Christmas....I mean festivis

[Rhianwen]

[Shruggies] I could honestly care less if it's called Christmas break or winter break, or spring break or Easter break, or We-Don't-Feel-Like-Thinking-Anymore Break, as long as it results in me having time off classes, and being able to sing each of my favourite Christmas carols at least once. Although, not at Easter, 'cause I'd get funny looks.

The only problem, as people have already said, is someone making ridiculous claims that saying "Merry Christmas" is oppressing them and their freedom of religion, and tryingto make everyone say "Happy Holiday Season of No Particular Denomination" instead. Mostly because that's kind of a mouthful. (Although, not quite as much as We-Don't-Feel-Like-Thinking-Anymore Break)

And personally, I love the fact that they're beginning to sing Chanuka songs and Kwanza songs in schools (if only they'd done it ten years ago when I was still in elementary). I just wish they didn't feel the need to sacrifice Christmas carols to do it.

[Ralvuimago]

Me personally, I never liked the term 'x-mas'. I don't know, it just looked like they were quite literally trying to take 'Christ' out of christmas and replace him with a nice, all encompassing 'X'. I still try to keep christmas a personal thing. After seeing all the commercialism that had taken christmas over (and the fact that it had overtaken thanksgiving and was trying to absorb Halloween into it as well), I decided "Screw all this crap that everyone else is doing, I'm gonna spend this christmas the way I want to." So now, whenever someone asks me what I want, I respond with "No thanks, I'm good. I got enough to get by." As such, I've tried to ween myself away from all the non-christian aspects of christmas. Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus.

[Dante]

When you have to celebrate Chinese New Year, Hari Raya Puasa, Deepavali and Vesak Day, you quickly learn to be tolerant of other people's religious holidays.

[Devon Lake]

http://jenniverse.com/rants8.html
(I’ve gotta love Jennifer, but on this particular issue I’ve got to call her a loone.)

See, that’s what I don’t like. The crazy atheists who claim that Christmas is some sort of religious jingoistic attempt to mass convert or that it’s a massive battle by the capitalist world order to exploit the proletariat. These humbugging grinches are trying to destroy a hallmark of our civilization! Just watch the Invader Zim Christmas special, tell me that’s not genius!

So what if it Christmas is just the ignorant bastardization of pagan rituals with the rubber stamp of Jesus all over it? Has anyone here seen a Canadian winter? It gets dark at 4:00 PM! We NEED an excuse to put lights and shit up. So what if hollies, mistletoes, trees, wreaths, and all that junk comes from bush worshipping barbarians? That just makes it kind of cool; most no one really understands the significance of that junk but we go about it because of tradition. To an outsider none of this stuff would make sense; I once saw a Japanese store window with Santa Clause crucified in it.

Christmas is a pillar of western civilization! It even has its own little mythology, really the only mythology still relevant to the west. No one knows where the Easter Bunny lives, how he makes his eggs, how he gets to every house in the world in one night, why he does it, how he breaks into his houses, or any of that crap. But any five your old could jabber on about Santa and his elves like a passage from Tolkien or something. We assimilated the rest of the world in many ways to western culture, but Christmas is one of those things that keep us unique, that keep our civilization from being culturally irrelevant, that “general” culture without any extra stuff.

I’m an atheist and my family is about as secular as it gets. I honestly have no clue whether or not any of them believe in God because religion has NEVER come up. And yet, we have a little nativity scene beside our Christmas tree. Why? Because it’s Christmas! Christmas is supposed to be merry and jolly and stuff, that’s why we didn’t chuck it out the window along with “St. Bartholomew Day” and all the other unimportant such Saint Days (Valentine’s Day is different, we spiced it up with eroticism.) Even Groundhog Day is going the way of the horse and cart.

Fine, the Christmas season has more suicides than any other, but what do you expect when it’s dark at 4:00 PM! Fine, if your life sucks it can become really obvious at a time that’s supposed to be happy, but must the world give up its merry making because a few people are having crappy times for themselves? And what’s with the “Well all year round should be full of love and goodwill towards all men and duh-duh-duh-duh”? It’s nice to think that way, but come on, the whole year can’t be a nonstop party, give us Christmas so that we can take some time out of our ridiculously busy lives and just concentrate solely on filial piety and doing what our elders instruct us…

[FunnyLooking]

<So what if it Christmas is just the ignorant bastardization of pagan rituals with the rubber stamp of Jesus all over it?>

Bastardization? Is that even a word?

Besides, borrowing aspects of other cultures could hardly be called a bastardization.

The great thing about christmas is that it's so secular that nobody has any problem it being a national holiday. Personally, I like it that way. The day it becomes an extremely religious holiday is the day I complain about it being a national one.

<When you have to celebrate Chinese New Year, Hari Raya Puasa, Deepavali and Vesak Day, you quickly learn to be tolerant of other people's religious holidays.>

See, this is what schools are trying to do. Cut them a little slack, they don't know what they're doing. They're just trying to make people happy.

[Patricoo]

The great thing about christmas is that it's so secular that nobody has any problem it being a national holiday. Personally, I like it that way. The day it becomes an extremely religious holiday is the day I complain about it being a national one.

Wait, it's NOT and extreamly religious holiday? Am I the only one that belives in God in this forum?

Mabey from your point of view it's just a holiday full of presents, but in my view, it's Christ's birthday. yes, yes, it was placed in the winter, but honestly, it's nothing more or less then that. None of that extra buisness crap. I never got caught in that. My point of view has always avoided corruption and I'll be damned if it ever changes.

Remember: I don't hate these things solely because it's called winter break, I hate these things because they go about it all wrong.

[Ranson]

Coming from a fairly rural area, this didn't come up until fairly recently in our local schools. My hometown was fairly diverse culturally, but being in the Bible-belt made the holiday breaks "Christmas" and "Easter." For the longest time, everyone took it with a grain of salt. The Islamic kids didn't care, the Hindu kids really didn't care, and the non-denomination folk weren't as "oppressed" as they often tend to be today. When classes decorated doors for prizes, one of the best was "Darkoth the Death Demon Saves Christmas." Sure, the religiosity of the season was there . . . at home. At school, we realized that not everyone thinks the same way about it, but the secular part is still celebratable. In short, we got over ourselves. Then, recently, rather than go about it like a sane human being, some twit sued. Not that her child was actually offended, but that she herself was.
I think the culture of the offened has progressed much too far in this country. I don't really care if anyone agrees with me on any subject. But if they don't shut up about it, my desire to defend your rights slides quickly down the drain. Political dissent is great; religious dissent is inviteable; cultural dissent is the way of the world. Quite frankly, though, if you are one, and we are many, we don't give a shit. Ask us nicely, and we might try to accomodate you; demand something and our first instinct will be to go on the defensive and bring out the big guns. Both sides will then be permanently alienated and bear great grudges and animosity because one twit couldn't shrug and say, "Ehn. No harm done."

To those so desperately worried about the school system indoctrinating your children in something other than your style of indoctrination(which is the root of all learning), that's what you have a home for. That's why you have to be a parent. Deal with it at home, and don't be afraid of your child learning an opposite view . . . it'll make their own arguments on the subject that much more effective when they are older.

Merry Christmas

[Devon Lake]

Bastardization? Is that even a word?

Besides, borrowing aspects of other cultures could hardly be called a bastardization.

The great thing about christmas is that it's so secular that nobody has any problem it being a national holiday. Personally, I like it that way. The day it becomes an extremely religious holiday is the day I complain about it being a national one.

I think "bastardization" is a word. I'm sure I must have seen it somewhere before dragging it into my vocabulary. Perhaps it's just a silly buzz word like "killographic" but it gets the job done

I don't think its really a matter of just burrowing aspects of other cultures. When you take something of geniune importance to a culture and use it completely ignorant as to the significance of that culture, then its a bastardization rather than borrowing. For instance, a few years ago the Ottawa Senators (Hockey Team) actually started a cheer in which everyone would hold up pictures of the chubby laughing buddha and yell "Buddha Power"! If that's not an entirely inapropriate use of the englightened one by ignorant hockey fans, I don't know what is. Likewise, does anyone know the significance of hollies and mistletoes and wreaths and the tree and whatnot to the people whose religion we pilfered it from? Which Teutonic deity am I paying hommage to? Why is the mistletoe a making out mandate? In any case, the stuff isn't exactly from "other" cultures; western civilization evolved out of them afterall. It's kind of like how "Old English" is supposedly still the same langauge as ours, even though it sounds nuttier than German.

[Patricoo]

Case anyone doesn't know....Basicly all of Christmas traditions can be routed from Germany. (i.e. The tree's and weaths)

Originally Posted by Ranson

When classes decorated doors for prizes, one of the best was "Darkoth the Death Demon Saves Christmas." Sure, the religiosity of the season was there . . . at home.

Awww man I'm laughing too hard to even make a serious comment anymore.

[Krylo]

Actually, I'm going to agree with Devon. As soon as you have a holiday that athiests and agnostics celebrate (welcome to my home!) it can be considered pretty secular. Yes, there are religious reasons for it existing... but Santa Clause is not a christian icon, nor are little elves working up in the north pole. Nor are christmas trees, wreaths, etc. They come from Germany because, I believe, that's where the religion those things were stolen from (and were of great importance to) existed. Very few people, even those that are religious, really care that much about the birth of christ anymore on christmas. Sure, they may set out a baby Jesus with a halogen lightbulb rammed so far up it's ass that the savior can be seen for miles, but that doesn't really constitute favoring the religious aspects of christmas. Sure, there are some families that get around and pray... or whatever (I'm not religious, so I'm not sure what exactly they'd do) on christmas, but there are also many families that celebrate 'x-mas' without ever thinking about Christ, except for that old archaic spelling for the holiday.

However, no matter how secular christmas has become, it still conflicts with other religions. If christmas hadn't started as a christian holiday do you think the pope would be happy about elves and a jolly old man in a red suit flying around on an enchanted sled? Sounds like witchcraft to me. The same can mostly be said for any religion.

And it does have Christian roots, and Christian songs are still sung on the holiday. You can't just shove your religion down someone elses throat and think it's ok. Ranson, living in the bible belt, I'm sure you had contact with quite a few hardcore bible bangers... how do you think THEY would have reacted if the school decided to celebrate chanaakuh, or kwanza? Now, the athiests and agnostics wouldn't care... they'd just play with dreidals and kwanza candles, and figure out a secular way to have fun... like that death demon thing. The christian children may not even care, because they're kids, and moreover, those african and jewish kids were probably their friends, thus allowing them to see the cultures before being 'attacked' by them. But would their parents see it the same way, being the bible bangers that I'm talking about? I highly doubt that they would have just said "ehn, no harm done," after having met a few myself.

When people complain about people complaining, they often forget to place themselves, their families, or even other people from their 'side' in 'the other side's' position. Christian people can be just as, if not more so, 'whiney' as muslims etc. They just happen to have the upper hand, and so they usually don't need to complain. However, they take a lot less before they start bitching. The very existence of this thread shows that. "Oh my god, our break is no longer named after a religious/secular holiday, and is instead named 'winter break' so that no one feels offended! THOSE BASTARDS!" It's a pretty silly complaint, isn't it? You lost the upper hand, and they made things more equal. Oh well.

Now, some of you have valid complaints, like singing kwanza songs in school... that's no more right than forcing a buddhist to sing 'silent night' or 'hark the herald angels sing'. But that isn't right either. And, hey, you brought it up as a complaint... guess you aren't much better at keeping quiet than the other cultures. Come to think of it, they lived with singing an other religion's songs for quite some time before they started complaining... didn't even take the christians a decade.