Christmas and the Holiday Season

Unless you just don't have an appreciation for the good things in life, you're probably looking forward to this years fast approaching holiday season, aka Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukah and New Years. I've never thought New Years was necessarily anything to celebrate, and from my view point it seems to be primarily a good excuse to have a party-not that there's anything wrong with that. Thanksgiving, Christmas and Hanukah, however, are another story in my opinion.

You hear a lot of talk every year about "the true meaning of Christmas". There's no doubt that Christmas was originally intended as a celebration of Christ's birth. From a Christian stand point, of which I am one, it still is. That said, however, I see nothing wrong with a non-Christian or say someone who's on the fence, celebrating Christmas as a fun family holiday, even though they may not actually be celebrating Christ anytime during the season (I'm not advocating that). Personally, it doesn't take anything away from my Christmas if someone else chooses to partake in it primarily from a secular celebratory view point e.g.: buying and exchanging gifts, drinking egg nog, making cookies, eating pumpkin pie, drinking themselves silly on Christmas lattes at Star Bucks (at approximately $5 a pop!), attending parities, going for a new neighborhood exterior illumination record and so on. I also don't think that doing these things necessarily takes away from the actual true meaning of Christmas: after all, it is a celebration.

Bottom line: I suppose the primary issue on this subject is, the danger of Christians getting themselves so wrapped up in Christmas festivities that they end up doing nothing to honor Christ's birth on the day their Christian "fore-brothers and sisters" agreed long ago they would. That specific point seems to be the overriding concern of many folks.
As an aside, the vast majority of biblical experts agree, Christ was likely born in October-not December, and nearly for sure not on December 25th. When you take that into consideration, it seems to make the entire subject somewhat over-blown as I see it. Since we don't know for sure when Jesus was born, it seems we might be able to celebrate His birth just about anytime and any way we choose, without much danger of going straight to hell for doing it wrong or picking the wrong day on which to do it.

NOTE: It's not my intent to make light of the actual issue pertaining to "the true meaning of Christmas": I just think sometimes we Christians think it's our job to judge the world, when Someone stepped up a long ago and made it clear that that was His job.

As it relates to this year's holiday season in Arkansas and Missouri...I'll keep you posted.