And this brings me to my next rant which is about Christmas and the meaning of it.
As I am watching my partner Jonathan decorating the house with so many decorations with the Christmas theme I had to ponder about it all and think of the meaning of the holidays and the origin. The poor guy has been working on this now for two days and he is nowhere near finished. Leave it to me to think about such things when it is a tradition that most people enjoy. I don’t mean to put a discordant thought in anybody’s mind as I also enjoy the festive goings on, but that is very far removed from any religiosity that the holidays hold for me.
Back in the day, before Christmas lights were available, people used candles to illuminate trees. That was not such a hot idea, especially when trees dried out. December remains the peak month for home fires caused by candles or malfunctioning lights as well as electric circuit overloads. This is particularly disturbing when you see ten plugs into one outlet.
Between 2003 and 2008, fire departments nationally responded to an average of 260 home fires per year that started with Christmas trees, causing an average of 14 deaths, 26 injuries and $13.8 million in property damage each year, according to NFPA's ..
Christmas trees and the season’s decorations are a relatively new invention. Franklin Pierce, 14th US President, decorated a tree on the White House lawn in 1853 for a group of Washington Sunday School children, while caroler's sang "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing." There is some question about the historical accuracy of the Pierce Christmas tree account.
Benjamin Harrison is the president credited with having the first Christmas tree inside the White House. The year that a Christmas tree was first used is believed to be 1889 . The tree was lit with candles.
In 1895, Grover Cleveland became the first President to use electric lights on a White Christmas Tree.
In 1835 Andrew Jackson's French chef made him a sugar-frosted pine tree, surrounded with toy animals made out of flavored ices.
Not all of the presidents after Cleveland had Christmas trees put up in the White House . See the link for more details.
Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, holly wreaths, decorated trees, mistletoe, season’s greetings, seasonal music, “chestnuts roasting on an open fire” and Santa Claus are all associated with this holiday as well as over the top gift giving. Children’s toys are added to this already saturated holiday with expenses up the kazoo.These all bring warm feelings to those who celebrate it but what do they have to do with the birth of Jesus?.
But to hear some of these Christianists talk you would think that it is the centerpiece of their ideology, the glue that holds their faith together and they go on and on about displaying the child Jesus and placing Christian messages on public property as an affirmation of their dominance; as a means by which they find validation in associating this pagan holiday with the birth of Jesus.
“In 1990, the Solon, Ohio (a Cleveland suburb) school board banned all nativity and other Christmas scenes on any school property because they felt it violated the separation of church and state. They were challenged in court when outraged parents opposed them, feeling that Christmas was being stolen from their children and the community. The board lost the case! The citizenry had contended that Christmas was a worldwide tradition that was not part of, and transcended, religion. It was deemed to be secular—a part of virtually all cultures worldwide.
The court decision affirmed that Christmas has no Christian roots! However, the court’s opinion also noted that Bible reading and prayer obviously are associated with Christianity—a remarkable admission! The court concluded that Christmas-keeping and manger scenes could remain because they are not really part of either Christianity or religion—but prayer and Bible reading, which are, must remain excluded from schools!” (I believe they should be because religion should be separated from the affairs of the government and I strongly oppose my children being taught something that I may not agree with…let them teach those kids whatever they want in their churches or send them to private religious schools instead)
If one is to look at the probabilities of Jesus being born on December 25th and consult the Scriptures themselves we will find that he should have been born sometime in the fall after the harvest.
The accusations that pagans and non-believers are trying to take Christ out of Christmas is ludicrous since it is the other way around…It was the Christians who hijacked a pagan holiday and adapted it to fit their needs for religiosity.
“Nearly all aspects of Christmas observance have their roots in Roman custom and religion. Consider the following admission from a large American newspaper (The Buffalo News, Nov. 22, 1984): “The earliest reference to Christmas being marked on Dec. 25 comes from the second century after Jesus’ birth. It is considered likely the first Christmas celebrations were in reaction to the Roman Saturnalia, a harvest festival that marked the winter solstice—the return of the sun—and honored Saturn, the god of sowing. Saturnalia was a rowdy time, much opposed by the more austere leaders among the still-minority Christian sect. Christmas developed, one scholar says, as a means of replacing worship of the sun with worship of the Son. By 529 A.D., after Christianity had become the official state religion of the Roman Empire, Emperor Justinian made Christmas a civic holiday. The celebration of Christmas reached its peak—some would say its worst moments—in the medieval period when it became a time for conspicuous consumption and unequaled revelry.”
Consider these quotes from the Catholic Encyclopedia, 1911 edition, under “Christmas”: “Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the Church…The first evidence of the feast is from Egypt.” Further, “Pagan customs centering round the January calends gravitated to Christmas.” Under “Natal Day,” Origen, an early Catholic writer, admitted, “…In the Scriptures, no one is recorded to have kept a feast or held a great banquet on his birthday. It is only sinners (like Pharaoh and Herod) who make great rejoicings over the day on which they were born into this world” (emphasis mine).
SOURCES: http://www.thercg.org/books/ttooc.html
http://www.faithfreedom.org/oped/sina21224.htm
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_President_had_the_first_White_House_Christmas_tree
Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_President_had_the_first_White_House_Christmas_tree#ixzz1ewkDwfpz
http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/the-rebel-jesus
http://www.acartoonchristmas.com/2009/12/09/dec-9-rudolph-the-red-nosed-reindeer/
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