Did Anyone NOT Celebrate X-mas Yesterday?

[LAGC]

Our family had a tree and a nice dinner, a few small gifts/cards were exchanged, but nothing bank-breaking like so much extravagant spending so many people put on these days, racking up massive credit card debt and trying to out-do each other in true capitalist fashion.

I can't help but think how much saner the holidays would be if everyone followed the Jehovah's Witnesses philosophy. They don't believe in throwing parties/celebrations, not even birthday parties. Of all the disparate Christian groups out there, I have a lot of respect for them for sticking to their beliefs despite extreme societal pressure. These are people who in Germany defied the Nazis by refusing to "Heil Hitler" and worship the Nazi flag, and they were rounded up and put in concentration camps for it, given Purple Triangles to identify them in the camps.

Here's to them -- and all those that didn't get caught up in the capitalist excess that X-mas represents anymore -- happy holidays!

[Skittles]

1. I didn't

"....tree and a nice dinner, a few small gifts/cards were exchanged" - hello, you celebrated Xmas

[LAGC]

2. To be fair, my family did.

I was just a spectator who enjoyed a nice dinner. ;)

[hlthe2b]

4. LOL...

I understand the expressed disdain for the excesses of capitalism, but the OP pretty much lost me with the comparison to Nazi Germany. :shrug:

That said, I am among those who typically work every holiday and since my sister also worked in a hospital ER, I guess you could say we didn't celebrate.

[Tesha]

5. The tree is a Christian symbol? I thought it was pagan!

And the turning of the year is celebrated in nearly every non-tropical
culture.

(Mr. Tesha and I celebrated yesterday as well, but it had nothing to
do with that Palestinian fellow from 2000 years ago.)

Tesha

[Igel]

20. What is a symbol?

It's an act or item made by a person intended by that person for others to understand in a specific way. The meaning is both what is intended by the person as well as what is understood by the observer.

How any difference in intent and interpretation is negotiated depends on the good will of the displayer and observer. Often there is insufficient good will and there's the pigheaded idea that the symbol "really" means what the observer understands it to mean, or the displayer can't understand that the observer is intransigent and yet refuses to back down, even if the intended meaning is odd or uncommon.

Take, for example, a rainbow. At one point I took it to mean "rainbow coalition," a cross-racial coming together for a specific socio-political agenda. Later it became more common as a symbol of gay pride or tolerance (as I interpret it). On the other hand, the church I was in took it as symbol of God's covenant with Noah to not destroy the earth again by flood. Recently the gay/Noahic distinction has become a mild point of contention in some circles. It's fine for a symbol to have different meanings in different contexts--they often do.

One thing symbols don't have is inherent or intrinsic meaning, abstracted from all context or obligatory in all contexts. Even iconic symbols don't need to have the "obvious" meaning.

The Xmas tree is what the displayer and the community at large intend it to mean. To assume that it must have the meaning it had 2000 years ago is to fall for a sort of etymological fallacy, to assume that the tree somehow was invested with inherent meaning by those long dead. A lot of fundamentalist Xians, as well as atheists (and others, to be sure) fall for this mistake.

[ZombieHorde]

3. My wife and I had five our friends and their children over; all of us happened to be atheists.

We stayed up late laughing and drinking coffee. Good times.

[mike_c]

6. not in the least....

No home decorations, no special meals, no gift giving, etc. I worked part of the day, as usual for a Saturday. Doing some errands was hindered, of course, by holiday closures-- but that was pretty much my only contact with xmas all day. I'm not christian, and our kids are all grown and gone-- xmas has neither religious nor cultural significance to me. My SO kind of misses some of the social pagentry-- she talked about putting up a tree, but never did anything about it. Not that I particularly encouraged her, LOL.

[elocs]

7. Actually there is no Biblical admonition to believer to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

It's a tradition that has really become as secular as it is religious if not more so.

[msongs]

8. China Inc really appreciates the holiday and thanks all the believers n non believers alike lol nt

[robinlynne]

9. yes millions of atheists all around the world! enjoyed the quiet day though.

[JDPriestly]

10. We celebrate on Christmas Eve. It's a cultural thing.

But we don't give super-expensive gifts, just small things. The big thing for us is being together (and cooking and eating together). If we had had more time, we would have been singing Christmas carols. I have an amazingly wonderful family.

But, your OP is very well taken. Here's to those who don't think they have to compete to prove how generous and well situated they are. Here's to those who give the little things, and preferably, give love and support to their families all year long.

[demosincebirth]

11. Our family celebrated Christmas. It does every years.

[FSogol]

12. Follow Jehovah's Witness example? F' that. The world would be a crappier place w/o parties & cele-

brations. It is possible to have a wonderful Christmas without overspending or religion. That's why so many people love it.

[EV_Ares]

13. Exactly, rec. A good post and very true.

[Silent3]

14. I celebrated Christmas, but what counts as "capitalist excess"?

I don't have kids. The adults in my immediate family agreed years ago to skip giving gifts to each other. I have two nieces left under 18 who, on the advice of my sister, their mother, got from me a couple of modest gift cards for buying clothes. I got the woman I'm living with an iPhone (for which I'll be picking up the billing for a while too)... I suppose that's "capitalist excess" in some people's eyes, a pretty modest gift, however, for the money we make.

We'd had a lot of expensive vet bills in the past few months, so we'd agreed that our main gift for each other this year would be healthy pets. :)

Most of my family lives a bit of distance from me, but I'd flown out to see them for Thanksgiving, so Christmas was spend at home, just me and my ex-wife who lives with me, and a couple of friends visiting in the evening. Good food, good company, nothing extravagant.

Speaking of capitalist excess, however, a couple of weeks ago I got talking about kids' birthday parties with people at work. Not having kids myself I hadn't quite caught on to how insane that's been getting. I'd heard some stories of excessive birthday parties before, of course, but I hadn't realized the excess was becoming a main stream thing, sort of a birthday party arms race.

[SheilaT]

15. None of my family lives near me.

I sent relatives home made gifts, and more to my two grown sons, mainly in the form of gift cards.

I got together for a pleasant dinner with some friends.

Most of my life I'm been quite amazed at how much money many people spend at Christmas time. But yes, I do celebrate, mainly in a secular way, as I'm not conventionally religious. But I love all the lights that so many people put up, and I enjoy being told "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays." I just don't get those who are irritated by such expressions of good will. We should all accept such things in the manner in which they are offered. If anything, I think we should notice the holidays and celebrations of other faiths.

Several years ago I was honored to be invited to participate in Eid, the end of Ramadan. My hosts had invited several non-Muslims to celebrate with them, and it was humbling to witness such sincere faith, and to learn a little more about some other beliefs and practices.

[WolverineDG]

16. Well, I'm alive thanks to several blood transfusions

so I think I'll just have to pass on your "Let's all be Jehovah's Witnesses" party.

:eyes:

dg

[LAGC]

17. LOL.

They're strict Creationists too, so I'm not totally enamored with them.

Still, I think out of all the Christian sects out there, they are less repugnant than many of the "you're going to Hell!" varieties.

It's always a pleasure to debate them, I always invite them into my home whenever they come to my door with their Watchtower tracts. (Of course, they don't stay long...)

[moobu2]

18. December 25th is like any other day to me.

I haven't had a tree or anything like that in about 12 years. I dont hate it, or love it, it just nothing to me whatsoever.

[jeepnstein]

19. We don't go overboard.

The whole buying gifts thing is really an affront to what Christianity teaches in many ways. We're supposed to give to the poor and the needy, not buy a new Lexus for the wife because she'll look so hot behind the wheel. Yeah, we do give gifts. We don't go for broke on it. Both of our kids turned right around and gave some of their gifts to their friends who weren't nearly as fortunate as us. That makes me quite proud of them.

Our church does a Christmas Eve service which is a really nice but somewhat simple affair. Some people think they MUST be in church on Christmas Eve despite the fact they never darken the door any other time of the year. Oh well, it's a chance to welcome them back and pray for the best.

Christmas Day is all about a big family dinner with lots of friends added to the mix. That's the focus of our efforts. We'll fix plates for folks we know who don't have anything or just need a visit.

As far as over the top decorations. No, sorry, not happening. We have a simple nativity scene outside and a couple of trees inside. We went wild this year and also put the characters from "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" on the mantel.

From what I saw this year, at least locally, charitable giving was way up. My church doesn't do charity directly, instead we coordinate our efforts with the local schools and organizations that have a better grip on the real needs out there. Our kids' school always puts out a call for stuff like coats and clothing but they had enough this year. Same with food and simple little gifts so the kids would have something to open. We had one guy in our church pay a guys' hospital bill from an emergency appendectomy, that was remarkable. My mom paid for someone's cart of Christmas gifts at Wal Mart. She said the people behind her were really sweating how they were going to make ends meet and their gifts were modest, so she slipped the cashier some money and told her to use it for them.

[Igel]

21. I didn't.

Consider myself a Xian, too.

But a Xian that keeps the Feast of Tabernacles and Passover, not Xmas or Easter.

My wife, an atheist, accepts this and tends to spend the "holidays" with her mother and siblings. I call her a "cultural Xian", just like I had roommates that called themselves "cultural Jews" and went to Temple only on Big Important days and observed Passover not for reasons of religion but because of tradition.

[cayanne]

22. We didn't at all

nada

[backscatter712]

23. I'm an atheist and I celebrated.

My family kept it low-key, not a huge number of presents, just got together, ate and drank a bit, no big thing.

But hey, even atheists will take a good excuse to get a few days off, celebrate, eat, drink, be merry...

[DeadEyeDyck]

24. No Holloween - How sad

[Deep13]

25. I didn't.

I visited my relatives and was happy to see them, but it had nothing to do with celebrating the birth of JC.