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12/23/2012 08:36:09 AM · #26 |
We went out last night to drive around and look at Christmas lights. There actually people pretentious enough to hire companies to decorate their house.
To the contrary one house has it set to music, just like what you see on a YouTube video. He must broadcast the station, because the signal dies out as you drive away. That's was pretty cool. Seeing people who spend their own time for the enjoyment of others. |
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12/23/2012 09:43:59 AM · #27 |
Originally posted by LydiaToo:
Then, I recommend that you DON'T do it! Don't do anything like this that your heart isn't in.
I'm just amazed that we Americans are allowed to celebrate anything to do with personal beliefs/religion.
It seems like our freedoms are being taken away one at a time...
What's wrong with festivity? What's wrong with Christmas? Why take it away from people for whom it's important?
If it's not important to us, we'll simply not acknowledge it.
If it is, we will.
No harm, no foul. Just don't spoil it for someone else.
Do what you like. Like what you do. Life is good. |
Perhaps I am missing something, but where in the comment made by  BrennanOB do you find any reference to what you allude to in this instance.
There is nothing wrong with Christmas (except for the unbelievable commercialism) and those who wish to participate are free to do so. No one is trying to take Christmas away, but like other things there are certain restrictions, such as the separation of church and state, where the imposition of one's belief on others cannot be viewed as a freedom at any level....therein lies the difference.
Feel free to enjoy Christmas...I know I do.
Ray
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12/23/2012 10:57:46 AM · #28 |
I grew up in a religious household, but the supposed real reason of Christmas isn't why i liked it was just the whole event that i liked; family, friends, the surprise of gifts. I could really care less about the people wanting to take Christ out of Christmas. That's not what Christmas is to everyone. My mom and Grandmom were arguing that people who aren't religious have no right to even celebrate it. So it goes both ways.
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12/23/2012 12:31:03 PM · #29 |
Originally posted by MichaelC:
I like how the 1st #6 shows a young boy unwrapping his Xmas present to find a rifle....he looks so happy. |
That's a clip from a classic Christmas film, "A Christmas Story", from a short story by Jean Shepherd. The plot orbits around Ralph's aching desire for a Red Ryder BB gun, which his father buys him against his mother's wishes ("You'll put your eye out!"). So he's in the backyard shooting it Christmas morning, and (you guessed it) a ricochet hits him in the face and....
It's actually a wonderful film about childhood. Check it out :-) |
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12/23/2012 12:54:08 PM · #30 |
| Christmas takes work for these "putting it on". But if you truly appreciate the smiles on the kids faces, the delight of what to them seems to be magical, it's worth the work. Don't take it for granted. Someday that big family will split up and go their own ways. You always think "not my family, we're way to close". But trust me, it happens. My granddaughter is finally well enough to take to see Santa. I'm hoping to get at least one picture that comes out, as she's been terrified of everything since her hospital stay. But if not, I'm so grateful she's better and that she's home. That makes my Christmas worthwhile. |
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12/23/2012 12:58:06 PM · #31 |
| And for some of us with no immediate family of our own (kids, spouse), it's just another day. But it IS a day off from work! There's that! (And I do have a pine scented candle burning. No tree due to cats...) |
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12/23/2012 04:52:53 PM · #32 |
"Oh, and health insurance for elves — talk about your pre-existing conditions!"
-Santa, on the difficulties encountered running a multi-national operation in today's uncertain business climate, as interviewed on A Prairie Home Companion. |
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12/24/2012 12:19:37 AM · #33 |
Originally posted by BrennanOB:
Originally posted by cowboy221977:
Part of the prob are the people trying to eliminate the word Christmas...These are the same people that are trying to kill the public displays..... |
In Colonial America there were no Christmas celebrations. As recently as 100 years or so ago, such observances were declared illegal in many parts of the United States, including most of New England, being defined as pagan and a reproach to The Lord |
Brennan, this seems like quite a bit of revisionist history. Are you being hyperbolic here? Maybe you are saying something I'm not understanding. Christmas celebrations would certainly be recognizable to us from 100 years ago and even at the birth of our nation. |
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12/24/2012 02:43:24 PM · #34 |
Originally posted by LydiaToo:
I'm just amazed that we Americans are allowed to celebrate anything to do with personal beliefs/religion.
It seems like our freedoms are being taken away one at a time...
What's wrong with festivity? What's wrong with Christmas? Why take it away from people for whom it's important?
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Oh, honestly. Who on earth do you think is taking Christmas away from you?
I get so tired of Christians who think that Christianity is under some sort of attack. It isn't. Get over it.
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12/24/2012 06:22:25 PM · #35 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Originally posted by BrennanOB:
Originally posted by cowboy221977:
Part of the prob are the people trying to eliminate the word Christmas...These are the same people that are trying to kill the public displays..... |
In Colonial America there were no Christmas celebrations. As recently as 100 years or so ago, such observances were declared illegal in many parts of the United States, including most of New England, being defined as pagan and a reproach to The Lord |
Brennan, this seems like quite a bit of revisionist history. Are you being hyperbolic here? Maybe you are saying something I'm not understanding. Christmas celebrations would certainly be recognizable to us from 100 years ago and even at the birth of our nation. |
I cannot speak for BrennanOB but I did find This. Of particular interest are the latter paragraphs.
Ray
Message edited by author 2012-12-24 18:24:05. |
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12/24/2012 06:38:44 PM · #36 |
| That reads like a junior high book report. ;) |
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12/24/2012 09:30:59 PM · #37 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Brennan, this seems like quite a bit of revisionist history. Are you being hyperbolic here? Maybe you are saying something I'm not understanding. Christmas celebrations would certainly be recognizable to us from 100 years ago and even at the birth of our nation. |
Sorry for the wall of text.
A few years ago I read an interesting book on the practice of Christmas in history. in England it was a ribald holiday with more in common with the Roman practice of Saturnalia than a Christian holiday.
"In the first half of the 17th century Christmas was an important religious festival and a time when the English population would indulge in a variety of traditional pastimes. The 25th December was a public holiday, during which all places of work closed and people attended special church services. The next eleven days included additional masses, with businesses open sporadically and for shorter hours than usual. During the twelve days of Christmas, buildings were dressed with rosemary, holly and ivy and families attended Christmas Day mass. As well as marking the day's religious elements, there was also non-stop dancing, singing, drinking, exchanging of presents and stage plays. The population indulged in feasts of roast beef, plum porridge, minced pies and special ale. Twelfth Night, the final day of celebration, often saw a fresh bout of feasting and carnivals.
It's no surprise that the daily celebrations often led to drunkenness, promiscuity, gambling and other forms of excess. Sixteenth and seventeenth century Puritans frowned on what they saw as a frenzy of disorder and disturbance. In the Late 1500's, Philip Stubbes, a strict protestant expressed the Puritan view in his famed book The Anatomie of Abuses, when he noted:
'More mischief is that time committed than in all the year besides ... What dicing and carding, what eating and drinking, what banqueting and feasting is then used ... to the great dishonour of God and the impoverishing of the realm.'
Rowdy crowds would go caroling and would demand to be fed and given drink from wealthy households, the normal distictions of class where put aside and on these days the rich could be imposed upon by the poor. Often these celebrations got out of hand.
"Oh, bring us a figgy pudding;
Oh, bring us a figgy pudding;
Oh, bring us a figgy pudding and a cup of good cheer
We won't go until we get some;
We won't go until we get some;
We won't go until we get some, so bring some out here"
If the sweets and the booze was not forthcomming, trouble was at hand.
The prim puritans found the English practice "Papish" and offensive.Christmas was like any other day...or else.
In 1659, a law was enacted in Massachusetts to punish anyone who " . . . is found observing, by abstinence from labor, feasting, or any other way, any such days as Christmas day, shall pay for every such with offense five shillings." The immigration of other religious denominations to the colonies saw this attitude in New England, but weren't able to change it until about 150 years ago.
Although Christmas wasn't outlawed outside of New England, several denominations, mostly found in the middle colonies, were opposed to the celebration. In 1749, a visitor among the Quakers in Philadelphia noted that: "Christmas Day. . . The Quakers did not regard this day any more remarkable than other days. Stores were open. . . There was no more baking of bread for the Christmas festival than for other days; and no Christmas porridge on Christmas Eve!"
At first the Presbyterians did not care much for celebrating Christmas, but when they saw most of their members going to the Anglican Church on that day, they also started to have services. Philip Fithian, a Presbyterian missionary working among the Virginia Scotch-Irish in 1775, remarked that: "Christmas Morning - Not a Gun is heard ÂÂNot a Shout - No company or Cabal assembled - To Day is like other Days every Way calme & temperate." |
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12/25/2012 01:24:59 AM · #38 |
Oh the puritans had sticks up their butts... ;)
It only goes back to 1922 Russia, but my great grandmother's diary talks about Christmas. In a really touching passage she talks about their poverty (the red Army was already persecuting the Mennonites) and had found some nuts in the forest for the children.
Message edited by author 2012-12-25 01:28:47. |
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12/25/2012 02:02:35 AM · #39 |
Christmas is what we make it. No more, no less. Whether that means carrying on traditions, celebrating religious o paganistic beliefs, or striking out on a new path all your own, the only one responsible for your happiness or feelings at all his time of year is you alone. Decide for yourself if you wish to let negative influences get to you, or if you want to let yourself filter them out and keep the power to run your own experience.
Christmas is different for everyone. Find your path. |
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12/25/2012 04:56:00 AM · #40 |
Originally posted by K10DGuy:
Christmas is what we make it. No more, no less. Whether that means carrying on traditions, celebrating religious o paganistic beliefs, or striking out on a new path all your own, the only one responsible for your happiness or feelings at all his time of year is you alone. Decide for yourself if you wish to let negative influences get to you, or if you want to let yourself filter them out and keep the power to run your own experience.
Christmas is different for everyone. Find your path. |
+1 |
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