Comments | siemova: It's not Christmas yet.

siemova

It's not Christmas yet.

Nov 19, 2008 23:10

It seems Christmas is being celebrated earlier and earlier these days. At our local Wal-Mart, we heard Christmas music before Halloween. That's in October. Alas, the fever has spread far beyond retail outlets. Many places online, I keep seeing people talk about gearing up for the holiday. And I must confess that it troubles me.

For one thing, I've ( Read more... )

Comments 5

aftondays November 20 2008, 12:34:03 UTC

Good thoughts! I mostly agree--although of course, I have been engaging in some Christmas cheer already by way of music and we're planning to put up our tree this weekend (because we won't be able to do it when we usually do, after Thanksgiving). But, um...anyway, yes! I can relate to lots of this, despite my glee. :D

I feel so much better about Christmas this year than I ever have before. I have always loved it, but this year it already means so much more to me than in the past, because of the preparation that we have as a church and personally. (Last year I didn't participate in the fast since I was pregnant--although now I see I could have done it to some degree.) It's strange how while the festive aspect is played down by means of the fast and slow and gradual entrance into the season, yet I have so much more real joy. And the twelve days will finally have some meaning. It's a sweet, sweet time ( ... )

siemova November 22 2008, 04:13:03 UTC

:) I'm looking forward to our own fast. Starts next Friday! But one last fling on Thanksgiving first, which is Providentially nice timing. I don't believe it fell so neatly last year.

For me I think the greatest challenge will be trying to focus on the right things rather than merely avoiding the excesses. But then, that tends to be my problem in any fast. :-P So nice that church customs help in both areas, isn't it?

aftondays November 22 2008, 13:58:41 UTC

Yes, that is my greatest challenge as well. It's difficult with the many distractions of life. *sigh*

net_raptor November 20 2008, 15:54:47 UTC

Ah well, yelling about how commercial the holiday is is kind of moot for two reasons.

1, Christmas is a pagan holiday anyway that the Christians took and christianized. Christ's birth was probably in September, and therefore Christmas music in October is actually a month late!

2, The economy is so bad that the stores are desperately trying to extend the shopping season. A UPS guy told my mom that this time last year, he had 2200 stops to make. This year, he had 12.

So yeah, we've forgotten the meaning of the season and all that. But there's no point in splitting hairs about it.

siemova November 22 2008, 05:22:51 UTC

Well, I wasn't intending my comments as yelling-more like musing. ^_^ But regardless, although I empathize with some of your cynicism, I think I have to disagree with your conclusions.

Christmas has always been a Christian holiday, not a pagan one. We know it was celebrated as early as the 200's, but the church originally remembered Christ's birth on the same day as Theophany (commemoration of His young life, His baptism, and the revelation of the Trinity), which is twelve days after Dec. 25. Early in the 300's, some churches moved the commemoration to Dec. 25 instead, to give Christians an alternative to the newly-instituted Roman feast of the Invincible Sun. It was a liturgical holiday, not a revelry. The whole point was to be markedly different from the pagans, and eventually all of the church adopted this practice. I know that many of the modern customs surrounding Christmas were originally pagan, but the holiday itself had a long, purely Christian history before those crept in ( ... )