This was inspired by the recent discussion on the Holiday Movies thread which primarily included Christmas movies.

Yeah, I realize these are not all mutually exclusive. And yes, I know I didn't include "all" "none" or "other" options. They're no fun.

I'm not sure what my vote will be. I hope my choices don't offend anyone here. I was just wondering.

I chose "Opportunity to Celebrate......"

I just like giving my friends presents, and the silly movies and songs associated with the holiday. Christmas as we now it is only a little more than 100 years old, and it was basically invented in the United States. That's what the History Channel told me.

Thursday is the only day that I've been looking forward to...

But I went with "opportunity to celebrate" as well.

Will

i wouldve gone with "opportunity to celebrate" as well if i didnt look at it like EVERYDAY is an opportunity to celebrate how amazing life, family and friends are.

so yeah. good excuse to skip out on the dumb stuff (school and work) to concentrate on the good.

(Edited by Superflks at 2:50 pm on Dec. 3, 2003)

Christmas is all of those things to me (well, except the "blatant violation of separation of chruch and state" one, but that's a whole other discussion). But at the core, for me, it's a celebration of the birth of Christ.

I'm not even going to mention that Jesus wasn't born in the winter months....lol

I chose "Opportunity to Celebrate.." as well. Even though I don't necessarily enjoy celebrating with ALL the members of my family. Dysfunction ahoy!

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's still a celebration of his birth, whenever it was.

I think I've heard that December 25 was chosen because it was originally a pagan holiday. The church, through the years, has been very fond of "stealing" holidays from the pagans.

I think every major religion, pagan or otherwise, has a winter holiday and a spring holiday. What they're supposedly celebrating doesn't matter, but mankind has always done somthing to mark the change of the seasons. Life and death have always been and will always be mysteries, and it's human nature to want to somehow celebrate and explain that, and feel connected to the world around us.

Just my opinion.

(Edited by MissSeptember at 3:23 pm on Dec. 3, 2003)

You are partially right, if I remember from my nearly 17 years of Catholic school (kindergarten thru college), December 25 was chosen because it coincided with a pagan holiday, but they thought he was born in December. The flaw in their calculations was that the original Gregorian calendar didn't take into effect leap years, so their calculations were off when they went and backtracked to find the actual date. The actual date was sometime in June if I remember right.

It was narrowed down by celestial charts, assuming that if the star that appeared to lead the three kings to Jesus was actually a comet. Of course, all of this is from memory, and most likely full of inaccuracies. So take it for what it's worth. I guess I may have actually learned something from Catholic school... besides plaid skirts fucking rock.

Yeah, it was meant to take over the Winter Solstice celebration.

I chose "opportunity to celebrate with friends & family". Really, it's an excuse to take a break from work & school, but during that break I intend to do a lot of "celebrating". It's always nice when my friends and I are all in the same state, let alone general vicinity, as each other.

What kind of sicko ruler would order a census taken in the dead of winter, knowing his poor people would be riding on donkeys many miles to get there...

The teachings of the good old History Channel follow:

In the early years of Christianity, Easter was the main holiday; the birth of Jesus was not celebrated. In the fourth century, church officials decided to institute the birth of Jesus as a holiday. Unfortunately, the Bible does not mention date for his birth (a fact Puritans later pointed out in order to deny the legitimacy of the celebration). Although some evidence suggests that his birth may have occurred in the spring (why would shepherds be herding in the middle of winter?), Pope Julius I chose December 25. It is commonly believed that the church chose this date in an effort to adopt and absorb the traditions of the pagan Saturnalia festival. First called the Feast of the Nativity, the custom spread to Egypt by 432 and to England by the end of the sixth century. By the end of the eighth century, the celebration of Christmas had spread all the way to Scandinavia. Today, in the Greek and Russian orthodox churches, Christmas is celebrated 13 days after the 25th, which is also referred to as the Epiphany or Three Kings Day. This is the day it is believed that the three wise men finally found Jesus in the manger.

By holding Christmas at the same time as traditional winter solstice festivals, church leaders increased the chances that Christmas would be popularly embraced, but gave up the ability to dictate how it was celebrated.

Read more here if you care:

Christmas - An Ancient Holiday

Thanks for doing the legwork...

Agreed.

I agree with Superflks that everyday is an excuse to celebrate life with friends and family, which leads me to this...am I honestly the only person on here that's all about the presents???

you get presents for your birthday. christmas means three weeks out of school. and thats the best present of all.

Unless you're me and everyday is a vacation from school.

well, pretend you're in my shoes. my desire to get out isnt too bad since i had all of last week off. give me another week, though.

speaking of shoes, im still rockin the flip flops. i wonder how long i can go.

Also, I agree, too, as well. Although, I like to give year 'round. I think presesnts are kind of expected on Christmas so I like to do most of my giving every other day of the year. (and I mean presents, RichardD).

uh huh, sure you do

I'm with you man.