thejeff wrote:
Stagger Lee wrote:I've never understood why this is a thing at all. If you feel like saying "Merry Christmas," say it. "Happy Holidays" is equally acceptable. I'm a non-Christian, and neither bothers me. Who cares? Why get offended over something so innocuous? Christmas is a pagan holiday that was hijacked by Christianity anyway.
When did everyone become so thin-skinned? My family has a prayer around the table at Thanksgiving and Christmas. I don't immediately jump up and excuse myself and freak out because I don't agree with their metaphysics.
On the flip side, *some* Christians seem to get too upset when everything is centered around what they want and believe.
I appreciate your perspective.
Minor clarification: Christmas was never a pagan holiday; it was always the celebration of Jesus' birth. The early church MOVED the holiday to coincide with an existing pagan holiday when the Roman Empire became Christianized (under either Constantine or Diocletian, without looking it up, I imagine). Jesus was probably born in the spring, fwiw.
Regardless, it has always been celebrated in the United States on December 25th. (If you really want to impress your friends, you can point out that colonial Puritans once banned the celebration of Christmas because it took away from spiritual discipline...but that was, of course, before the US was the US :-))
Ah, yeah, see your point. I meant the holiday that is celebrated on December 25th, not Christmas. The original pagan holiday celebrated the death (the solstice) and rebirth of the sun. The sun tracks southward in the northern hemisphere until the solstice where it doesn't move in the sky for three days. Then it begins moving northward again. The sun (son) being dead for three days and then being reborn. Where have we heard this before?