Atheists and Celebrating Christmas...?

[YodaGirl]

I care what people celebrate...so I say Happy Holidays!!

Unless I know for a fact you celebrate xmas...

Not sure if you're trying to use "xmas" as an athiestic way of saying "Christmas" without mentioning Christ, but...

"The "-mas" part is from the Latin-derived Old English word for "Mass", while the "X" comes from the Greek letter Chi, which is the first letter of the Greek word Χριστός, translated as "Christ"."

Quoted from here.

 

[happygirl]

When you get down to it Christmas has very little to do with "God/Jesus."

I 100% disagree iwth this. Christmas is all about Christ in my household.

 

[shalom]

OK. We can agree. It is about one thing. SANTA CLAUS!!!!

Not for us. As a kid, I never liked that guy. Much rather have grace (which in this case means presents just because I'm loved) than this conditional "better be good, or you'll get coal in your stocking" routine. Not too fond of the St. Nicholas who give out gifts to the good kids, but brings along a kid armed with a switch to punish the bad kids, either.

Santa wasn't part of my youth because my mom felt strongly that teaching kids about Santa is lying to them, and dad was fine with saying Santa didn't really exist but was just a physical symbol of a nice idea. So in my family, Santa was like sex; mom would answer any question I asked, but only family members were allowed to tell someone the facts, so I had to keep my mouth shut even when my friends said something totally stupid like "people get pregnant by kissing" or "Santa brought me presents!" What they believed on those fronts was their parents' business, not mine. As an adult I don't dislike Santa, but I have no nostalgic feelings about him, either.

We don't do Santa, and we never taught the kids to believe in Santa, but when we accidentally ran across one at the zoo and some of the kids wanted to talk to him, we let them. And when my eldest son subsequently got everything he asked for, when it came to Santa he was a True Believer for a while. He kept trying to convert the other kids, most of whom weren't interested, until we finally told him he could believe whatever he wanted, but he wasn't going to convince anybody else and we weren't going to discuss it any more.

 

[akhenaten]

Not sure if you're trying to use "xmas" as an athiestic way of saying "Christmas" without mentioning Christ, but...

"The "-mas" part is from the Latin-derived Old English word for "Mass", while the "X" comes from the Greek letter Chi, which is the first letter of the Greek word Χριστός, translated as "Christ"."

Quoted from here.

why would you think I was using it in an "atheistic" way?? I was actually using it in the manner of the definition you describe... to make a point to those who seem to always feel christmas is under attack . I am not an atheist and in fact happily light advent candles and display a manger on my front lawn as well as in my home. I have no issue with others celebrating christmas in their own way ... secular or otherwise..

 

[Kallista]

Its about ONE thing. Some people make it about many things that it isn't.

Before you get your panties in a bunch about the supposed hypocrisy of non-Christians co-opting the winter holiday, you might want to take a look in the mirror. The winter holiday was originally a pagan celebration of the return of the sun at the Winter Solstice. The early Christian church made the pagan celebrations of Yule, Koleda and Saturnalia into a celebration about the birth of Jesus.

BTW, there are Christians who do not celebrate Christmas because of its pagan origins, just like there are Christians who don't celebrate Halloween because of its alleged pagan origins. Plenty of hypocrisy to go around.

As for my atheist house, we're celebrating Solstice. It's just an excuse to spoil my kids and get a day off work. Get over it.

 

[kt_mom]

When you get down to it Christmas has very little to do with "God/Jesus."

I believe it has everything to do with God/Jesus. I think it has been commercialized and become something it was never meant to be. But if it wasn't for the birth of Jesus you would not have a Christmas to celebrate. you might get to celebrate one of the other winter celebrations they had but it would not be Christmas. And I personally believe that if you don't want to celebrate the birth of Jesus then you should find another winter holiday to celebrate. Not "you" personally, its a you in general.

We celebrate both sides of it, but DD knows that although she does get gifts and we do have a tree and other decorations, that the reason we celebrate Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.

 

[YodaGirl]

why would you think I was using it in an "atheistic" way?? I was actually using it in the manner of the definition you describe... to make a point to those who seem to always feel christmas is under attack . I am not an atheist and in fact happily light advent candles and display a manger on my front lawn as well as in my home. I have no issue with others celebrating christmas in their own way ... secular or otherwise..

The way it was worded, combined with the way I read it, made me think that it could have gone both ways. That's why I said I was unsure of how you meant it. I meant no offense.

I actually should have quoted that link in my previous post.

 

[dngnb8]

So when did the gifts show up?

Saint Nicholas

Another interesting link

History of Christmas

 

[Kallista]

I do think that it's odd that atheists celebrate Christmas. However, Christians celebrating only the secular aspects of Halloween is no different than an atheistc celebrating only the secular aspects of Christmas.



Unless someone already mentioned it and I missed it...

"Xmas" is as much a Christian term as "Christmas".

The "x" does not stand for "unknown".

I wish that people would research the origination of the word before getting up in arms about "ex-ing Christ" out so we shouldn't use it, or before people use it for atheistic purposes.

Yes. The Greek letter Chi is written as "X" and was used by the church as shorthand for "Christ." "Xmas" = "Christmas" for church leaders educated in Greek.

 

[akhenaten]

Before you get your panties in a bunch about the supposed hypocrisy of non-Christians co-opting the winter holiday, you might want to take a look in the mirror. The winter holiday was originally a pagan celebration of the return of the sun at the Winter Solstice. The early Christian church made the pagan celebrations of Yule, Koleda and Saturnalia into a celebration about the birth of Jesus.

BTW, there are Christians who do not celebrate Christmas because of its pagan origins, just like there are Christians who don't celebrate Halloween because of its alleged pagan origins. Plenty of hypocrisy to go around.

As for my atheist house, we're celebrating Solstice. It's just an excuse to spoil my kids and get a day off work. Get over it.

sorry not allowed ... and while we are at it you can not have a sunday dinner with your family . After all sunday is the Lords day and only christians may have a sunday family dinner...

 

[nancytoby]

Anyone who thinks they're entitled to universally define "what Christmas means" (or any other winter solstice celebration) should read "The Battle for Christmas"
by Stephen Nissenbaum (available on Amazon).

 

[bgirldeb]

Before you get your panties in a bunch about the supposed hypocrisy of non-Christians co-opting the winter holiday, you might want to take a look in the mirror. The winter holiday was originally a pagan celebration of the return of the sun at the Winter Solstice. The early Christian church made the pagan celebrations of Yule, Koleda and Saturnalia into a celebration about the birth of Jesus.

BTW, there are Christians who do not celebrate Christmas because of its pagan origins, just like there are Christians who don't celebrate Halloween because of its alleged pagan origins. Plenty of hypocrisy to go around.

 

[Kallista]

I did read about some other celebrations that took place during the same time of year but none that seemed to be some kind of other Christmas that predated Christmas.

The early church took over the feast of Mithras, and then weaned their converts off of pagan holidays like Yule, Saturnalia and Koleda.

http://www.religionfacts.com/greco-roman/sects/mithraism.htm