How many Non-Christians Celebrate Xmas?

 find it festive and any reason to drink a margarita and eat nachos is a happy time for me [].

 
I love it Cathy...in other words...bring on the celebrations!   Yes,,,we need to try to have special days to celebrate!!   
I'm German BUT celebrate St. Paddys Day by wearing green, making corned beef and cabbage and drinking green beer.  Its all the same thing to me in that way!!!

I love it Cathy...in other words...bring on the celebrations! Yes,,,we need to try to have special days to celebrate!!

 
I'm really not understanding where the anti-(fill in the blank) comes from.  Even if you don't believe in or enjoy the celebration, it's not like it's harmful or contagious.  Just ignore it and if you don't have anything nice to say, keep quiet.  When I lived in Germany for 4 years, I never would've dreamed of not honoring or respecting the customs and traditions they had.  If I send a non-Christian a Christmas card, I'd like to think they'd understand that I am a Christian celebrating Christmas.  I certainly hope they wouldn't think "well, how insensitive is that?  Doesn't she know I'm not a Christian?"   

This doesn't have anything to do with Christmas, but about a month or so ago the Muslim community in Davis rented a hall and put on a Ramadan dinner for anyone who was interested in going. No charge - people were only asked to bring a can or two of food to be given to the local food bank. There must have been arounnd 400 people there, easily.  A Muslim woman from Berkeley spoke and answered a lot of questions from the floor about different practices and praying. I think a lot of people were surprised to see how many similarities there are between Islam and Christianity and I think these types of functions go a long way toward dispelling misinformation and bad feelings between different groups.
 
Joyce

^^ That's really cool--I'd love to go to something like that.

Why not? Does the fact that a store says "Merry Christmas" make you any less Buddist?

 
Does the fact that a store says "Happy Holidays" make you any less Christian? I've never understood why Christians got so mad about people using Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas. [8|]
 
Personally I'm ok with being greeted with any well wishing phrase. I think people need to be a little more tolerant in this world.

I'm happy everyone has such a great time celebrating Christmas. Please, do not stop! It's awesome! I grew up celebrating it, my family still does and DH and I go along. I like it a lot. I like the giving (um, and the recieving) and the cookies and the family togetherness. I've several times wished that we could just move the whole thing more towards New Years given we've got at least four religions/lacks thereof in our extended family, but so far there's been no movement in that direction. Which is fine.
 
You wishing me a Merry Christmas isn't going to make my head explode, and I'll say thank you because I understand that for most it's just a reflex and I accept it in the spirit that it's given. But I'm sorry, if you're in a majority you really can't understand what it's like to be in the minority. It's like being a gay man and having every person ask you when you're going to settle down with some nice girl.  The sentiment behind that is simply wishing you well in the future, but I must imagine that gets really irksome after the 600th person asks that. You can say "thank you" and be olite but not true to yourself, or you can say "I'm gay" and cause embaressment and a scene. Neither choice is a good one. Not making someone have to make that choice if you can help it seems like the best course of action.

ORIGINAL: lokis_mom

Why not? Does the fact that a store says "Merry Christmas" make you any less Buddist?

Does the fact that a store says "Happy Holidays" make you any less Christian? I've never understood why Christians got so mad about people using Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas. [8|]

Personally I'm ok with being greeted with any well wishing phrase. I think people need to be a little more tolerant in this world.

 
It doesn't.  I just think the phrase is cold and canned.  I would rather be issed a Muslim, Jewish, etc greeting a hundred times then be told "Happy Holidays" once.  It's just a thing with me.

ORIGINAL: houndlove

I'm happy everyone has such a great time celebrating Christmas. Please, do not stop! It's awesome! I grew up celebrating it, my family still does and DH and I go along. I like it a lot. I like the giving (um, and the recieving) and the cookies and the family togetherness. I've several times wished that we could just move the whole thing more towards New Years given we've got at least four religions/lacks thereof in our extended family, but so far there's been no movement in that direction. Which is fine.

You wishing me a Merry Christmas isn't going to make my head explode, and I'll say thank you because I understand that for most it's just a reflex and I accept it in the spirit that it's given. But I'm sorry, if you're in a majority you really can't understand what it's like to be in the minority. It's like being a gay man and having every person ask you when you're going to settle down with some nice girl.  The sentiment behind that is simply wishing you well in the future, but I must imagine that gets really irksome after the 600th person asks that. You can say "thank you" and be olite but not true to yourself, or you can say "I'm gay" and cause embaressment and a scene. Neither choice is a good one. Not making someone have to make that choice if you can help it seems like the best course of action.

 
But in your case you do celibrate Christmas.  Therefore you are not in the minority.
 
If you've ever worked in customer serivce then you know that being polite has nothing to do with being true to you feelings.  I cannot tell you how many nasty customers I have told to "have a nice day" when actually nothing would have made me happier than to have had them fall face first into a pile of horse crap on the way out of the barn.

ORIGINAL: cakana

There should be more classes in public schools dealing with different religons so that students have a greater understanding of world religons when they leave HS. Religon is a huge part of many cultures and is definately intermingled with current events. One of my favorite classes in college was "Philosophies of Eastern Religion." I loved it. We studied Hinduism, Buddism, and Taoism under a Hindu prof. I wish we had some kind of introduction to those faiths in HS.

I feel the same way and would really like to take a college course on the different religions and their history.  I went to Catholic school until HS, so my knowledge is very limted to the Catholic teachings.  With all that's going on in the world and the lives that have been lost over the ages because of religous beliefs, I'd really like to understand it more.  I also think that it should be a part of the curriculum offered in schools (ha! - probably a fat chance of that ever happening [:@]). 

"World Religion" is a HS course offered in Ontario. It is a GR 11 history credit. All 3 of my sons have taken the course and they all really liked it. Living in one of the most multicultural cities in the world I thought it was very important that my children to understand and appreciate everyones beliefs. It is the lack of knowledge that creates divisions among people. When you get right down to it, everyone has the same basic beliefs no matter what religion they follow. The only things that are different are the traditions and the symbols.

Yeah, we never had anything like that in HS.  We had useful, real life courses such as "Ceramics"--lol.
 
When I had my college course I was truely surprised to learn that some secs of HInduism belief that Christ was an incarnation of God and often keep a copy of the New Testament around the house.

well.. I'm not a christian, and while I don't go for the full blown xmas experience, I don't sever myself from it, the reason being "why would I?". The way I see it, when in rome, do as the romans, I'm not offending anyone and I'm not changing my beliefs by doing so, worse case scenario it's a learning experience. As far as the talking Jesus doll, geeze, I'm not religious AT ALL, but come one, that's just flat out disrispectful. Yet another way/attempt of profitting from people's beliefs. I'm in the Film and video business, I used to have a "church" (the reason for using the " "s will become clear in a second) as a client, and boy did these guys milk it, tha pastor had/has a weekly 30 minute tv show where for 15 minutes he'd "preach" why it is so important to tithe, and otherwise give money to this particular church and the remaining 15 were devoted to showing commercials about stuff you could buy from the church. While I understand that churches need funds to keep them going, to this day it still baffles me why a pastor needs corporate jet time, a BMW every year, and the amount of jewelery this guy had. I guess he wanted to spread the gospel in style.


P.S. I have gone to Hanukkah, and other jewish celebrations as well, and no, I'm not jewish either.

Does the fact that a store says "Happy Holidays" make you any less Christian? I've never understood why Christians got so mad about people using Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas. [8|]

As I said before, I sign my Christmas Cards with the greeting "Happy Holidays!"  But that is because in my mind I am including both Christmas and New Years.  So for me, Happy Holidays does not make me unhappy. I also ALWAYS look for cards that somehow say Merry Christmas. Not religious cards,, but they must say Merry Chritsmas. 
But don't call a Christmas Tree a  Holiday Tree...or Chistmas carols Holiday Carols etc.   Accept the word CHRISTMAS as it is,,,, and don't take the word Christ out of it.  That is what I am not happy about the most. 
 

But I'm sorry, if you're in a majority you really can't understand what it's like to be in the minority.

I'm sorry that you might be in the minority...but you choose to be. That is your choice.  I can't see you ( figuratively speaking  making the majority change though,,, or more,,I can't see you making things change that have been part of our culture for decades.   Honestly  I'm in the minority on more then a few things in my life,,, I sure as heck wouldn't go and try to get everyone else to change,,or come to my ideas. 
eley,,,I agree totally and 100%  the talking Jesus doll is disgustingly disrespectful. Its all about money, isn't it!
 

Han

ORIGINAL: dyan

Why not?  Does the fact that a store says "Merry Christmas" make you any less Buddist?

I agree with this thought!  I dont know much about most of these religions...and what their holiday greeting might be IF any...except I have been wished "Happy Hanukah" more then once...and smiled and said "thank you!" It was nice that they wished me any  nice greeting that they felt happy to wish people.  Its a nice custom!  To take offense is sad!
Its becoming a sad world.

 
I'm sure the person wishing you happy Hannukah was not doing so because they just assumed you celebrated Hannukah.  You might have thought of it differently in a different world, where every where you go, people are wishing you Happy Hannukah with no mention of Christmas.  Everywhere you turn, there are Hanukkah themed tv shows and movies, and all the cards you get in the mail say "Happy Hannukah" even though you don't celelbrate it, because they either just assume that's what you celebrate, or they know you don't celebrate it  but most people celebrate Hanukkah and they are not going to buy a separate card just for you and you should just accept that fact and asking them to be inclusive of your belief in Christ would take away the real meaning of their holiday.