Merry Christmas everyone! I love Christmas. It has nothing to do with Jesus anymore for me anymore, but I love spending time with family, exchanging thoughtful (and funny) gifts, eating good food, and drinking delicious wine.
I hope you all have a good and safe time. Consider this an open thread — talk about anything you want.
Of course, you guys do that anyway… :)
My mom’s birthday is December 24. I always thought two days of gifts was pretty sweet. Also, as far as people you share a birthday with, Jesus is a pretty good one, real or not.
I’m up at this hour preparing sauce for Beef Wellington and chopping onions for the turkey’s stuffing.
I think I’ll be extra helpful and “test” the eggnog.
Dammit, I love me some Christmas. Thanks, Christians and pagans!
Lynne, don’t forget the Greeks ! The Christians stole it from the pagans who stole it from the Greeks! Christmas was not observed by Christians for the first two to three hundred years. It was not until the fifth century that the Roman Catholic Church ordered it to be celebrated as an official Christian festival. Apparently Christmas was not a legal holiday in the U.S. until 1870 or so. The pagan festival of Christmas with its riot and merrymaking was so popular that Christians were glad of an excuse to continue its celebration with little change in spirit and in manner. Christian preachers of the West and Near East protested against the frivolity with which Christ’s birthday was celebrated. Go figure, today, anything to continue with the myth and make money doing it. Oh, well, real or not, it’s a fun time for most….Christians and heathens alike!
I absolutely love christmas too, and I really like Lynnes comment at the end. :)
My wife & I married 30 years ago Christmas Day. We’re both up for the Congressional Medal of Honor. ;)
I’m more excited about the fact that I share my birthday with Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull than any correlation with the supposed birthday of a possibly apocryphal ancient Judean. Other notable sharers of my birthday include Sir Isaac Newton, Humphrey Bogart, and Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling. All of these have contributed more to my life than Jesus, and I’m far more likely to reflect with a couple episodes of the Zone than go to midnight mass in observance of the day.
Rod Serling? Now that’s cool.
Merry xmas! I’m surrounded by religious people, but it’s alright cuz they’re family.
Siberia! We’ve missed you. Merry Xmas/Happy Holidays/Joyeux [your holiday goes here]!
It really is a state of mind isn’t it? To bad some folks can’t be happy and love each other on the one day it’s OK to do it no matter what you believe spiritually.
Just had an awesome christmas with my family, who are almost entirely atheist or agnostic.
GLÆDELIG JUL from Denmark.
It’s all about family & friends and sharing a wonderful time. I have to leave the room when my fundy family sings happy birthday jesus because it’s just too much for me. But as long as we keep it about love and family and not ‘the reason for the season (groan) then it’s just fabulous for us!
love Xmas mainly because my 36-year-old son was born on the 24th and my now “final” husband was born on the 28th……………….that means a LOT of cake! :)
oh, and I adopted a kitten too…. :D
happy holidays to all the UF bloggers!