Hellobee Boards

@Arden: I would like to get away from doing presents on Christmas morning, but I had so much fun believing in Santa that I think I'll at least do it when the kids are young! I think New Year's could be cool, especially since you'll get deals like @mediagirl mentioned. Although all of your kids' friends would have already gotten their stuff! But if you're living all over the globe that might not be an issue.

@mrbee: I don't have a problem with people who aren't Christians celebrating a secular holiday, and quite honestly I enjoy both religious and secular parts of Christmas! Didn't mean to sound intolerant, I just feel like sometimes people go out of the way to take Christ out of what was intended to be a religious holiday (admittedly with unoriginal timing), and I would never do that with another religion's celebrations. But I'm sure it's just as frustrating to feel like people are forcing something on you that you don't believe!

@tororojo: Yeah, I think celebrating New Year's makes more sense for our family. We have time to decide though, more than a year!

I don't think we see the origins the same way though. The "birthday" of Christ was not celebrated until years and years (centuries even) after His life, so how can it's origin be a celebration of His birth?
It went from being a non-event (since no one even knew His birthday anyway) to a "Christianization" of an existing, unrelated holiday and a new name was slapped on it.

I still don't have any problem with people celebrating it that way, but I don't think the origin has anything to do with Christ. It isn't an issue of the timing, it's the event itself.

@Arden: I think part of that is because Christmas (as in - the mass of Christ, not as in Saturnalia) started as a Catholic holiday, and for Catholics we tend to set aside certain times to focus on certain events in Christ's life. So no, it's not a birthday party or anything that was celebrated initially, but the point is to take time to focus specifically on Christ coming into the world. We have days to focus on other important events/concepts too - the death of Christ, his resurrection, the annunciation to Mary, etc. So in that sense it makes sense that there is a specific day for it, not just a way to incorporate a non-Christian holdiay.

@tororojo: agree! I think part of it is that we are debating "Christmas" which is obvious from the name Christian. If we were debating winter solstice holidays or heck even Easter, since that name has nothing to do with Christianity then we could argue which came first and who stole whose ideas!

Again, I have no problem with people secularizing Christmas, and especially not people who choose to recognize the solstice (although I think secularizing Christmas is far more common than the latter), I just find it funny when cheesy Hallmark movies end on the "let's talk about what Christmas is really all about....feeling warm and fuzzy."