Xmas
or it seems to me it is, and i'm excited!! but my excitedness every Christmas seems to fall short of my excitedness about why we celebrate Christmas in the first place. every year i attempt to set my focus purely on Jesus and his birth into this world so he could save us, but i always get sidetracked on family and presents. two extremely fun things. this year i will valiantly try again. perhaps we shouldn't need a holiday to remind us how awesome Jesus is. heck, this time of year was just arbitrarily chosen anyway. every day should be Xmas and Easter. hmmm....
posted by jpunk5 | 1:03 p.m.
10 Comments:
Why was this time of year just randomly chosen? Is there anything in the Bible (or elsewhere) that points to it being in "December" (b/c it wasn't called December back in the day), or during the winter season? Just curious.
I always associated Christmas with snow, pine trees, gingerbread, family gatherings, etc. If it wasn't like that, I'd probably miss it. But those are the first things I think about. Honestly, I don't think of "Jesus being born" as my first response to the word Christmas. But hmm, why not? When you hear the word "Christmas" what's the first thing that pops into your mind?
i don't exactly remember, but it has something to do with lining up with a pagan holiday; the winter solstice or something like that.
"The idea of celebrating the birth of Christ on December 25 was first suggested early in the fourth century. This was a clever move on the part of Church fathers, who wished to eclipse the December 25 festivities of a rival pagan religion.The celebration of Christmas took permanent hold in the Western world in 337 with the Roman emperor Constantine. Christianity had become the official state religion in 313 AD. By 354, Bishop Liberius of Rome reiterated the importance of celebrating not only Christ's death but also his birth." from http://www.cvc.org/christmas/myths.htm
I know... it's hard to connect the reason why we give gifts to each other because Jesus was the ultimate gift or becasue the wise men brought gifts... seems like a strange connection to the actual birth. Christmas is a tradition... religious and secular and we all have bits of religion and secularness in our celebrations.
It's interesting because Christmas reminds us of how blessed we are.. mostly in regards to family and friends and just all the love, so we feel compelled to be more generous, more thoughtful, more giving of our time (note.. hampers, churches put on dinners where people who don't have anywhere to celebrate christmas can go) These are all wonderful, wonderful things... but I agree Jonathan, shouldn't we be grateful ever day, shouldn't we be generous everyday.. shouldn't we care for the "down-trodden " all the time? do we do these things to satisfy our consciences around Christmas..because we are ESPECIALLY blessed at this time? what's the deal
Great discussion once again, folks.
Here's my two cents: absolutely, we should be grateful all the time. But being the fallen, silly-headed people that we are (oh, we, like sheep), we need things, traditions if you will, to help us focus on things that we've neglected. Like taking some time in December, as a body of believers, to observe the birth of Christ. Helping those less fortunate should be an all-the-time thing, but we forget. But that's why it's important to have traditions that re-focus our attention on the things we're called to do.
I try to think of gifts as spreading God's love around. Sure, God probably wouldn't give a sweater, but you get the idea. Gifts aren't simply about the "object" - the mittens, the iPOD, whatever; they're about the thoughtfulness and attention that the giver pays to the receiver. The other day, one of my students gave me a box of chocolates because she knew I was annoyed with the class and that the class had really taken advantage of all the slack I'd cut them. The chocolates, though tasty, weren't the point. The point was she recognized something about me and tried to show that with something... (either that or she was kissing up for a better mark.) I took that gift and in turn shared them with my colleagues who, like me, are also frustrated and tired.
and that may lead to the fact that as Christians, the things we have are not our own. we need to be okay with owning, but not owning stuff. give your chocolates away. let people borrow cd's. give rides to people who need to get somewhere. good example: kimberly accidently spilled chocolate milk in the living room this morning, and it splashed all over the gamecube. my first reaction was, oh crap, my gamecube. but as i was wiping the delicious cholocate milk off of it, i realized that it's not really mine anyway, and i needn't be so attached to things that don't matter. btw, the gamecube is fine, i think. i haven't used it yet, but there wasn't a whole lot of chocolate milk on it anyway.
lol that was a funny story cuz I can just imagine chocolate milk pouring all over the game cube. Anyways, I agree with y'all about us needing tradition to remind us of these things... the thoughtful student is a good example) I guess I feel like everyone expects gifts at christmas now... it can become a chore and that's just wrong.. it has lost a lot of the thoughtfulness and become totally a mandatory thing.
Yeah, with all the commerialization, I often feel like Charlie Brown at Christmas time (though, truth be told, I possibly feel a bit more like Scrooge). The problem is I geniunely LOVE Christmas, but HATE it at the same time (I feel the "bah humbugs" rising). I know it's important, I know it's a time to focus on love and peace and all that- but it's such a busy time of the year! So, question: How do you focus on the "right" things at X-mas? What part of the X-mas story brings you the most joy?
And a follow up: What's a responsible altenative to gifts? Something that hits the emotional spirit behind gift-giving, but doesn't hit the ol' pocketbook.
I was in the mall the other day and I seriously felt like saying "bah humbug" And I am a lover of Christmas if there ever was one... I just hate that it has to become this thing that is stressful and requires shopping and blowing tons of money.
I think the best gift we can give to each other at Christmas is time. It isn't something we can wrap up in a box though so I have no idea how to make that an alternative
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