@Foxfyre,
Quote:. . . it was the Christian Christmas celebration that evolved into the Christmas traditions and resulting merchandising boom that we celebrate today, and I personally resent those who now try to exclude Christmas from the celebration.
Wrong again. Xmas, as we celebrate it today, has absolutely nothing to do with Christian traditions. Every single one of those traditions, from gift-giving to the fir tree to wild drunken parties, evolved from ancient pagan rituals, mainly Germanic and Scandinavian. The Norsemen called in Jul (Yule in Anglo-Saxon English, a word we still use sometimes). In ancent Rome it was the Saturnalia. What it was, in essence, was the celebration of the Winter Solstice. When these people accepted Christianity (reluctantly, I might add), the priests said they could no longer celebrate pagan rites. So the people said, in effect, "What? We're celebrating the birth of Jesus. This is now a Christian holiday."
And so it was decreed. The fact is that nobody knows during what time of the year Jesus was born. The Gospels do give a clue, and, if you believe in the truth of the Gospels, it's quite obvious that the birth could not have been in what corresponds to our month of December. Why? Because the Bible tells us that the shepherds were guarding their flocks at night. It has been ttraditional in the land that is now called Israel since time immemorial that night-herding of sheep is suspended in the Winter months, between the celebrations of Rosh Hoshana and Passover. Partly it's because nights are fairly cold and partly it's to leave the pastures fallow for a season, allowing them to regenerate. To say that Jesus was born in the month of Kislev (the Hebrew rough equivalent of our December) is to fly in the face of Biblical testimony, i.e. it is heresy, part of the general heresy promulgated by the Council of Nicea in the 4th Century.
Even the notion of Santa Claus is older than the identification of Father Christmas with Saint Nicholas. Originally, in pre-Christian times, the old guy who brings presents to good little children was identified with the Norse chief god Odin (or Woden or Wotan, whence we get our name of Wednesday [Woden's-day] for the fourth day of the week). Later, when Odin was no longer an object of worship, a substuitute had to be found and the Christians of that era opted for St. Nicholas, a cleric of Smyrna who had been famous during his lifetime for works of charity, especially towards orphans.
And while we're at it, here's a tidbit for you who object to the word Xmas being substituted for Christmas. That is a very Christian substitution. According to my Webster's II New Riverside Dictionary, "the chacter X in Xmas does not represent the letter X in the Roman alphabet but rather the Greek letter
chi....
Chi is the first letter in the Greek form of Christ...The symbol x or X has been used as an abbreviation for Christ since earliest Christian times." [1996 edition]
Bearing all that in mind, I don't understand what anyone's objection could possibly be to "Happy Holidays" or "Season's Greetings." That is what, in the final analysis, we are celebrating -- the saeson when days are awfully short and nights terribly long. We know that sometime after the 12-day Xmas feast, this condition will begin to reverse itself and we can look forward to longer days and shorter nights. Cause enough for celebration.
Happy holidays, y'all.
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