Ex-Church of Christ Support Board

How did you celebrate Christmas? Or did you? Have you reclaimed it?

As a kid growing up in the CoC denomination, we celebrated Christmas but in a secular way. There was a Christmas tree and gifts, but there was also a lot of effort made to keep Christ out of Christmas, including obligatory sermons at Christmas about how the evil denominations were wrong to celebrate it as Jesus' birthday. Our tradition in recent years has been to go to the Christmas Eve program at one of our local Methodist churches, so I guess you can say that we have reclaimed the holiday. Haha, the Methodists don't try to keep Christ out of Christmas!

Opie wrote:As a kid growing up in the CoC denomination, we celebrated Christmas but in a secular way. There was a Christmas tree and gifts, but there was also a lot of effort made to keep Christ out of Christmas, including obligatory sermons at Christmas about how the evil denominations were wrong to celebrate it as Jesus' birthday.

This sounds like the way it was for me and my family when I was growing up.

Nowadays, I pretty much immerse myself into it and embrace it as sort of a yule / pagan / christendom hybrid. I love all
things Christmas. It's also the time of my birth, so it is really my very favorite time of year.

When I was growing up, we had a tree and lights and presents...all that good stuff. But we didn't dare have any mention of Jesus whatsoever. If a religious Christmas song came on the radio, we had to change the station. If Christmas fell on a Sunday or Wednesday, it was just like any other service...except that every year there was a rant about how the denominations are all in error because they're celebrating the birth of Jesus, usually followed by some Old Testament sermon because they didn't even want to mention the name Jesus on Christmas...I guess to make sure God didn't think we were accidentally preaching about the birth of Jesus in any way on Christmas, it was safer to just not mention the name at all...

I went to my very first proper Christmas service last year. I was blown away. The lights were low, candles were lit, the mood was perfect. The choir was absolutely beautiful and singing all the wonderful songs I was taught for so many years were "bad" because they celebrated the birth of Christ. Everyone there, including myself, was so drawn into the service and it was unlike anything else I had ever experienced. Just beautiful in every aspect. I can't wait to experience it again in a few weeks.

When I talk to my friends about my COC Christmas experience, they look at me as if I have three heads. They can't wrap their minds around a group of Christians that not only don't talk about the birth of Christ at Christmas, but completely avoid talking about Jesus the entire month. It is completely screwed up when I look back and think about it. Some of my favorite songs to listen to this time of year now are the religious Christmas songs. The ones that we weren't allowed to even listen to in the car. It's bizarre to me that it's completely ok to spend Christmas putting up lights, unwrapping presents, singing Jingle Bells, and hatefully bashing other Christians for how they choose to celebrate Christ at Christmas, but if you go to church and celebrate Jesus' birth and sing O Holy Night, God is pissed and punching your ticket to hell. Makes no sense whatsoever.

I was not raised in the CofC. My family did not attend regular church services anywhere, but my mother read us Bible stories (does anyone else remember that series that came out late 50's early 60's with beautiful pictures and great interpretations of the stories? I remember a lot of blue on the covers.) and we were allowed to go to Sunday school with friends if we wanted to. Christmas was neither secular or overtly religious, but Christmas carols of any kind were permitted.

When I was "added" to the CofC, I had to go through a bit of culture shock in regards to the attitude towards Christmas and Easter. I really struggled with the idea that we couldn't even listen to or sing the beautiful carols I was brought up on. I really missed them. But I secretly kept them, in my heart, where it really matters.

Now that I am FREE, I listen to all the carols I want, I sing along with them, I watch the beautiful pageants on TV, and I rejoice in what the day really means. The CofC tried to beat all of that out of me, but I have flourished in the fresh air of reality, and look forward to many years of embracing the Christmas spirit in it's entirety.

We were never allowed even a smidgeon of xmas and I was so glad when the day was finally over for another 10 months or so before it all started again.

I don't really care now, but it is hard to get excited about, holds no special memories. I was mid 40s before I changed on this. These days, I will participate in a few "gift exchange" events but it is mostly obligatory...at least now I don't have to tell them it is "against my religion" anymore. I just don't care about it I guess. But I know it is important to other people so I play along as best I can to make others happy....and that is a gift to them and myself. I like to make and see others being happy. I figure being focused on the happiness of others is probably where most any adult is going to end up anyway no matter if they "kept" xmas in childhood or not. So I figure there is no harm done for me not doing Xmas if I ended up in the same place anyway. That is how I look at it now...but as a kid I hated xmas time.

Growing up, it was a home celebration, without any sign of indication of a religious reason. We had a tree with lights and decorations - but no angels, no nativity scenes. It was all snow and reindeer and Santa. We could listen to and sing carols, but we didn't ever go caroling or join any non-coc friends in any kind of religious expression of the holiday at all. It was all about the presents, mostly.

Nothing at church of course except the obligatory 'we don't know when J. was born/we celebrate J's death weekly' sermon. Eventually whoever did the flowers up front would start putting red poinsettias up there in December, but that was truly daring.

The most 'religious' thing we did in December - and I think it was because Daddy, at least, wanted to - was drive to the Parthenon and look at the full size living nativity scene that would go on there in December. That's it. We would drive there, drive slowly along looking out the car windows, and drive home.

wow.

Now of course, we don't celebrate it, but we enjoy looking at other people's lights, and we sometimes go to other people's parties. I always buy books for kids at the Bookstore's 'Star Tree' and usually we will choose a name of the one at the library and buy gifts for one of those people they have on that (elderly/disadvantaged youth).

If I'm recalling correctly, both the Hendersonville church (Attended there from 1964 to 1977) and Crieve Hall (I was there from 1977 to 2013) would sometimes incorporate Christmas-type themes into sermons right around this time of the year; with the caveat, of course, that we were never commanded by Jesus to celebrate his birthday.

I do remember that we would occasionally sing Christmas-type hymns at various other times of the year, just to show that we could sing them any damn time we wanted.

Family-wise, we always had a nice, fun time. Gifts, decorations, a nice big meal, the usual stuff.


Over the past decade, I have come to enjoy Halloween much more than Christmas, though...

I celebrate Christmas even though it is offensive to many people.

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