Comments on: Christmas and Me

By: Jessie

Jessie — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 10:48:49 +0000

my christmas presents…

It is about time someone wrote about this….

By: Beth Partin

Beth Partin — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 21:27:37 +0000

No, I haven’t. But my parents always took me around trick-or-treating, so they couldn’t have minded Halloween too much.

I’d like to celebrate the Day of the Dead in Mexico sometime. I think that would be fun.

By: Deb

Deb — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 21:25:18 +0000

I hated being one of the kids who celebrated the holidays including birthdays in front of the couple kids who had to sit at the table isolated at school. Being a room mother at a parochial school was so easy. Excpet, Catholics do not celebrate Halloween, instead it is All Saints Day – ever heard of a Saint Brew instead of a witches brew?

By: Beth Partin

Beth Partin — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 21:18:53 +0000

Thanks, Sybil.

Deb, I’ve always thought that having a really really strict practice for Christmas sounded sad–why force your children to separate themselves so much from the main culture? But I guess that’s the point, isn’t it?

By: Deb

Deb — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 15:30:10 +0000

Christ’s birth date has always been the one thing that the Jahovah’s Witnesses have used to try to convince us that all Christians are wrong in their beliefs. Perhaps your reasoning behind the celebration of Christmas is correct. Makes as much sense as most of the stuff (I would use the word propaganda, but that might be too strong a word.

By: Sybil Baker

Sybil Baker — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 14:07:33 +0000

Beth–I really enjoyed this! I hope your Christmas was all that and more.

By: Beth

Beth — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 18:14:00 +0000

Yes, Christmas is a good time to gather everyone together. I think the church fathers decided to celebrate Christ’s birth around this time because it is the time, traditionally, when people are gathered (because it’s too damn cold to go outside!). So it makes sense from a natural-cycle point of view.

I like the idea of the creator being one–in other words, whatever we worship, we are worshipping some aspect of the creator, maybe all that we can perceive at this particular point in our lives.

By: Deb

Deb — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 17:54:52 +0000

Well Beth, at least you were given the opportunity to be taught scriptures and the like. Rick was raised Catholic and being Catholic has gotten his Mother through many impossible happenings. However, as Rick and I both have questioned our own beliefs, we find that we want to believe in someone/something that can “save us” from ourselves in many ways. Yet, Rick really feels that the Bible was written as a novel. Evolving as more people read it and change the wording to reflect how they see things – thue The Book of Mormon. I have hope and faith and love, yet I do not have the forethought that says everything happens for a reason and that it is all God’s Will and that we should rejoice for the death of someone because now they are at peace within Heaven. I, like Todd, have more of a scientific approach about creationalism (right word?). After visiting some ruins in AZ as well as the Tulum ruins, and seeing the Solstice windows that were made thousands / millions (maybe even billions) of years ago, I beleive that those “Gods” which were worshiped (God of light, and thunder and fire, etc)Were all part of explanable creations, and were not God’s at all. So I too struggle with how I feel. Christmas for me is a time to gather, and rejoice that I am so blessed by having friends and family, and dogs and grass and tree’s and air. Should I thank Jesus Christ for all of this, maybe…

By: Beth

Beth — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 16:31:06 +0000

Yeah, that is a great answer, Bernard.

A friend of mine once comforted me in a similar way. She said she worried about her Jewish friends going to hell. But then she decided that Jesus had saved everyone, regardless of whether they believed in him.

Thanks for commenting, Bernard. I really appreciate it.

By: BernardL

BernardL — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 15:50:43 +0000

I grew up a Catholic too; but although I no longer am an active church goer, something a Nun said in answer to a question I posed to her when I was eight stayed with me all my life. During the weekly teachings of mortal and venial sins, I asked her what happens to all the people who don’t even know God exists, or don’t believe as we do? Would they go to hell, even though they lived good lives? She told me the knowledge of God exists in everyone’s heart and soul, and goodness is never punished. I didn’t do the followup questions springing into my young mind as to how come I have to go to hell for missing mass, because I sensed a simple completion in her answer that explained everything for me.