There won’t be no Yule Log burning on my television screen this year. Nor will there be any gift giving. Nor will there be any church services. Nor will there be any Christmas tree.
Of course in the past I willingly adhered to the practice of splurging, buying, and decorating while freezing my ass off in below zero temps and spending time with people I didn’t bother with any other time of the year and going broke in the name of Jesus Christ.
Anything less was me being a bad mother, and how could I disappoint my child when she expected to wake up to toy store bounty in celebration of Jesus’ birthday! I fought bravely on behalf of my daughter’s honor, so that she may have a Giga-Pet! My best friend earned her notches by getting into a full on scuffle at 5 a.m. with a soccer mom over a Glo Worm her son had to have lest he become an invalid or something terrible.
No, seriously, I’m pretty much over the whole Christmas as a viable celebration in my life. I’ve been getting uncomfortable glances when I’m asked about holiday festivities and I admit that I’m done with Christmas. The looks on the faces of the white suburban mothers’ I work with boarder on confusion and disgust at my comment. Some take my refusal to participate in the fiscal requirements of Christmas as my wanting to take the secular aspect of the holiday out of the religious observance. Nope, it’s not that either.
Can someone tell me what’s so great about Christmas anyway? Do people even know why they celebrate it? Aside from the mass hysteria that is called customs what’s the real meaning of Christmas?
Naivety or Nativity
During the ‘90’s an Ohio school board banned all nativity and other Christmas scenes on any school property; they felt it violated the separation of church and state. Pissed off parents challenged them in court because they WANTED their Christmas. What about the kids?! The board lost their case when the courts ruled that Christmas is a worldwide tradition and not a religious holiday. The courts ruled that mangers could stay because nativity scenes are not recognized as representation of any one religion.
Most of the Christmas tradition is repackaged Roman paganism. December 25 initially was considered to be the harvest festival of the Roman God Saturnalia (the God of sowing). In 529 A.D., the Emperor Justinian made Christmas a civic holiday. Many Egyptian pagan celebrations were held during the month of January; these holidays were moved back and become associated with Christmas. No one in the Bible mentioned a celebration in memory of Christ’s birth.
It was 300 years A.D. before the Roman church honored the celebration of Christmas, and it was not until the fifth century that it became an official festival honoring “Jesus Christ.” Biblical scholars quote verse where Jesus specifically spoke against keeping pagan holidays and boisterous traditions (Matt 15:9; Mark 7:9).
Go Jesus; It’s Your Birthday!
The book of Luke describes the events that were taking place during the season of the birth of Jesus Christ. Strangely enough, the time points to his being born during the Fall Season (see Luke 2:8 reference to shepherds still in the fields. Shepherds didn’t do this during the winter months). The festival of Saturnalia (Dec 17th) was a time for partying and gift exchanging. December 25 was the birth date of the god Mithra (the Righteous Son). January 1st was the Roman New Year; a time when Romans would adorn their houses with decorations and gifts were given to the poor and children. Fir trees, Yule cakes and gift giving are also aspects of German and Celtic harvest celebrations which were absorbed into tradition when these tribes settled in Britain and Europe.
During the Reformation those PR gurus swapped out the harvest festival celebrations and replaced it with the birth of Jesus Christ; they threw in some self serving gouging and debauchery for good measure because who doesn’t like a good party?
Everyone’s favorite old jolly man “Santa” AKA “Saint Nicholas” AKA “Old Nick” has long been recognized as a term for the devil. Revelation 2:6 and 15, reference a “doctrine of the Nicolaitanes,” which Christ twice tells His Church “[He] hates.” The word Nicolaitane means “follower of Nicholas”. The word Nikos means “conqueror, destroyer” and Laos means “people”. Nicolaitanes, then, are people who follow the conqueror or destroyer—known as the god Nimrod. Nimrod was originally a pagan fire god who came down the chimneys of the ancient people. This fire god was also responsible for infants being burned and eaten in human sacrifice among those who were once followers of God. Santa Clause comes down chimneys instead now; lucky for all of those eager little children that they will no longer be eaten.
Jesus had a Christmas tree in the Manger. Right?
The symbol of the Christmas tree is bought to us by Germany who got it from the Romans who got it from the Babylonians who got it from the Egyptians. The Babylonians had a fable that told of “an evergreen tree which sprang out of a dead tree stump". The old stump symbolized the dead Nimrod, the new evergreen tree symbolized that Nimrod had come to life again in Tammuz. Among the Druids the oak was sacred, among the Egyptians it was the palm, and in Rome it was the fir, which was decorated with red berries during the Saturnalia. Simply put, the Christmas tree is older than Christianity and it has nothing to do with Jesus Christ.
Of all of the Christmas practices that we now maintain the only one that has been specifically mentioned in the Bible is the Christmas tree (Jeremiah 10:2-5)
“Thus says the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen…For the customs of the people are vain: for one cuts a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.”
Did you see that? The Bible refers to it as “the way of the heathen” while instructing his people to “learn not the way of the heathen,” calling these customs “vain.”
So, it seems my evil atheist ass is actually onto something here. So the next time you’re caught in the midst of a full on Christmas sloth-fest just remember the Christian PR people, the pagan child eating gods and the Bible that says to not pay that shit no attention. Imagine the surprise on everyone’s face when they reach the pearly gates and come to find “celebrated Christmas” as a strike against them on that long ass list of sins. I’d be mad as hell to find out that I spent all that dam money on people I didn’t even like and now I got to pay for it for an eternity in Hell.
Now THAT’S the gift that keeps on giving…
Shout out to Black Agenda Report for the following message from Chaiman Omali:
