Christians: do you wish the whole santa and gift giving thing was not the same day you celebrate Christ's birth?

I know I’m not Christian but I just wonder if these particular holidays are never really removed from their religious purposes even if in practice the way celebrations go down is quite ‘secular’. It’s not like Easter celebrates spring and bunnies and chocolate alone.

I don’t think that would work. Non-Christians feel Christmas and Easter are their holidays too and changing them because a certain religion wants it for themselves would be too controversial.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I don’t think they are really removed, not from my perspective as an atheist Jewish person. But, also as a Jewish person, I kind of like that the holidays are not very commercialized. Chanukah has been competing more with Christmas obviously, at least in America it does, but it doesn’t seem to be near the level of Christmas. I asked a question about Jewish people getting gifts, and all of said we never received 8 days of gifts, or if we did a lot of the says were trinkets. I also once answered a question about why I celebrate the holidays when I am not religious, I can try to find it, but it spoke to the traditions. I also hear a lot of people say Thanksgiving is their favorite holiday, because the food is yummy, the family is together, and no pressure to buy a gift. So with all that I was just windering what Christians think.

@TheIntern55 Huh? If you change it then the gift giving and santa won’t be associated as much with the Christian holiday. Then everyone can feel more free to participate. Most people who are not Christian who I know don’t consider Christmas to be their holiday. I know there are some non-Christians who celebrate, but I think that is probably a minority. I really have no idea of the actual statistic though, I am just going by the people I know.

@JLeslie I also feel that people can just meter their own participation in the commercialization of these holidays.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir Yes, of course that is true. But, there is pressure out there to participate in the commercial side. Plus, I am not saying dump the commercial stuff, I am just suggesting move it away from Christianity and closer to the secular, symbolically on a different day.

I don’t care either way. I have my own feelings about the Jewish holidays as a stated above, and I do think it kind of makes sense not to mush the religious meaning with the secular stuff, but I am not saying I think it would be better if it were different. I’m not trying to persuade anyone.

The market would follow where ever they go (or should I say advertising). Since the country is predominately christian, it’s a grand opportunity to capitalize on the spirit of the people. It would be nice if it was separate, but I think they go hand-in-hand.

I realize the day of Christ’s birth wasn’t Dec. 25th, but that is the day we celebrate it. I don’t see an issue, since Santa brings joy to the day, and it makes it easier to talk to children about it.

In the Netherlands, Sinterklaas is celebrated on the 5th of December, and this is the traditional day of sharing presents. I have some Dutch friends who do this, and I have been a part of it before now – it’s lovely :-)

It apparently doesn’t bother a lot of Christians. Some churches, like the one my mother attended, don’t even have services on Christmas day, the church is closed, so that the pastor can spend the day at home with his family. And that is the way my family did it when I was growing up. We went to a candlelight service Christmas Eve, then when we got home from church my brother and I were allowed to open one present each and Christmas day itself was spent at home opening and playing with our presents and then having Christmas dinner.

I think a lot of people, Christian or not, are bothered by the over-commercialization and relentless commercial hype that accompanies the holiday. I know I am.

As a Christian it makes no difference to me. It wasn’t Jesus’ birthday as many will point out anyway. I still use a Christmas tree too, which has nothing to do with my beliefs. Now hold on to your horses… I do Halloween too for the kids… It’s just a fun thing while they are young. I don’t believe they will turn into Satanists when they’re older because they dressed up like superman one day of the year.

I just wondered if you feel the commercial side of Christmas takes away from the religious message.

Yes I do and yes, I wish the whole Santa and gift giving thing was celebrated on some other day…..or keep them on Dec 25 and have the religious celebration on another day. That probably makes more sense.

I don’t think it matters about the commercialization. It is like anything else. You pay attention to what matters to you and ignore what doesn’t. If you get all hyped up about the gift giving and that detracts from your enjoyment and what you feel is the deeper meaning of the holiday you have only yourself to blame. I have a large family and while growing up we had a tight budget. In spite of that my parents gave us a fixed amount to spend on gifts for our siblings and for them. We loved going to the store and trying to pick the thing that would really make each other happy. We loved the surprise of it. We had little secret gift wrapping days when behind closed doors we wrapped up all those top secret presents and anticipated the enjoyment we would bring by giving our gifts.

My parents wer very religious but not all preachy about it. We would celebrate on Christmas Eve by going out to dinner. That was a very special treat for us in itself. Somehow my Dad would always have something to do before we left and we would be sitting in the car waiting for him. Sometimes we would go out driving around the neighborhood to look at the lights. When we came back from dinner we all knew Santa had come! My parents would try to hold us back a little just to torture us. Then they would let us all run pell mell down the stairs to see our presents under the tree. They didn’t wrap anything so it was a little pile of toys for each of us. We liked getting simple things like new art supplies and stuff like that. After we saw what Santa had brought it was time for family gifts. In a mad frenzy we would tear all the wrapping paper off of our gifts. We would toss them all over the room to each other! Here’s one for you and here’s one for you! We would run over to each other and give hugs and kisses.

Now I ask you, is this what we meant by over commercializing Christmas? Isn’t part of it about the joy of giving? Now that we are older and all have children and in laws it got too hard to buy a present for everyone. Now we only give presents to the kids. I had a hard time letting go of buying presnets for my nieces when they got to about 18. I wanted to keep buying them things!

After present opening if we weren’t too tired we liked to go to Midnight mass. Midnight mass had a special mystique about it. If we were too tired we went to mass in the morning.

I don’t think it matters what other people do to celebrate Christmas. If they want to spend Christmas Eve at the mall running around buying last minute gifts they will. If they want to stand in line all day for Black Friday specials they will. No one forces you to commercialize Christmas. The merchants have a business and want to extend the selling season. They will do whatever they think it takes to get people in the stores. But I don’t think it can interfere with the true meaning and spirit of Christmas unless you let it.

I also don’t find it a problem if someone wants to celebrate Christmas who doesn’t believe in Christ. It has become a cultural tradition. If it’s all about Santa Claus and Rudolf to them I say great! We each will celebrate in our own way. I like the feeling that there are so many people celebrating along with me even if they don’t believe what I believe.

@Earthgirl I loved reading about your Christmas memories.

wilma thanks! I got kind of emotional thinking about it.

@harple That’s interesting.

@Earthgirl I don’t think it matters either. I am not suggesting taking away the joy of giving, only doing the gifts a different day. And, I am not even really suggessting it, just wondering what people think. Funny, people will tell me the gifts represent the offerings to Christ. Then the same people will tell me I can do Christmas because trees and gifts are secular. I think you are right, we all interpret it how we want for ourselves. Nothing wrong with that. I felt like you thought I was implying I want to take away the joy of Christmas, I don’t mean that at all.

JLeslie No, no! I didn’t think you meant that at all. I understand that you were wondering if it would enhance the holiday in it’s religious aspect by separating it from the secular aspects. What I was trying to say is that in my experience the two were comfortably integrated. There wasn’t any conflict in my mind and the secular aspects did not detract from the religious aspects. I was never taught that the gifts had any relation to the offerings to Christ.
We prepared for the holiday by observing Advent. We had an advent wreath and lit the candles and said prayers at dinner time. In the center we had a creche (manger) which started out empty. If we did a good deed that day we could put a piece of straw in the manger to prepare it for the Christ child. If we were really good we made a cushier bed for baby Jesus. At Christmas my Mom would put the Jesus statue in the manger.

I don’t really do any of these things anymore and I know a lot of people would find them silly or stupid yet I retain fond memories of it all.

Here is a good account of St. Nicholas who was the real inspiration for Santa Claus. In my family we celebrated St. Nicholas day too. We put out our shoes and in the morning they had candy in them!
http://www.stnicholascenter.org/pages/who-is-st-nicholas/

@Earthgirl Ok, good. I just wanted to make sure you understood my intent. I had heard of putting shoes out, I thought mosty European countries do it.

I think people bring up the gifts because they are defensive about Yul being a Pagan holiday, and that Christmas is actually not the day of Jesus’ birth. I think when people point out the most likely history behind the date Christmas is celebrated, some Christians feel defensive that the motive is we are trying to say it is just a made up day and invalid. I don’t think people are saying that when they discuss how the celebration of Christmas has developed over time. There was once a question on fluther about what dances do you think people danced when baby Jesus was born? What do you think is the likelihood Mary had people dancing around her or giving her gifts right after birthing her baby? Not that it matters. Well, it seems to matter to the people who want everything about Christmas and how we celebrate it today to have some deep religious meaning.

I wanted to say that some holidays like Easter had pagan origins until the church tried to co-opt the day for it’s own observances. I figured that most people know about this already, but if not, here is a link about Easter and fertility festivals.
http://www.featherlessbiped.com/6696/EASTER/easter.htm

The symbols and traditions are all mixed up! That is fine by me. I love mythology and the whole story of how people create meaning. I am not a religious fundamentalist by any means.

@Earthgirl We didn’t have a Christmas tree or Santa growing up because I am Jewish, but we did the whole easter egg dying thing and received chocolate bunnies on Easter. It makes no sense to me. My mom said it was because the Christmas tree was for Christmas, but the bunny and eggs was about spring time and new life. I just think it was because my mom’s side of the family were artists and chocaholics. :)

JLeslie You mean chocolate isn’t a religion? :)

Whilst I believe in God I also believe that the Bible is full of over exagerated accounts of things that may or may not have happened. I believe in the people of the Bible and I believe that certain stories were inspired by real events but I don’t take it in the literal sense at all. Because of all this, I don’t get to hung on the birth of Christ etc. I do, however, wish that Christmas wasn’t so commercial. That depresses me a lot.

I should add, having said all that, I love nothing more than to attend midnight mass at Christmas.

@Earthgirl GA I wish I could give you more than one point.

Ron_C Thinking about Easter today hmm? How about the most important “myth” of all? The resurrection myth. I was curious if I could find anything on it as I know that Jesus’ story is not the only resurrection story nor is it the first. I found this interesting article and this