Anyway, just wanted to add that it’s actually quite easy to stop the madness. My parents and I stopped exchanging gifts years ago, and with my girlfriend I usually set a rather low limit for the price of gifts (like $30). That makes this time much more enjoyable, and I really don’t see why we have to buy each other’s favors.

There’s even a radio station here in Charlotte that started playing ONLY Christmas songs in November. Can you imagine that? If you didn’t get enough drummer boys and white christmasses in the stores and from normal radio, this is where you can get your fix! No breaks (well, except for the commercial ones, of course)!

Christmas is weird. A man killed his wife and himself today in Germany, and in Sri Lanka, a member of congress was shot during Christmas mass. It’s the most peaceful time of the year. I doubt that these are the only casualties.

About Christmas, you won’t believe how completely your thoughts match mine. I’m not a christian but we do still exchange gifts and have a Christmas tree, which we decorate every year. It’s more of a joyous and nice occasion than anything else for us. As far as I can remember, it’s always been like this in our family. I have a few christian friends and I’m invited over to their houses every year on Christmas.
Most of these friends don’t even like the christian tag on them. Going to church on Sunday is more of a household custom and sometimes a compulsion for them.

My parents are Hindus but I don’t really follow the religion or go to a temple. I also think that it isn’t right to say someone is born into a religion. Religion should be a choice.

Well, that’s all. Just wanted to share my thoughts with you.

I wish you a happy and relaxed Christmas and a long holiday.

-Simran S.

I also dispute a bit that this is the second biggest holiday; for me, theologically, I think of it as third, after Easter and Pentecost, and therefore more on a par with Jewish Hannukah. It is certainly the biggest Cultural holiday for Christians, but most of the stuff we do for Christmas (with the notable exceptions of going to church and putting up Creche scenes) are really pagan customs. If we think about it, we’re really celebrating the solstice.

That said, our pastor, Verne’s Sermon from last week is still ringing a bit in my ears, and I do think that your basic point is right. This holiday in it’s most selfish and irreligous form has been pretty much stuffed down our culture’s neck. And it is very VERY hard to take a step back and say no, I’m NOT going to be a part of the continuing escalation of this holiday.

But I still think Christmas and many of the acouterments of the holiday are a good thing. It’s so much a family holiday, much like Thanksgiving, in our culture where families are so split apart. The gifts of Christmas are the place where many of our children first begin to understand giving to others - very reinforcing of that.

And of course there is that story about the baby in the manger, whose deep love is so important to us who do follow some kind of Christian Faith.

After all, that’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

Julie H.

But the basis of what I wrote stands, I think.

It’s telling that on this, the second-most significant holiday in the Christian calendar, we’ve modified our church schedule to make it less stressful to go to church tomorrow. And I’ll probably be the only one from my family in church Sunday. What’s wrong with this picture?

I am also deeply troubled by the revelation of the spying on mosques and homes of Muslims. This story, incidentally, was buried in page A6 of this morning’s Washington Post. It’s not important enough for the front page.

It’s sometimes embarrassing to be in the majority segment of society, and thus to unwittingly become part of an often cruel cultural hegemony.

I kind of agree with you and kind of don’t. Absolutely I agree with you about the effect of Christmas on the non-Christian folk. We have a sister-in-law who is Jewish, and she really is getting to the point where she begins to be hurt by our family party, which is billed in the invitation often as a “Christmas Party.” Maybe next year I can host and make it a holiday party instead. This year she was quite offended by all the cultural talk of taking “Happy Holidays” out of the stores and such. I really feel for her, and for the non-christians around me (there are many in my office, indeed among 20 people there are only about 5 who are Christian.

I’m less bothered by you about gifts, mostly because my family, both my parental family and my own kids, scaled back that years ago. We give only small, thoughtful gifts within my family - I brought back an ornament from a recent trip to Germany for each sibling, and I made a set of DVDs from old family VHS tapes for them, for example. This has carried over into all my gift giving - I always try to find something smallish that is just perfect for the recipient, and won’t clutter up their shelves. I end up giving a lot of wine.

With our kids, big gifts happen at Birthdays, not at Christmas, so how much one is spending or what one is getting become unimportant. We also open presents one at a time, so that each person can see the other person open it. When the kids were little (they’re now all adults) this all by itself got them focused on giving instead of receiving. The kids still make lists, but they tend to be book-heavy. (I love giving books)

Having reined this in a bit, helps us moderate expectations and just have a good time. It also helps with the pain in January.
I have struggled with this gift thing at Christmas, and come out of the struggle believeing that it is an important reminder of our need to give - that it is indeed the giving part that is most important. That helps me as I become older, and my house becomes fuller, and I find stuff less wonderful than I did when I was younger.

And of course, gift giving is one part of our Christmas holiday that has a scriptural basis - although perhaps we should be doing in for the Epiphany.

Julie H.