The Reason for the Season: A Rant

Preface: I don't mean to offend anyone with this post--I am merely sharing my reaction to these sorts of things when my friends share them on Facebook. If it was only one person with the passive-aggressive pseudo-Christian messages it wouldn't annoy me as much! So here goes:

Photo via Nina Lee on Facebook, shared by nearly 100,000 at the time of this writing

I find it very, very hard to believe that Jesus is upset about us not making a big exclusive deal out of Christmas and instead saying Happy Holidays. Something makes me think that seeing His children trampled on Black Friday in the name of conspicuous consumption would make Jesus go around whipping stuff and flipping tables. A co-opted pagan holiday is not the be-all and end-all of Christianity. It's just not. People who think it is are worshiping their own culture, not God.

Santa? Not Jesus. St. Nicholas is a Christian Saint, but the gift-giving monstrosity with the flying sled is most certainly secular.

Christmas trees? Not about Jesus, pagan tradition.

Yule log? It's right in the name, pagan tradition.

Wreaths, holly, mistletoe? Also not Christian in origin.

Celebrating in the month of December? Nobody seems to know exactly when Jesus was born. Even the gospels disagree on the year, let alone the date. Most of what I've read about it argues that the shepherds would not have been tending their flocks by night, outdoors, in the dead of winter, ergo it wouldn't have taken place between November and March. However, the highly popular pagan holiday of the Winter Solstice was in place long before.

Get over it. Christmas is a highly secular cultural holiday with relatively few ties to Christianity aside from what was co-opted to attract Pagans to convert. That's it.

Now, I love Christmas. I love putting up stockings and decorating our tree. I love gift-giving. But I don't harbor any illusions that these things have anything to do with Jesus. If you're going to argue with me about the Magi, why don't we move gift-giving to Epiphany?

Wish me a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Holiday, or Season's Greeting. Better yet, wish me Peace on Earth. And I'm not going to complain if you wish me a Happy Hanukkah, a Joyous Kwanzaa, or anything else. (A Delightful Diwali? That's already passed, oops!) Although if you're not African-American and you give me Kwanzaa greetings, I might look at you funny. Just sayin'.

And I've shared this elsewhere, but it seemed apt:

Image via Exploring Our Matrix

(I also discovered that Exploring Our Matrix had indeed, two years ago, written this post for me...two days after I'd already finalized it for posting. Oh well. This lady also beat me to the punch.)