Featured The commercialization of Christmas has been a very good thing...

As I said, a mix of historical figures and mythological ones.

 

I love the ones that glorify the Lord Jesus.

Ones like "The First Noel", "Joy to the World" and several others.

 

If you pay close attention, I never said that Jerusalem's pagan origins made it unholy.

I said, when God declares something as holy, it is holy.
I'm also saying that when men declare something as holy, it isn't necessarily true.

 

Nicholas is a notable and admirable figure. His story probably became legend throughout the Western world.

 

From an article I wrote in 2017...

As it is known that Christmas has a personification, a jolly old man—perhaps elf—that plays the leading role in imagery and fantasy, this seems the place to begin. But the Santa Claus with which Americans have such familiarity took a few centuries to become that bearded, sympathetic character that he is. There are at least three personages in Eurasia which came together to produce him.


Loosely, and by argument distantly, based on Saint Nicholas of Myra, the image of a gift-giving, though persecuted, man of church authority has endured for about sixteen centuries. There seems to be consensus that Bishop Nicholas did live in the fourth century in present-day Turkey, but the legends about him vary considerably. He gave gifts to children and reportedly had a special place in his heart for many, as he is the patron saint of sailors, archers, merchants, repentant thieves, and brewers, as well as of children. But the story with which he is most associated is the case of the poor man with three daughters. The man had some expectation of dying, and as he had no dowries to put up for his daughters, they were likely never to marry, as that was just the way of things in that culture. Consequently, they would end up making a way to live any way they could; and as trades and crafts were generally not open to women, this left only slavery (captured as vagrants and sold) or prostitution as their lots. Nicholas, a man of enough wealth to live comfortably when not undergoing Diocletian's persecution, therefore managed to sneak three bags of gold coins into the man's house—each the dowry a daughter needed to interest an acceptable suitor. Beyond these basics, the stories diverge. Some say the youngest daughter was only three at the time; and some say they were all of marrying age. Some say the father knew precisely where the gold came from; and some say he believed it was a miracle that required no human to be the donor.


Anyway, the memory of Nicholas' generosity and gift-giving spirit came to be celebrated in various ways throughout the Christian world. In medieval England, December 6, his feast day, came to be the day that boys traded places with priests and bishops, and "ruled" over them. In central Europe, the Holy Roman Empire associated St. Nicholas with non-Christian beings known as elves, or house spirits, which could be either benevolent or mischievous. Further north, in Scandinavia, there were similar associations. But the more direct personification of Christmas in England was "Father Christmas," a bearded man dressed in a long green robe, who had elements of the legends of St. Nicholas as well as of Father Time and other characters from folklore. The Germans and Swiss also had an imaginative gift-giving character, Kris Kringle, originally a helper to St. Nicholas, who would visit the house and leave gifts for the "good" children near the end of each year.


But the character the later American Santa Claus takes after most is the Dutch Sinterklaas, based on the name and person of St. Nicholas, who dressed in red robes and made an annual gift-giving trek to the Netherlands. And I did not know this until last year when I was checking out all this info, but the Dutch legends have him living in Madrid, Spain, the rest of the year. And he was said to come on December 4—the eve and day before the feast day of St. Nicholas—riding a white horse, with helpers called "black Peters." As might be suspected, recent telling of this legend has sometimes led to racism accusations, so those particular helpers are now considered to look different and have different identifications. Children were taught to keep their own records of the good deeds and bad deeds they had done for the year, and the good ones left shoes by the fireplace or in a window sill, and left out hay and carrots for the white horse. They were told Sinterklaas can ride the horse up to the rooftop and then he comes down the chimney to leave gifts for the children. In older versions, sometimes the particularly "bad" kids were taken back to Madrid in sacks and "taught to behave--" apparently no specifics as to what methods were used is now talked about. All this was after the parties on St. Nicholas Eve, followed by his nocturnal visit, and the next day Sinterklaas left by the port of Rotterdam—he arrives at a new port every year, but always leaves the same way. Christmas, December 25, in Holland is a day of rest, church attendance and solemnity; quite different from St. Nicholas' Day three weeks earlier.


These Dutch traditions had a profound effect in New York, which was originally the Dutch colony, New Amsterdam, and these spread to much of the rest of the colonies and the later states. Then in 1822 writer Clement Moore wrote a Christmas poem for his daughters, A Visit from St. Nicholas, combining St. Nicholas with Father Christmas, Kris Kringle, and Sinterklaas, into one character; and that is the prototype, one might say, of the American Santa Claus.


As for reindeer and how they came into his poem, the association is probably with the northern European god of thunder, Thor, and his method of transport—a sleigh pulled through the sky by two horned goats. A bit further north and east—Finland and Siberia—is the vast land where to this day nomads still live by following reindeer herds. Reindeer are large, bulky deer, though not as big as the largest member of the deer family, the moose. But in these lands herds are "semi-domesticated," and their meat, pelts, antlers and bones are all used by the nomadic people, and they pull not only sleighs, but long strings of them often pull the peoples' dwellings, put on runners. And ancient legends do sometimes put them into flight, probably making an association with Thor and his sky sleigh pulled by goats.

 

I think that he is a major saint in the Greek Orthodox Church. He is mentioned in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer. St. Nick.

The commercialization of Christmas has led to an annual outreach into the prisons, hospitals, nursing homes, and institutional shelters of the USA so that almost every person is reached by outsiders once a year.

Those who went through the Great Depression had little or nothing in material things. The 1950s were a golden age in the USA. Adjusted for inflation, the standard of living probably is about the same or less.

 

There is nothing Christian in Christmass.

 

"Father Christmas " has a long red habit and a long white beard..

Can Anyone tell me why, when the winter festival is supposed to be about a birth, that many put a wreath on their front door?

 

Yes I raised that question with our former church. They said it is an opportunity to bring the gospel to those who only come into the services once a year. My answer was how can God bless that ministry when it is based on a lie?

 

Right. I merely said that everyone got looked in on more or less in secular impulses.

 

No they didn't. It was a pope whos said he had discovered the date of Christmas. Round about AD 300 or 400.

I don't know where he got that from. The early English spelling is Christmass.

 

Too bad you are wrong but you do not have to celebrate Christmas. No one cares. I never give much to anyone. No one sends cards as they used to half a century ago. Postage is too high and cell phone calls are cheaper.