Why My Family Will Celebrate Christmas

I recently was reading a seemingly innocuous post on Christmas tradition by Mark Driscoll on Facebook, and was shocked to discover that there are many Christians who feel very passionately that celebrating Christmas is sinful. Their rationalization is that Christmas is a pagan holiday (Saturnalia) assimilated by the Catholic Church. Now, this is actually true. The timing of the pagan celebration of Saturnalia, and the pagan celebrations for the Winter Solstice were considered by the Church when choosing a date for the Christmas celebration. However, I do not feel that it is sinful to celebrate Christmas. I've listed a few arguments below used by people against Christmas, and why we have chosen to overlook said argument.\

1. It's a pagan holiday assimilated by the Church. We shouldn't celebrate any pagan holidays.

-True. We shouldn't as Christians celebrate Saturnalia, or the Winter Solstice. But that's not what I'm celebrating at Christmas. I don't even know all the ins and outs of Saturnalia, nor do I care. And as far as the Winter Solstice goes... If we never had another Winter Solstice ever again I would be the happiest person in the world. No winter celebrations here. Not for this summer lovin' girl. :) No, I do not celebrate those things. Christmas is a celebration of Jesus' incarnation on this earth. It is a great miracle that God had a plan of salvation in place from the very beginning of time. He knew that Adam and Eve would screw up in the Garden of Eden. He knew before the creation of the earth that He would need a plan of salvation for the humans He was about to create in His image. Jesus was that plan. God sent His Son to earth in human form so that He might live as a man for a time before completing His salvific work by dying on the cross and rising again on the third day (but that's another holiday altogether!). Christmas is when we celebrate Jesus' birth as a human baby. Amazing isn't it that we can take this time every year to specifically remember this sacrifice that Jesus made for us? Philippians 2 tells us of this sacrifice: "who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant,b being born in the likeness of men. 8And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. " (ESV) While we should give thanks for this all year round, it is only fitting that we take time to especially honor what Jesus has done. That brings me to the next argument...

2. We should celebrate Jesus' birth all year.

-Yes, but like I said, it is only fitting that we dedicate our minds for a season to really marvel at what Jesus has done. I mean, we should be thankful for Jesus' death and resurrection year round too, but I don't see anyone arguing against Easter. (Although I say that and there probably are those out there who do.) We can only give God more glory by dwelling on the miracle of the incarnation, and in the end isn't that what life is all about?

3. Jesus wasn't born on the 25th of December!

-Who gives a flying flip? The only reason you know when you were born is because of the careful records kept by this country. You could have been an orphan from some other country and have not a clue when your birthday is. Wouldn't you still want to celebrate one if you could? Besides, I have heard very few people actually argue that Jesus was born in December. That's obviously not the point. The point is we take time in December to celebrate the incarnation. We could do it in June if we wanted, although then you'd probably have the naysayers up in arms about the Summer Solstice. :)

This certainly isn't an exhaustive list of arguments, it's just the ones that I heard most frequently while I was reading. I don't feel the need to defend my decision to celebrate Christmas, but I thought it would make for an interesting blog post!