An op-ed about "Keeping Christmas As A Christian"

This message was sent to me via Facebook (from a family member) in response to my Christmas message:

In today’s world, there are so many non Christians who want us Christians to keep our religion to ourselves. No prayer in school, no Commandments displayed, the list goes on and on. I do not favor Christians giving up yet another part of our lives that celebrates our belief in our Savior. For this reason, I encourage all Christians to continue celebrating Jesus not only in our everyday lives and to keep and fight for our Christian holidays.

I would like to share with you my thoughts about Christmas. In the year 625 A.D. on December 25, people were going to extravagant and wild celebrations, and the purpose was to celebrate the re-birth of the sun. The leaders of the Church decided that they would out-do the pagan holiday with a celebration of their own. They decided to celebrate, on the same day, the birth of Jesus (the Son). The Church provided a true reason to celebrate. What could be more important and worth celebrating than the birth of Jesus? Of course the pagans went on with their celebrations of the re-birth of the sun, but I wonder how many were witnessed to because they inquired about the Church’s celebration of Jesus? The Church having their own day to celebrate the birth of Jesus must have ministered to many people. I am glad that the Church didn’t just sit back and watch. What an opportunity this was for the Church to minister to nonbelievers and give them the message of Christ. Wouldn’t it be great if the Christian voice could be heard as strongly today? I feel that today’s Christians tend to back down a little too easily.

Most of today’s Christmas traditions I believe to be from the Church’s celebration of Christ’s birth, but I understand that some pagan traditions are still in the mix (i.e., mistletoe). But I really don’t see that as a big deal. If my husband walks under some mistletoe and I kiss him, I don’t think I’m doing wrong just because sinners used mistletoe to celebrate their holiday. By doing this, I am not following the pagan ways. Now if I were at a wild party, kissing everyone who walked under the mistletoe, I am confident God would not be pleased and I would be following pagan tradition.

The Bible scripture which you provided does not, in my opinion, reference today’s Christmas tree. The Bible tells us of people who did not believe in God (and those who did believe, but started doubting God) dishonoring God by making and worshiping idols. I think the scripture you quoted is providing an example of God’s disapproval of the making and worshiping of idols, such as the idols that Moses’ people handmade and worshiped the times they lost their faith in God. I can very confidently say that I am not using my Christmas tree as an idol, nor am I worshipping it. When I put up a tree, I do it for the purpose of decorating and making the house look special for the Christian holiday celebrating the birth of our Savior.

I do agree that the Bible does not advise us to celebrate the birth of Jesus, but I do not interpret the absence of this to be an indication of God’s disapproval of a celebration. Wasn’t Jesus’ birth written about many, many years after it happened? This could be a reason the celebrations (that I believe probably did take place) are not mentioned. The Bible does tell of the wise men celebrating by bringing gifts to Jesus, as you mentioned in your article. We read in Judges where God appointed the Levites to minister and to celebrate Him and thank and praise Him. In other books of the Bible, He instructed His people to kill calves and to celebrate and worship Him. King David and others celebrated God with song and dance, and He was pleased. These examples tell me that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, being all one, loves for us to celebrate by giving Him praise and thanks. I cannot imagine that He would disapprove of the celebration of His son’s birth. I believe He would want us to celebrate the birth of his son, and I believe He must have been with our Church leaders when they set aside this special day of celebration. With that said, I don’t think He would mind that we celebrate on December 25 instead of the actual day of His birth. If I were of that mindset, I would not hold Sunday as the Sabbath.

I agree with you that Jesus was probably not born in the winter. I heard a preacher explain one Sunday why he thought Jesus was born in the spring and how he had to be about two years old by the time the wise men finally reached Him. While we may never see a Christmas play depicting a 100 percent accurate version of Jesus’ birth, what matters to me is that we take the time to celebrate His birth in our daily living and especially on that one day a year that our Church leaders have designated as a Christian holiday. Christmas can be a real time of witnessing to people. When a stranger asks, “Are you ready for Christmas?” that is an open door to briefly share why Christian’s celebrate.

It is not required that a person play Santa to celebrate Christmas. That was a cute, but yet sad story about your learning there was no Santa. As a child, I did not believe in Santa Clause simply because I would be with Mom and Dad when they would buy for their grandchildren. Some of their grandchildren would be at our house on Christmas Eve, and I would help Mom wrap their gifts and hide them so she could put them out as gifts from Santa. I pretended to believe because I wanted to be a part of the fun and so I would not spoil the surprise for the grandchildren. But I do have very vivid memories of wishing that I believed in Santa. While I really enjoyed the experience of buying for the grandchildren, I felt like they were having so much more fun because they were so fascinated with the idea of Santa leaving them gifts. Funny the things we remember. But today I can believe in Saint Nicholas, after doing a little research. I don’t believe he should be a part of our Christian holiday, but I do believe in the good he did, and we can use him as an example of how we should give to those less fortunate.

Here is what I believe about Saint Nicholas. He was the son of a wealthy couple who died while he was young; his parents had taught him about God, and he was a believer of God; and he was very generous with his money and gave very often to those who were less fortunate. For this reason, he was held in high regard by many and was made a patron Saint of Russia and Greece. After his death on December 6, people began giving gifts to others in his honor. I believe this is all well and good. But unfortunately we have allowed the day honoring Saint Nicholas to interfere with the day set aside to celebrate Jesus’ birth. The gift giving can be overdone and hinder the Christian’s celebration of Jesus’ birth. I have been guilty of this. Around Christmas, my employer gives me an end-of-year bonus that I normally use to pay taxes and take care of other household expenses. I also give a special gift to my Church, who does a lot for our community, and to a special charity that does very good work for less fortunate people. I usually have enough remaining to buy my children an item or two that I normally would not have the money for throughout the year. Because it is around Christmas when I have the extra money, we sometimes look forward to Christmas for that reason. While I am happy to be able to provide a little extra for my children, I make sure to emphasize to my children that Christmas is a Christian holiday intended to celebrate Jesus’ birth.

I urge Christians to keep the commemorative calendar that our Church leaders so long ago adopted to celebrate the major events of Jesus’ life. We as Christians have given up way too much already. I think Christians should celebrate each Christian holiday and use it as a teaching tool for their children and as a witnessing tool to others who may not believe. Don’t get caught up in today’s Santa and the giant bunny, etc., and don’t give up by discontinuing your celebration of the Christian holidays while others are focusing on everything but the Christian version of the holiday. Like the Church leaders of so long ago, let’s not sit on the sideline. Let’s work that much harder to get His Word out there and to keep it from disappearing altogether from our Christian holidays.