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What is Christmas really about?
(by Luigi Luciano - December 20, 2007)
What should it be about as a Christian?
We celebrate Christmas for the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. It is a celebration, just like most people celebrate their birthdays by receiving gifts and celebrating with family and friends or going out to dinner we do the same on December 25 as a celebration of Christ’s birthday.
We are not really sure when the exact date of Christ’s birthday is but what we do know is that the date of December 25 was first recorded in 325AD under Constantine when Christianity was made the state religion of the Roman Empire. Before Constantine Emperor Aurelian first decreed Christmas in 247AD but it was not accepted universally. This date was viewed as the rebirth of the sun. Where the shortest days are over and it stays lighter longer. So at the time it made political sense to celebrate the birth of Christ at the same time of the year.
So how and why did Christmas become so commercialized?
From the very beginning, Christmas was regarded as a public event. It was never regarded as a private matter. In its origins, Christmas was not only public, not only commercial—it was political.
One of the most well known scenes of Christmas, which is on countless greeting cards and performed in innumerable church pageants, is the coming of the Wise Men to honor the baby Jesus. The Wise Men were public figures, and the arrival of their caravan into the capital city of Judea caused a considerable uproar. Far from treating their mission as an issue of private sentiment, they announced openly that the Child whom they came to worship was none other than the rightful ruler. (A popular rumor held that a coming world emperor would arise in Judea; one Caesar took it so seriously he actually made plans to move his capital from Rome to Jerusalem.)
When did Christmas become so commercialized? It should be obvious that the Wise Men went Christmas shopping. Gold doesn’t grow on trees, and frankincense and myrrh require labor to produce. Merchants have been capitalizing on the holiday since the very first Christmas.
The early Christians were martyred in droves, because they refused to privatize their faith. Even their creeds, proclaiming Jesus Christ as the one and only link between heaven and earth, were far from being abstract theological writings. That proclamation had a political impact that shattered forever the old pagan idea that merely human rulers were “divine.”
Today’s economy is dependent on the Christmas season. Christmas has been celebrated for a long time.
Many people do get caught up in the commercialization of Christmas. They have to spend a fortune and get many gifts to ‘feel the season’. That is wrong. It is nice to receive gifts. As Christians we receive the gift from God of the birth of His Son on Christmas day.
To truly celebrate Christmas we should buy gifts and clothes and give them to people who really need them. How many things can we use? How many sweaters can I wear? There are people who live on the streets with no food or even one sweater to wear. There are children without any parents who live from home to home or with no food let alone an IPOD or Nintendo games.
This time of year is about Christmas. For more that 80% of the country that celebrates Christmas it is and has been an important holiday for us and for the economy.
What gets me is when businesses refer to it as the Holiday Season. Yet they account for upwards of 50% of their business during the Christmas season. They are afraid to offend a small percentage of people who don’t celebrate Christmas.
This is a problem for me. What would happen if all people who celebrate Christmas next year decide not to buy gifts, trees, lights and animated figures for their homes?
They are buying this stuff not because of Hanukkah, Bodhi Day (Buddha's Enlightenment), Eid al-adha or Kwanzaa but because it is Christmas.
I have no problem with the other holidays but let them celebrate it on their days and have sales created for those holidays.
We have the idiots at the ALCU filing lawsuit after lawsuit because a Nativity doesn’t belong on City Halls' property. We have a small percentage of people who do not believe in anything complaining that Christmas should be stricken from all pubic events. For the most part these are not people that celebrate other religions but people who do not believe in any God at all. So they want other to be as miserable as they are.
People tell me all the time that you can celebrate Christmas without getting bent out of shape that a store won’t have the employees say Merry Christmas or a town will not allow the nativity on the grounds. I agree with that. We celebrate Christmas to celebrate the birth of our Savior. That is what is important. But what bothers me about this is why is Christmas gone after year after year? What is so bad about Christmas?
I can remember as a child walking into stores and people smiling saying have a Merry Christmas. Now I walk into a store besides that fact I can’t even understand what they are saying (I’ll leave that for another article) they say nothing or happy holidays.
The assault on Christmas just keeps on coming year after year. In fact the Federal Government has Christmas December 25 as a national holiday so why does Christmas have to be hidden behind words like holiday tree or holiday breaks at school?
The people that do not want to hear the word Christmas should just find another place to live because if this outrages them so much as to file lawsuits and cause an uproar we probably don’t need them in this country anyway. They add nothing to society but grief and misery. If people being joyous, singing Christmas carols or admiring the Nativity bothers you then turn away or go away.
From my family to yours, Merry Christmas!
Visit Luigi on the web at www.listentoluigi.com. Luigi wants to know what you think and will be happy to answer e-mails sent to him at luigi@listentoluigi.com. Some e-mail may be published in The Weekly or on the web.
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