Hi. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! However from what i noticed most people not really care about celebrating those events anymore for various reasons. What about you? Are you using those dates as excuse to not work and not see any meaning for those calendar days or really celebrate with friends and|or family?

Hi, Merry Christmas to you, as well...

I think a lot of folks don't fully realize or understand the true reason and significance of why we celebrate Christmas to begin with, although celebrating with friends and family can be an important part of it.

https://www.gotquestions.org/why-cel...Christmas.html

http://www.whychristmas.com

Regards...

An excuse to celebrate with friends and family is meaning.

I don't celebrate Christmas, but I did celebrate Heliogenna on Thursday. I've designated lemon swiss roll as "heliogenna cake" and quiche as "heliogenna flan", since they have a suitably solar appearance! As a Hellenic Pagan, I have 5 or 6 festivals a month, all with appropriate hymns, prayers, and offerings.

Still, I'll wish the rest of you a Merry Christmas or Happy Holiday, according to your tastes!

Also: Christmas is tomorrow for me.

There are actually two festivals here, and they are getting further and further apart. I like to think of them as Christ-mas and Xmas.

1) They take place over different time periods with only a small overlap. Xmas starts immediately after Halloween (or even before it sometimes) and ends with a bang on Boxing Day, by which time everyone is heartily sick of it. Christ-mas starts at the beginning of December with Advent Sunday. There are four weeks of advent, just enough time for the excitement to build to a real climax, and then Christmas Day introduces twelve days of celebration, ending with the feast of Epiphany on January 6th.

2) The central character in Christ-mas is the baby in the manger, with walk-on parts for Mary and Joseph, shepherds and angels. The central character in Xmas is Santa Claus, with walk-on parts for elves and reindeer (and nowadays penguins too, I don't know why).

3) Both festivals use Christmas trees and holly, but Christ-mas also means carol services, church bells and nativity plays. Xmas means seasonal muzak in shopping malls like "Have yourself a merry little Christmas", "Let it snow" and "Jingle Bells".

4) Christ-mas is about enjoying simple pleasures and giving thanks to God for them. Although it's often seen as a family festival, it also has a lot to offer to people like me who don't have families. Xmas is about eating and drinking to excess and spending a lot of money, and it's notoriously a bad and lonely time for single people. Too bad they don't realise there's an alternative.

I just see it as some more free days off work. I actually don't like this time of year as everyone does things like going out making the public transport busier or making the local pubs noisy and rowdy.
Personally, I think people should be able to designate "family days" where they're allowed the day off work every year unless it's absolutely impractical so whole families can then celebrate together without widespread disruption and without companies being able to use "the season" as an excuse to brainwash people into spending money they don't have on things they'll only use once. I think then it may still be possible for people who are actually Christian to take time off with their family at "Christmas"* and other religions to do similar with their families. In other words companies should be forced to provide these things as they do public holidays regardless of other "holiday allowance".


*Why many "Christians" should choose to celebrate the birth of Jesus on an old Pagan celebration date by eating too much, drinking too much and spending their money on more possesions is beyond me but each to his own and all that.

I think Christians do actually try to avoid eating and drinking too much at Christmas. But the reason the date was chosen is that the scriptures call Christ the Light of the World and the Sun of Righteousness, and it's therefore appropriate to celebrate his birth at the time when the sun is reborn after the winter solstice.

Oh, I agree, there are those who truly believe who concentrate more upon going to mass and the love of family both blood and faith. However, many who profess to be celebrating Christmas aren't really doing so at all they're celebrating the return of the light (as you mention). This being part of my point that there doesn't seem much reason to have the same day as holiday for a whole country as large as this one any more. It just seems to cause chaos for no good reason. There are even businesses in the UK which close for a week or more over Christmas so the employees are forced to take the time off (I had that one year but, luckily, got a cheap city break).

Because, with the number of deliveries involved, Santa's computer needs to be really reliable

Sitting here at 0900, wondering when we'll have to close the windows because it's already warming up (36 predicted with the inevitable extreme UV and very high fire danger warnings) and looking forward to salad and ice cream for a quiet family lunch (son back home for a month over Christmas - best present of all). How's Christmas Day shaping up in your hemisphere?

Happy Christmas to those who celebrate it, Happy Festive Season to everybody else.

To the extent that I celebrate holy days any more, it is for life, love, and family, and not for creed. I was brought up in my simple country Baptist church (this was a long time ago before a portion of American Christianity became a political movement) to believe that creeds are like the blind men and the elephant--each one has a bit of the picture, no one has the whole picture, but each is struggling to see the whole picture. I still believe that's an accurate metaphor for persons of good will, regardless of creed.

I also rather think Durkheim had it right.

(The "to the extent" refers not to my lack of celebration so much as it does to my being an "empty nester"); holidays, particularly Christmas, seem more real when children are in the house. My kids and grandkids are scattered all over the country, the nearest one eight hours away by car.)

Then there's this: http://www.qotd.org/search/single.html?qid=40125