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“Not as sorry as I am that you and yours have such crappy holidays.”

Oh, So it is you who admit to maintaining Druid and pre-Christian European pagan cult practices in association with your Christianity?

And resort to vulgarity, too.

None of that surprises us. In your system, it would appear that hundreds of years of fixing ones eyes, and lips, and so forth, on stone, porcelain, so forth, idols, has weakened any resolve to maintain the Bible’s very strict forbidding of images and idolatry. In this thread some have tried so hard to make pagan idolatry look like such a light thing and acceptable within their church. As in earlier threads there was what appeared to be defense of Voodoo in the Catholic Church.

And, by the way, Christians had joy long before there were any concocted holidays (most which are actually relatively recently established), because Christ is the object of joy—He IS the Joy—of those who have been Born Again by the Spirit of God and have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Those who have served in missionary posts where they cannot travel to see their families, where Christians are few, where the society round about is anti-Christian and anti-Church, so nothing around reflects any Christian holidays, have learned this in a very particular way. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself IS our Joy—personally—we have known Him Personally for 33 years. We realize that your system cringes and twists, and moans at the truth that there are people outside of your system who know Christ better than they know their own spouses and parents—that we walk with the Lord and receive very direct and obvious answers to our prayers—and that without outward religious trappings.

And by God’s grace and the Holy Spirit’s work, we see souls come to believe upon Christ and have that same joy. They have that joy long before they learn that someone created holidays (none of them are mandated in the New Testament), as Jesus Christ the Sinless Son of God and their Sin-Bearer IS HIMSELF their joy.

"Those who have served in missionary posts where they cannot travel to see their families, where Christians are few, where the society round about is anti-Christian and anti-Church, so nothing around reflects any Christian holidays, have learned this in a very particular way."

And don't try to portray yourself as such a martyr. You haven't experienced anything millions of others haven't experienced. Those of us who have spent Christmas in a combat zone and have awakened to firefights instead of presents have learned that sharing the holidays in a festive way in the traditions handed down through the generations with family and loved ones in every meaningful way lives the Beatitudes.

I am not surprised that you think my response vulgar. Those who are so proficient at slinging it seem to take the greatest offense at anyone who mentions it. In the meantime Catholics will continue to have fun and Salvation at the same time.