My Thoughts on Christmas Past, Present, and Future

Some past thoughts on Christmas. I am no fan of the commercialism that leads to a loss of humanity and faux niceties that permeates a religious holiday celebrating a man who is worshiped for standing against both these things. Like the fact that Sweatshops Making Your Christmas Present, explicitly crosses. But generally everything at Wal-Mart, The Diamonds you are supposed to buy to the coffee you stopped and got at Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts. I wrote a post about What Would Jesus Do? because the disconnect between the message the people who speak so loudly for him is so disgusting it often hurts my soul. how can you talk for a man who talked of love with so much contempt. ...Jesus was about many things, but one of the lessons I learned was the importance of doing the moral thing even when it comes with taking the harder road. Life certainly could have been easier for Jesus, but he always took the moral path over the easier one. So I have to ask, how can you call yourself a Christian/Muslim/Jew basically a moral person and then rationalize spending your money or time, or life working for such immoral aims? How do you rationalize going to church and proclaiming living in Jesus' spirit and willfully be blind to the destruction of fellow Christians/Muslims/Jews simply because of convenience? And one of my favorites, a Pastor talks about why he hates Christmas. Here's a few reasons why I hate Christmas. They suck, and I'd never pick them to win my own contest, but they ought to get you started. 1. Continually having to explain that folk traditions do not belong in a worship service. I can't believe I consented to bless the children's presents one year! 2. Morning and evening worship, boo hoo hoo. Some of my colleagues will have up to seven services next weekend. 3. Impossibly high expectations. No, we're probably not going to see all these people again next week. 4. Impossibly high expectations, part II: it usually rains on Christmas, and families hate one another. 5. Christmas music is the suck. "Run Rudolph Run" doesn't get nearly enough airtime. Ditto movies. 6. Shopping. 7. Christmas cookies. Do I look underfed to you, people? Your turn. In the end the real reason I hate Christmas is that the Pope is allowed to get on TV and proclaim that he wants Peace on Earth and Good Will towards men. People are nodd and explain agreement that we should have that. People are nice to each other and say, "you can't do that this time of the year, its the season." I hate that Christmas has become a substitute for being an actual good person. People should act as they do on Christmas ALL THE TIME. We should always tilt towards helping our neighbors and being generous. There should be peace on earth, or at least real attempts to work towards it. Imagine a world where we always had the holiday spirit and lived up to the message Jesus gave with his life. RSS