Christmas

Each year for Christmas I make a new card, send it out to some close friends and family. My gift giving is mainly for the children in my family who believe in Santa Claus and also those children a little older who still believe in Christmas. As far as adults in the family, my gifts are usually some home baked cookies and jams and maybe a pointsetta. I don't go for gift giving, especially to my family who have told me that I'm not worth the 39¢ for a postage stamp (one actually said this to me).

Of all the holidays in the year, Christmas is my least favorite. Of all the holidays, the one that causes the most stress is Christmas. It's not a fun time at all, not even close. I suffer from hypertension as it is and then to have the holiday on top usually throws my blood pressure over the top.

I don't want to hear the "Christmas Story" theme or the "Commercialization of Christmas" theme. To me they're both the same -- argumentive. If you really want to know the truth about Christmas...

The Encyclopedia Americana says: "CHRISTMAS. It was, according to many authorities, not celebrated in the first centuries of the Christian church, as the Christian usage in general was to celebrate the death of remarkable persons rather than their birth..." (The "Communion" which is instituted by New Testament Bible authority, is a memorial of the DEATH of Christ.) "...a feast was established in memory of this event [Christ's birth] in the fourth century. In the fifth century the Western Church ordered it to be celebrated forever on the day of the old Roman feast of the birth of Sol, as no certain knowledge of the day of Christ's birth existed.

HOW This Pagan Custom Got Into The Church

Now notice! These recognized historic authorities show Christmas was NOT observed by Christians for the first two or three hundred years - a period longer than the entire history of the United States as a nation! It got into the Western, or Roman Church by the FOURTH century A.D. It was not until the FIFTH century that the Roman Church ordered it to be celebrated as an official "Christian" festival!

Remember, the Roman world had been PAGAN. Prior to the fourth century, Christians were few in number, though increasing, and were persecuted by the government and by pagans. But, with the advent of Constantine as emperor, who made his profession of Christianity, in the fourth century, placing Christianity on an equal footing with paganism, people of the Roman world began to accept this now popular Christianity by the hundreds of thousands. "

So, even the holiday itself, isn't what some think it should be. I see it as a way the Roman's had for having something for people to celebrate a ancient holiday; thus trying to make it an acceptable holiday of the times. It doesn't change the fact that this holiday was originally to celebrate the winter solstice of the "New Sun"; a celebration that was observed by a number of different religions besides the Babylonians such as the Druids.

Many of our holidays are handed down from Pagan beliefs, but we've changed their meaning some to make them acceptable for the time.

I will celebrate Christmas as a holiday for which it has always been, but not necessarily for the same holiday that everyone thinks it is. It isn't a time of gift giving, but a time to celebrate the new sun and the prosperity of Mother Earth in the growing season to come.

It also doesn't make me believe less in what I was raised to believe, but in the honesty of the holiday, I don't see it as most want me to see it. So, in this sense, since so many try to push their beliefs on me, the holiday has become stressful and simply something to have to tolerate. Once it is over I will again become myself.

In all honesty, this is one of the things I miss most about working nights. When I worked nights, I often called off many of these types of celebrations because it was to difficult for me to make long trips to nowhere to celebrate a holiday I really didn't believe in with people who thought I wasn't worth the cost of a stamp for a greeting card.