What is Christmas?

byWillieD1955

266 followers

Updated 10 years ago

What is Christmas? Christmas day is celebrated as a major festival and public holiday in most of the countries around the world. Even in many non-Christian nations. Some, particularly atheists, are promoting the day as the pagan winter solstice festival with no religious relevance. Others I’m sure consider it’s just a day to give gifts.

That reminds me of a friend I had. He was a young Islamic man. We worked in different corporate offices at Bank of America but we would walk to the campus gym together and workout 4 to 5 times a week. One day he told me he was going to be off the following day.

The day after when he returned, we were walking to the gym. I just happen to know the previous day had been Eid al-Adha AKA Feast of Sacrifice, which is an Islamic holy-day honoring Abraham’s (Ibrahim in Islam) willingness to sacrifice his first born son to GOD. Out of curiosity, I asked, “How was your day off”. Puzzled he said, “Fine”. I was confused. I asked, “Did you do anything special”. He answered, “No, we just gave gifts”. Then I asked him, “wasn’t yesterday Eid al-Adha the day Islam celebrates Ibrahim’s sacrifice’? He looked thoughtful for a moment then said, “Oh yeah! You’re right!"

What is Christmas? It seems that many Christians have gotten caught up in all the hype about Santa Clause and gift giving. There are those of us who still celebrate the day as the day Christ was born.

When I started considering writing this blog post. I started to write a post on funny Christmas jokes. I was doing some research. I ran across a one liner by George Carlin:

“The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.”

Then I thought better of what I was going to write.

Perhaps I was a little down at the time. You see my wife and I don’t have any children. To compensate, over the years, we've made our house available to our families as the place to celebrate holidays. I think two years ago was the best Christmas we ever had. As I recall we had 23 guests many staying with us. We have three bedrooms, five recliners and two queen size inflatable airbeds. So we can sleep about 15 without having to resort to the floor. It’s great fun. So, I always look forward to all our nieces and nephews coming to visit.

Well, that worked great when our nieces and nephews were young. Now they are older some are married and have obligations to their spouse’s families. So, it’s harder for all of us to get together. One niece I haven’t seen here in over a year. She used to come by here almost every weekend. Now she has a baby I haven’t seen either. I can see now, that the numbers will continue to dwindle.

My sister’s daughter Rebecca is in town this week with her husband. Due to scheduling conflicts, we had to have Christmas with them on Sunday. My wife’s sister, her husband, their daughter and her husband and their three children were going to be here Christmas day. This afternoon we found out that one of their children had to go to the hospital with a severe case of the flue. So, none of them are going to be here. I can’t recall them having missed a Christmas at my house in 14 years.

I had overheard my wife’s sister’s message on the answering machine saying they couldn't come. My wife got home a few minutes later with the spiral cut ham and roasted chickens were going to serve Christmas day. She was very disappointed we were going to have no one here. So, I made a few phone calls.

Now my mother is going to be here, my sister is going to be here and my brother is going to be here. There is even a chance that my sister’s daughter and her husband Ivan will be here. So, what is Christmas? Christmas is what you make it. Again, this holy-day I will share prayer, food and fellowship with family. What is Christmas without family?

Merry Christmas to all of you and may the Lord Bless.