Merry Christmas

[MrFun]

[Hauldren Collider]

Christmas--America's best secular holiday.

[Provost Harrison]

No.

[Lorizael]

I'll be trapped in the middle of nowhere in southern Virginia with my girlfriend's family. It's going to be awesome.

[MrFun]

I'll be trapped in the middle of nowhere in southern Virginia with my girlfriend's family. It's going to be awesome.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Regardless of faith, Christmas is a wonderful time of year even if it simply means that you have reflected and acted upon giving to others. Without the reflection that accompanies the season, I suspect we all would be too busy in our own lives to think and give to to others.

Now to find my spare change for the nearest Salvation Army pot.

[Imran Siddiqui]

(though personally I am not fond of the Salvation Army for a number of reason)

[Al B. Sure!]

I just realized Christmas is Sunday when looking at the NFL schedule. In case anyone didn't know: THE GAMES ARE ON SATURDAY Only the Packers-Bears is on Sunday night.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

(though personally I am not fond of the Salvation Army for a number of reason)

Well truth be told there are only so many Clark Howard Walmart shopping trips for the kids and Food buys at Publix that I can manage this season. So with what I have left and what time is left, its off to the SA guy at the mall as I do one last shopping trip.

[SlowwHand]

Lot of truth to it.

A Letter from Jesus about Christmas



My Dearest Loved Ones,

It has come to my attention that many of you are upset that folks are taking My name out of the season.

How I personally feel about this celebration can probably be most easily understood by those of you who have been blessed with children of your own. I don't care what you call the day. If you want to celebrate My birth, just GET ALONG AND LOVE ONE ANOTHER!

Now, having said that let Me go on. If it bothers you that the town in which you live doesn't allow a scene depicting My birth, then just get rid of a couple of Santas and snowmen and put in a small Nativity scene on your own front lawn. If all My followers did that, there wouldn't be any need for such a scene on the town square because there would be many of them all around town.

Stop worrying about the fact that people are calling the tree a holiday tree, instead of a Christmas tree. It was I who made all trees. You can remember Me anytime you see any tree. Decorate a grape vine if you wish: I actually spoke of that one in a teaching, explaining who I am in relation to you and what each of our tasks were. If you have forgotten that one, look up John 15: 1 - 8.

If you want to give Me a present in remembrance of My birth here is my wish list. Choose something from it:

1. Instead of writing protest letters objecting to the way My birthday is being celebrated, write letters of love and hope to soldiers away from home. They are terribly afraid and lonely this time of year. I know, they tell Me all the time.

2. Visit someone in a nursing home. You don't have to know them personally. They just need to know that someone cares about them.

3. Instead of writing the President complaining about the wording on the cards his staff sent out this year, why don't you write and tell him that you'll be praying for him and his family this year. Then follow up... it will be nice hearing from you again.

4. Instead of giving your children a lot of gifts you can't afford and they don't need - spend time with them. Tell them the story of My birth and why I came to live with you down here. Hold them in your arms and remind them that I love them.

5. Pick someone that has hurt you in the past and forgive him or her.

6. Did you know that someone in your town will attempt to take their own life this season because they feel so alone and hopeless? Since you don't know who that person is, try giving everyone you meet a warm smile; it could make the difference.

7. Instead of nit picking about what the retailer in your town calls the holiday, be patient with the people who work there. Give them a warm smile and a kind word. Even if they aren't allowed to wish you a "Merry Christmas" that doesn't keep you from wishing them one. Then stop shopping there on Sunday. If the store didn't make so much money on that day they'd close and let their employees spend the day at home with their families.

8. If you really want to make a difference, support a missionary - especially one who takes My love and Good News to those who have never heard My name.

9. Here's a good one... There are individuals and whole families in your town who not only will have no "Christmas" tree, but neither will they have any presents to give or receive. If you don't know them, buy some food and a few gifts and give them to the Salvation Army or some other charity which believes in Me and they will make the delivery for you.

10. Finally, if you want to make a statement about your belief in and loyalty to Me, then behave like a Christian. Don't do things in secret that you wouldn't do in My presence. Let people know by your actions that you are one of mine.

Don't forget - I am God and can take care of Myself. Just love Me and do what I have told you to do. I'll take care of all the rest. Check out the list above and get to work; time is short. I'll help you, but the ball is now in your court.

And do have a most blessed Christmas with all those whom you love and remember...

I Love You,

Jesus


Wishing you and yours a blessed
holiday season.
Merry Christmas!

[Imran Siddiqui]

Well said

[Imran Siddiqui]

A similar sentiment:

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2011/12/call-it-christs-mass-and-let-best-buy-keep-the-holiday

Call it Christ’s Mass and Let Best Buy Keep the Holiday
Dec 22, 2011
Russell E. Saltzman

I am of a conflicted mind when it comes to Christmas commercialization. Seasonal buying and selling fuels the economy and keeps Target and Wal-Mart out of Chapter 11. Our commercial Christmas supports a great number people who in good part owe their livelihoods to Christmas buying, not least the buying done by Christians.

So maybe Christians have a point in their peevish complaints when a store chain banishes “Christmas” from shop floors during the, um, annual Holiday-Winter-Solstice-and-Something-Else season. There is no major chain that has not experimented with finding that exact yet still elusive Christmas alternative. “Holiday” gets tossed around as a substitute, and in the United Kingdom somebody tried out Winterval, a “winter festival” twist.

Wal-Mart, Macy’s, Target, Best Buy, Home Depot, Sears, Old Navy, Gap and others have all dropped or announced plans to drop or—in stealth fashion—simply obscured the word “Christmas” in their advertising in past years. Macy’s and Sears backed down on plans to eliminate Christmas under threat of an American Family Association boycott in 2005, as did Target. Wal-Mart at some point tossed its “Holiday Shop” and went back to its previous “Christmas Shop.” Gap and Best Buy are holdouts and both, along with about twelve others, are on the AFA’s naughty list. In previous years the AFA put Gap under a two-month boycott (to no effect) and the Catholic League once placed Best Buy on a “Christmas Watch List.” (Best Buy offers “Holiday” gift cards this year; it’s not for me to say if this bears watching.)

Other stores have toyed with Christmas-Free Zones, and I can’t say I blame them. In this super-sensitized era of inoffensive tolerance, stores hardly know whom to offend least by keeping or dropping Christmas.

The Christmas War isn’t limited to store chains. California does not have an official state Christmas tree, for instance, but there is an official California State Holiday Tree. It looks suspiciously like the older sort, which may explain why two governors in succession, Schwarzenegger and Brown, both stubbornly called it a Christmas tree. A California fire department somewhere did a demonstration on avoiding fires due to the careless handling of “holiday trees.” (Anyone stuck with a Christmas tree that year was out of luck in fire prevention. Oh, there’s a statistic to investigate—the number of fires traced to Christmas trees vs. holiday trees.)

Tree dust-ups along with issues over whether schools may offer Christmas concerts or limit themselves to plain vanilla “winter concerts” touch on questions of church and state. The store wars, though, concentrate on whose commercial frenzy it is: Christ’s or someone else’s.

Both reflect the decline of Christendom. The culture is no longer reliably Christian; the state reflects the culture (and helps shape it); Christians suffer a loss of privilege. Too many of us regard that as an indignity. For a number of reasons I’m not bothered. I won’t go into it here except to note we Christians must learn again how to engage the third century.

Agitation by Christian activist groups generally has the goal of “keeping Christ in Christmas” so everyone so will remember that “Jesus is the reason for the season.” Is there anything wrong with that?

Yes. Christian aggressiveness over Christmas is embarrassing.

Who cares, first, if Best Buy or Gap “keeps” Christmas as a feature of their annual sales hustle? Hearing What Child is This? dispensed from overhead Muzak speakers as shoppers sort through Black Friday discards isn’t exactly the proclamatory moment St. Luke may have had in mind when he wrote his gospel.

Besides, the Christian proclamation of Christmas doesn’t belong to Gap, but to the Church of Christ. The culture may yet be residually Christian in some respects, but that hardly matters when it’s time to go shopping.

Yet somehow, as the AFA and the Catholic League would have it, making sure Wal-Mart features a Nativity Scene under a Christmas tree is a defense of Christianity. If this is how Christian apologists seek to defend Christmas, trust me, they’ve already lost the war.

There is a second reason. “Always,” noted St. Peter, “be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander” (1 Peter 3:15-16).

If the AFA and the Catholic League and others (for this behavior is by no means limited to those two organizations), could concentrate more on “gentleness and respect” while accounting for our hope in Christ maybe they would not look so Grinch-like, threatening store clerks with boycotts and loss of income.

Maybe we Christians ourselves should stop calling Christmas “Christmas” and revert to an older eleventh century phrase, Cristes Maesse—Christ’s Mass. Best Buy can fend for itself.

[Elok]

While we're discussing reverting to Old English phrases, I suggest dropping the F-word and bringing back "swyve." Don't care if the store clerk says Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas, though.

[DaShi]

Merry X-mas!

[Provost Harrison]

I adhere to the true meaning of Christmas. That is, of course, Saturnalia...the pre-Christianity festival. Eat, drink and be merry in this dark and depressing months...