of bad entertainment on the real meaning of Christmas to actually allow you to enjoy the real meaning of Christmas. Do your kids a favor, don't make them watch holiday specials if they don't want to, they might actually grow up to like holidays.