Talk:Christmas

Small alteration?

Anyone disagree/care to comment about changing the opening from "an annual holiday celebrated on December 25" to "an annual Christian and cultural holiday celebrated on December 25"? I'm thinking it might be better to disambiguate that in the beginning? Thanks all for input. — ^{`</sup>CRAZY`(lN)`SANE<sup>`} 01:37, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Don't you mean, "Christian and secular"? Also, you can take out the word "annual." If the holiday is celebrate on December 25, it is obviously annual. Kauffner (talk) 01:58, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I don't think we can call it both "Christian" and "secular", these words contradict each other. If it's secular, it's free of religious connotations. Using "cultural" I think embraces the fact that it's celebrated by non-Christians for cultural reasons, not explicitly Christian ones. Put it this way: non-Jews don't celebrate Hanukkah just to get presents, because Hanukkah is not a cross-cultural holiday. — ^{`</sup>CRAZY`(lN)`SANE<sup>`} 13:41, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

"Secular Christmas" is a standard phrase, way more common than "cultural Christmas." "Free of religious connotations" is exactly the point, because otherwise the teacher's unions and the ACLU will object to the celebration. The U.S. postal service puts out separate religious and secular Christmas stamps every year. Kauffner (talk) 16:32, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

• The existing "an annual holiday celebrated on December 25[1] that marks and honors the birth of Jesus of Nazareth" seems to do the job fine - and does not involve culture wars --JimWae (talk) 16:47, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

December 25 chosen as based on Jewish tradition

I remember a college professor years back who raised a point that December 25 was chosen to coincide with the idea of Christ's birth beginning the new age. That is, the start of the new calendar system would begin. With the Jewish practice of circumcision on the 8th day after birth, this would coincide with January 1. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.48.5.47 (talk) 23:37, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Modern historians agree that the most likely reason for the Church choosing December 25 for Jesus' birthdate was to easily convert pagans into Christianity by placing the Feast of the Nativity on or near their winter solstice festivals. The same thing is believed to have happened with Halloween, where All Saints Day was moved by the Church from May 1 to November 1, and was also known as All Hallows Day. The day before, October 31, All Hallows Eve, or Hallowe'en, is now the well-known October 31 holiday. The Christmas theory is somewhat disputed, however, with some Biblical historians insisting that the Bible confirms that Jesus was conceived in March, thus born in December (9 months later), making the December 25 date plausible as being accurate. I have never ince heard your professor's theory, though. We'd need some reliable sources before considering adding this to the article. Oh, and by the way—8 days after December 25 is actually January 2. — ^{`</sup>CRAZY`(lN)`SANE<sup>`} 01:24, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Of course it couldn't be a source and I was hoping someone wlse had heard it and knew of one, only if to know the point was valid. And January 1st isn't 8 days after December 25th. It would be seven, and including December 25, that means the 8th day of life.

Christmas was not a major holiday for the early church, so the idea that it was scheduled to make it easier to convert pagans makes no sense. Because Christ was considered the "sun of righteous", he was associated with solar days. Based on this logic, Sextus Julius Africanus wrote that Jesus was incarnated on the vernal equinoix (March 25) and born nine months later on the winter solstice (Dec. 25). On the Egyptian calendar, solstice was January 6, which explains the date of Epiphany. Epiphany was a much more important holiday than Christmas in ancient times. The focus shifted to Christmas only after the Norse holiday Yule was Christianized and rescheduled to Dec. 25. Kauffner (talk) 10:14, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Stocking link

With the article locked, I can't fix the link in the Christmas decorations section that has stockings linked to stockings not Christmas stockings. Can someone aid here? Heiyuu (talk) 19:29, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Done! Thank you for pointing it out, Heiyuu. Maedin\^talk 19:34, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Consumerism

Should there be something on consumerism that is now the new christmas? I guess I'm talking about constant adds, banners, promotions to buy things for Christmas, or in the name of Christmas - Charlie 2602