Boy I have sure read a lot about the "War on Christmas" lately. Actually the attacks have been by Christians on people and businesses that do "Happy Holidays" and not "Merry Christmas". To Christians that smacks of paganism and cannot be to tolerated. To my knowledge, NOBODY has been attacking Christmas but the religious zealots have invented a war so they can fight somebody.
The American Families Association (AFA) has gone so far as to threaten to boycott Target Department Stores if they don't start recognizing the religious significance of Christmas - now that is serious. Target has spend millions of dollars defending itself in local papers as a community minded business that gives to charities and supports local community projects. To me this is religious terrorism and has to be fought just like any terrorist act but let me address this with some historical perspective.
December 25th or that time of year, is called the "Winter Solstice". This is the time when days stop being shorter and start being longer - a new year. This special time has been celebrated by people for thousands of years. We have records going back 4,000 years to Mesopotamia.
The celebrations were varied but they included gift giving, helping the poor, decorating houses with evergreens and lighting wax candles to signify increasing light. Basically, people partied like they do today for New Years'. Please keep in mind that Christianity has not been invented yet.
The Romans called this holiday SATURNALIA and other countries had different names for the holiday but all celebrated at the same time for the same reason - another year is here!!!
Enter the Christians - we can't have all this pagan celebrating going on! Lets Christianize this holiday and call it Christmas as in Jesus was born on this day. Well, no one knows when Jesus was actually born and for that matter, where. Bethlehem was mentioned by the Gospel writers because if you wanted to be from the House of David you had to be born in Bethlehem and the Gospel writers wanted Jesus to be from the House of David as predicted in the Old testament but that is a future blog. Historians believe Jesus was born in Nazareth.
No matter how the Christians tried they could not stop the people from celebrating in their pagan manner, i.e. trees, candles, presents, party, etc. And to this day we have Santa, Christmas Trees, candles, presents and spending a lot of money on ourselves, our family and on the less fortunate - just like they did thousands of years before the Christians arrived.
So what is my point in all this. The time of year known as Christmas, Winter Solstice, New Years, Saturnalia, etc. is a time celebrated by all people for thousands of years. It does not belong to any one group or one religion. It is a "natural" celebration in that it celebrates the natural passing of time, in this case, one year. It is a joyous celebration because a new year has started so Spring is on its way.
The Christians have artificially injected Jesus' birthday into this time and now expect everyone to recognize and celebrate only that fact - bullshit.
The Christians do not own Christmas. They should celebrate it the way they want BUT leave everyone else alone to celebrate in what ever way they want to - not everyone is a Christian.
President Bush sent out a Christmas card in which he said "Happy Holidays". He is getting a lot of grief for that. Since the President sends his card to many people, not all Christians that also celebrate this time of year, it only makes sense to say Happy Holidays.
Some Christians are getting just too eager to cram their religion up everyone's butt - I feel a war coming on.
Janusz
I've never shopped at Target but this year I did 90% of my christmas shopping there just to support them for standing up to the people whining about Happy Holidays.
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