Have you noticed that people are afraid to say "Christmas"? I have. They do their holiday shopping, wish people a "Happy Holiday", ask if you're ready for the holidays, send out holiday cards, and listen to holiday music.
Yesterday at the doctors' the nurses would ask if I was ready for the weekend (which I understand they're being respectful). I have to go back up on Christmas Eve and the nurse was explaining (in a rather apologetic voice) that Christmas is one of their holidays, so I get the luck of the draw for an appointment...completely OK. I told her I would see her then and she said she was be off...that she'd rather work New Years (still never saying a thing about Christmas).
I'm an instigator: At that point I said, "Yea, I'd rather have Christmas Eve off instead of New Year's so I can go to church". With that, it was like a weight lifted from her...."me too" she said in a lowered voice, "We go to Midnight Mass and don't get home until 2am". We wished each other a Merry Christmas and went on our way.
I instigate at stores too...I always tell people "Merry Christmas". I said it to one lady at the grocery store and she looked at me with shock, gave me a big smile, and said "You have a Merry Christmas too".
There was a quote I heard yesterday on
Family Life Network, and I wish I could remember the exact wording, it was something like this: "I will respect your religion, but not to the disrespect of my own". The general jist of it was that we're so worried about offending people with our our views that we very often deny our own religion to be politically correct.
I'm a Christian. I'm not going to stop being a Christian because it offends someone. So much of our society has become utterly ridiculous with the neutralization of religion and the removing of Christianity from society. Our Declaration of Independence says "Freedom OF Religion", not "Freedom FROM Religion". We are a nation founded in Christianity: Like it or not. Out of the 308 million people in this country, 228 million identify themselves as Christians.
What's interesting to me is how we, as Christians, are to accept all religions, but never to mention our own. There has been a war against Christianity going on in this country...what's interesting is that no other religious group is as readily persecuted for speaking their beliefs as Christians are.
The stores display menorahs and dreidels as part of the Holiday decorations, but you never see a Cross or a manger. It confuses me that it's OK to display the religious symbols of Judaism but not Christianity (let me just say that I am in no way condemning, picking on, or calling out Jews or Judaism).
I recently read a little book, two of them actually:
The Case for Christmas by Lee Strobel and
The Judge who Stole Christmas by Randy Singer. They were both very interesting.
The Case for Christmas was basically a factual investigation of Christmas and the birth of Jesus, as well as the origins of Christmas, and how it was the Roman Church in 300 or 400 AD who decided that Christmas would be celebrated on December 25, as was common to turn a pagan day into a Christian day. There was a whole lot more in that little book that was really just fascinating.
The Judge who Stole Christmas was a fictional book about a man who flat out refuses to stop being a part of a Creche in the town square (a public forum). There was a lot of court cases mentioned in the book (which I haven't had time to sit down and investigate) about the display of Christian symbols. There was also a lot of information about Christmas, and how throughout time it has been treated: The
Puritans had actually banned it for many years because of the debauchery that was desecrating what should have been a holy time.
I've gone off on a whole bunch of other things here. ANYWAYS, I just am finding it really interesting that people are afraid to celebrate Christmas, or in any way shape of form refer to Christmas. Christians (and the majority of the people in this country) celebrate Christmas (albeit with some difference of meaning to each group)....we've become the silent majority. Some how Christmas has just been entirely removed and there is just Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Holiday. Food for thought.