Christmas Debate

Earlier, by the joint effort of myself and the Chaplain, a debate with the title ''Christmas should not be celebrated by non – Christians'' was meant to take place at lunchtime in Trinity Hall. To my dismay it didn't happen, but here are my thoughts anyway.


I was to speak in favour of this motion as a Christian, and the ever atheist Alex was speaking against me.


As it came to preparing what the hell I was going to argue (and yes it was last minute), I had no idea where to start. Personally, Christmas is primarily about remembering and celebrate not Christ's birthday, but the doctrine that the Son of God was made Man and born into our earthly world to take away our sin.
For me, non-Christians are very welcome to celebrate Christmas - as long as they know why it happens each year, and not see it as just the time we mindlessly buy presents.


I knew Alex's argument, which was the fact that December 25th was originally a Pagan festival called Saturnalia that Christians started to take over in about the 4th Century.The day that we now celebrate Christmas was the last day of this Saturnalia festival.
There is no record of when Jesus was born, just the fact that the Gospels tell us Jesus was 30 years old in the 15th year of Tiberius reign, and therefore lived for 15 years in the reign of Augustus. Something interesting is that Christmas was banned by Puritans for 22 years from 1659 because of its origins.


Saint Nicholas of Myra (born 270 CE, died 345 CE) won't mean much to a lot of people. But this Bishop, named a Saint in the 19th Century, was the original 'Santa Claus' (Saint Christmas). He took the idea from 'The Grandmother' or 'Pasqua Epiphania' who used to give gifts to children in their stockings.
Saint Nicholas was then the inspiration for a cult in 1087, that exchanged gifts on the anniversary of his death, December 6th. This cult spread. Its members worshipped the God Woden - Father of Thor, who had a long white beard and rode a horse through the heavens in the Autumn. Nicholas was then merged with Woden to create Santa with heavy winter clothing, the beard, presents and flying about the sky.
The Catholic Church then took this over to quash the pagans and moved the date to December 25th.


Since that, Christmas blew up, and now we exchange gifts that put us back a good £50 and concentrate of the tree, decorations and the food. A somewhat Victorian-created perspective.


I agree its a bit rich for Christians to say other can't celebrate Christmas, as it isn't really ours in the first place, but now has such a important part in the life of the Faith. As we go on, other stuff gets added - the snowmen, the reindeer and the red nose, but other things like the Nativity plays, in which I always played a black Joseph, live on whatever the mix of ethnicity and views. 
Christmas won't go away over night, but it is important that we regard it as a feast with significance, rather than the period of time we aren't at school.


p.s. Hi Christina and Unity
p.p.s. My finger hurts