Is it a Pagan holiday or the most sacred celebration of Those Who Accept Jesus as Their Savior?


Your thoughts?

The Heat Miser rocks!!!

I think I only care if I get good presents.

Best Christmas song ever...

Can we get some Mariah Carey "All I want for Christmas is you" in here already!?

Here you go...

My least favorite Christmas song lyric

"There won't be snow in Africa this Christmas time"

yes

Interesting. Care to elaborate?

Oh no!! Not a Christmas thread before Thanksgiving! It's bad enough that ppl are putting up their lights and radio stations are playing non stop Christmas music already. Now this!

it's one of those

Tis' the season baby!!!!

I looooove Christmas!

Me too, its never to soon to start celebrating it! Oh an yes its a sacred celebration.

I love Christmas decorations and all that jazz but not before Thanksgiving. I like to take my holidays one at a time and in order preferably.

I won't take the festivities away from y'all...you may proceed in your pre Thanksgiving/Christmas merrymaking

LOL, I put up my decorations the day after Thanksgiving, but I hate it when people leave up their decorations until March.

Did people around you do HALLOWEEN lights?! I've never seen such a thing before. Now that made Christmas feel super early.

Yeah there were a few that did. They must've quick switched them out to Christmas lights.

It seems Christmas gets earlier and earlier every year. Why in hell would someone want to listen to non stop Christmas music starting on Nov. 4? The easy listening stations here do that. My office mate next to me listens to what I call "old lady music" so of course it's easy listening. When she leaves the office I switch it to my alternative rock station.

I start the day after Thankgiving and go until January 6th.

LMAO! I bet she loves you when she comes in every morning and that comes on!

As it should be




Nah she doesn't mind.

She can handle it..she's only 2 yrs older than me. That's why it puzzles me that she listens to that kind of music. Of course it does help that I've known her since I was a child

I love lots of different music, but I've found that listening to my favorite - NIN or even some particularly lovey dovey stuff can be a little embarrassing if someone comes to sit with me for a training session or to go over something so now I stick with NPR. They don't usually play anything too risque. That might be her reasoning.

It's good you two get along well though. I should be getting an office mate before the end of the year and I can only hope we have the same tastes in things like that. Sharing your workspace for 8 or more hours a day can be challenging.

Yeah my office mate and I have very different tastes but we get along great. She puts up with my loud music and I put up with her singing...I Want a Hippopotamus (sp) for Christmas

I listen to arabic music all day.




Do you remember the game "Hungry Hungry Hippos"? I got that for Christmas one year, it was the best!

My kids have Hungry, Hungry Hippos They get a little buck wild with it though. All the little marbles go flying all over the place.

Ok but do they have a Monchichi doll?

Nope but I had two..a boy and a girl! I use the word *monch* (short for monchichi) when something is cute.

Man Sarah...you do come with hard one...Well in my opinion and according to historical research I did in the past...

Celebrating the birth of your major religious figure is of course all about religion...The ancient European civilizations held winter celebrations for the solstice (the shortest day of the year) in order to remind themselves that warmer, more fertile weather would be coming soon. The most important of these was celebrated by the ancient Romans. In the winter, from the middle of December to January first, the Roman's held a celebration for the god Saturn in a festival called Saturnalia. During Saturnalia, the Romans would dress up in costume and parade in the streets, have large feasts, visit with friends and family, and exchange good-luck gifts called Strenae (lucky fruits). The Romans would also decorate their halls with garlands of laurel, and light up green trees with candles.
However, when the Christian religion began to spread throughout Rome, the Christians became angered by the Saturnalia celebration. The god Saturn, celebrated in Saturnalia, was one of many Roman gods, but the Christians believed that there was only one God. Because Saturnalia celebrated a different type of religion than Christianity, the Christians declared that it was wrong. And, the Christians celebrated their own holiday, Christmas, during the same time of year as Saturnalia. The Christians wanted Christmas to be a sacred religious holiday, and felt that Saturnalia interfered with the seriousness of Christmas. Therefore, the Christians decided to ban Saturnalia. But, the Romans refused to stop celebrating Saturnalia, and so the Christians decided that they would have to compromise. Therefore Christmas and Saturnalia were combined together into one holiday; the Christians took the lights, decorations, and gifts from Saturnalia and made them a part of Christmas.
other traditions like:

Yule Log - A special log was chosen on the eve of Yule, for the holiday fire. A small piece from last year's log is used to light the fire. The lighting of the fire was a festive family event, to hurry the return of the sun. Charred pieces from the fire would be kept to protect the house through the coming year. The woods most often sought for the Yule log were birch, oak willow or holly. Today, the Yule log is sometimes represented as a log cake instead. Or a small log is decorated with candles. The burning of the Yule log is a well-known tradition, but it's not often done outside of the Pagan community anymore.



Kissing Under Mistletoe - The roots of this habit are unknown, but is likely tied with the fertility aspects of mistletoe and that it was viewed as a bringer of peace by the Druids.Mistletoe was also a powerful healing herb. Mistletoe and kissing are also seen in one of the Norse myths: Frigga is the Norse Goddess of love, marriage and fertility. Her son, Balder was slain by Loki with an arrrow made from mistletoe. When Balder was restored to life, Frigga blessed the mistletoe and gave a kiss to anyone who passed under it. Some later versions of this tradition say to remove one berry with each kiss. When there are no more berries on the sprig of mistletoe, no more kisses.





Tree Decorating - There is some debate on the origin of this tradition. Druids (and some other ancient cultures) saw evergreen trees as symbols of everlasting life, because they seemed to live through the winter undaunted by the cold. So using evergreen branches as decorations symbolized the undying strength of the Sun. Decorating the trees may have come from the ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia



Gift Giving - The Christians attribute the giving of gifts at Christmas to the wise men who brough gold, frankincense and myrrh to the newborn Jesus. But this tradition was common well before the time of Jesus, during Saturnalia.

The Ancient Roman Festival of Saturnalia
Saturnalia is one of the best known ancient celebrations of the Winter Solstice. The name comes from the Roman God Saturn, who ruled over agriculture. He was the main God honoured at this time, after the fall crops had been sown. Saturnalia lasted for several days (typically 7, but various officials changed the length of the festival on a few occassions). Saturnlia was the greatest festival of the Roman year, and was marked with great feasting, gift-giving, dancing, playing, and relaxing. Homes were decorated, work was suspended, and there was general merry-making done by all.

(above from ask.com)

And thinking back to History class of my youth, all these traditions were incorporated into Christian traditions so that the new religion would be paletable for the Pagans...but I guess in the end it does not even matter anymore.LOL!

now THAT is the best Christmas song ever......



I have to agree with you about the insane people that have had their xmas decorations up since Halloween.

But I do love me some Xmas music... the oldies station in Boston has already started. I just can't justify playing it in my own home before Thanksgiving, but I couldn't resist a few "There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays" and Bing Crosby's Meli Kalikimaka... there's just something about it

O man I love Monchichi...I had mine until i was 20..then she disappeared

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