That Time of Year Again

[FinallyFree]

This will be my first religious Christmas this year I am now attending a Disciples of Christ church and an experiencing Advent for the first time. For the first time in my life, I bought religious Christmas stamps for my Christmas cards. I think this season will be a lot more meaningful than just focusing on presents.

[illuminator]

First, happy birthday Ivy!

Second, FinallyFree, I really enjoy your posts.

Third, for me growing up in a country church of Christ, there were some who warned against celebrating Christmas as a religious holiday, but most of us did -- especially in our family. I have beautiful Christmas memories of family and friends, Santa Claus, but most of all Jesus coming into the world to save man from his sins. When I moved to the big city, I was rebuked by Elder Bubbas and Biddies. How dare I put Christ in Christmas! Soon Christmas became cold, lonely, commercial. When I left, I wanted to recapture Christmas memories. I wanted the warm fuzzies! I wanted a nativity scene, I wanted to sing Chtistmas carols, I wanted to be free! Now I am and I make my own special memories.

[Pitts S2C]

My Mother loves Christmas so we celebrated it each year. Just don't tell the Church members. We could be disbarred. Even when I was just 5 years old I thought that was super hypocritical and it just didn't make since. I even learned that 2 out of our 3 elders had Christmas trees at home yet heavily preached against it at the pulpit. What's with that?

I currently work at a Bank and we have to call it our Buisiness Appreaciation Parties. Not Christmas or Holiday parties. Must stay 'politically correct'.

[Moogy]

After I left the COC, I joyfully embraced Christmas as a religious celebration. We have favorite songs that I recorded on CD soon after I left. One is instrumental only and the other is vocal with instruments. We play these almost constantly in the car starting after Thanksgiving. I first did the recordings on tape (it was that long ago), and my son later transferred them to CD form. Finally the CDs died, so a year or two ago I redid our CDs by downloading our favorites from iTunes.
I bought religiously themed tree ornaments immediately after my emancipation from the COC.

I try to attend a Christmas Eve service wherever I am (often away from home). I check in advance to be sure the service will include communion. It isn't Christmas to me without that. My family is not so inclined, so often I go alone.

When I was young, we always travelled to see the extended family. Even though we left Jesus' birth out, we had gifts and a fun time.

[faithfyl]

My Mother loves Christmas so we celebrated it each year. Just don't tell the Church members. We could be disbarred. Even when I was just 5 years old I thought that was super hypocritical and it just didn't make since. I even learned that 2 out of our 3 elders had Christmas trees at home yet heavily preached against it at the pulpit. What's with that?

I currently work at a Bank and we have to call it our Buisiness Appreaciation Parties. Not Christmas or Holiday parties. Must stay 'politically correct'.

If someone did refer to it as a Christmas party, what would they do? Fire the person? I am not sure why Christmas is such a dirty word that can't be uttered in public anymore.

[agricola]

'Being PC' at base, simply means being sensitive to EVERYONE. Do some people go overboard? Sure.

But 'holiday party' is totally appropriate, because almost every faith in existence has SOME kind of winter/solstice/year end/whatever celebration - and putting a single faith's particular holy remembrance into a business or school environment is being quite insensitive to the reality that - while Christians may (still) be the majority in the US, they are not the ONLY ones here.

So bring on the snowy scenes and light-related stuff then - and put your lovely nativity scene and pretty angels up at home (or at church, if you are lucky).

[KLP]

Holiday comes from a root idea of "Holy Day"...not everyone accepts that there are such things as Holy Days. The word Holiday is therefore insensitive.

I don't think Faithfyl said anything about putting up a crèche. I took the question more like what is the big deal if you happen to call it this or that? Is the sky really going to fall if you happen to use the C word? IMO, people are just way too sensitive these days or at least they claim to be sensitive.

[agricola]

I once belonged to a feminist - VERY - group (thirty years ago or more) and one thing many of the members were very serious was that we couldn't call anybody a 'girl'. We weren't a 'girl group'. We didn't say 'hey girls wanna get pizza?' or anything similar. It had to be 'women' (probably spelled funny too).
I had a VERY hard time with that! It is so ingrained - my girlfriends, the girls, girls night out. It was PC to the EXTREME (and it drove me crazy too).

I thought it was silly at the time. But after a while (although the actual language change never really stuck) I realized it was worth it - it was 'good for me' to spend some time thinking about the message our use of words sends to people. For the 'girl' thing - it was that women - grown women - tended to be forever infantilized. Boys grew up to be men and made earthshaking major adult decisions, but the girls were just - girls. They did lunch. They arranged flowers. Girls go to the beach, but men go to the boardroom.

So a little period of time where people have to maybe THINK about their use of language (including 'holiday' as 'holy day' - I do agree the word holiday has its origins in 'holy days' but I don't believe it carries that meaning very much nowadays). Christmas is very much a Christian 'holy day' or holiday. It has 'Christ' right there in the name. I have no objection to it as a name, or as a holiday, or as a religious observance, but insisting that the whole world recognize ONLY that particular winter holiday is - problematic in a plural society (which the US is, and increasingly so).

The San Bernardino party was a 'holiday party' because the people who worked there and the people the center served were not solely religious Christians, that's all. They were Christians and Jews and Muslims and who knows what else (hey, it's Southern California). A lot of people celebrate some kind of holiday this time of year, the business (or service group) wanted to throw a festive party for staff, and why not? But it wasn't a 'Christmas party', it was a holiday social/business event - at work. In the office. With the boss there.

[HighLiter871]

Warning to all! Our careful research has revealed that jolly old red-suited Santa Claus, supposedly a harmless icon (oops!) of the Winter Festivities, serves in another, far more nefarious, capacity: that of one so-called Saint Nicholas (edit: imagine over-sized and demonizing quotation marks around the word "Saint"),

And THAT, friends, carries with it more denominationally-influenced religious implications than any reasonable person could even imagine!

See for yourself, at http://www.StNicholasCenter.org

No need to thank me, I'm just trying to get us all to Heaven.

[zeek]

.