#keep jesus out of my pagan holidays

[malinastharlock]

✧⁺⸜(●˙▾˙●)⸝⁺✧ʸᵃʸ today is the day the Easter Bunny rose from the grave to give kids chocolate eggs and promote fucking. Now let's all go dance around the Maypole and have an orgy while the kids are distracted with plastic grass and treats.

[urfriendlyneighbornightfury]

Mistletoe Kiss

For @lyaswriting for the Life Day exchange 2024 by @cloneficgiftexchange

I hope you enjoy it

Christmas music played in the background of your little house as you were decorating the living room. Humming along to the music, hanging up some Christmas lights along the window, your thoughts drifted to the thought of the Bad Batch coming to visit. You were excited that they had leave over the holidays, allowing them to spend time with you and their partners.

Well, most had partners. To your luck, Crosshair, your crush, was still single. But you still hadn’t had the courage to confess to the surly sniper.

You were so distracted that you didn’t even notice that the very man you were thinking about had arrived, using the key you had given him to get into your house.

“You’re in a festive mood.”

Hearing the sniper’s soft, serpentine voice startled you, making you let out a small scream of surprise as you fell off the ladder.

Thankfully, Crosshair was standing there, and his quick reflexes managed to keep you from hitting the ground.

“Careful, sarad. Don’t want you getting hurt,” Crosshair said with a smirk as he stared down at you in his arms. The blush that had formed from him catching you deepened as he teased you.

“Well, I wouldn’t have fallen off the ladder if you hadn’t scared me like that,” you huffed as Crosshair set you back on your feet. The sniper chuckled.

“You were so absorbed in your little decorating that you didn’t notice me coming home,” he replied, his amber eyes glittering with mischief. You felt your heart flutter as he called your house home, but you quickly pushed it aside.

“Oh shut it,” you pouted, not being able to find a rebuttal to his words. Crosshair chuckled again, clearly amused.

“Where are your brothers?” You asked as you moved to climb back up the ladder. Crosshair held onto it to keep it from moving.

“They’re with their partners,” Crosshair said, watching you move up the ladder, his gaze drifting down towards your rear. He smirked to himself, but resisted the urge to give it a playful snack. He didn’t want you falling off the ladder again. “So I decided to grace you with my presence.”

“Well, I’m honored,” you said, half-sarcastically, half honestly, missing the way Crosshair rolled his eyes.

The sniper watched you hang up the Christmas lights on the window, momentarily slipping a toothpick into his mouth as he watched you with his sharp eyes.

“Sarad?”

“Yeah?” Even though you didn't know what it was that he called you, you were sure it wasn’t something bad. Especially with the way his brothers reacted— sharing knowing looks and smirks.

“Everyone seems so focused on the holidays, but it seems all so different,” Crosshair said slowly, as if trying to figure out the best way to formulate his question. “Your type of decorations seem to be the most common, but I noticed that others have different…” he trailed off, not knowing exactly how to put it into words. But you knew what he was trying to ask.

“Well, around this time of year, there are many different holidays, depending on the religion. Hunter’s partner and her friends celebrate Yule, a Norse pagan holiday, which you can say is the predecessor of Christmas. Phee celebrates Kwanza, and some of her friends celebrate Hanukkah.”

“And you celebrate this… Christmas, you call it?”

“Yeah, I do. Normally, it’s a celebration of the birth of Earth’s savior, Jesus Christ, but lately it’s more focused on family. I mean, many strong Christian believers will still firmly believe that it’s primarily for Jesus, but our pagan friends put it, the holiday evolves as time progresses,” you explained as you finished putting up the lights, slowly coming back down the ladder.

Crosshair hummed in reply, seemingly deep in thought. You weren’t all too surprised that Crosshair asked you and not Tech, considering the genius clone would go into full depth and detail about the various holidays, infodumping on whichever poor unfortunate soul would be nearby.

Crosshair helped you continue decorating your house, when something caught his attention. A sprig of holly and mistletoe. *That* was something he knew about.

Smirking, he tossed aside his toothpick, picked up the bundle and snuck up behind you. Holding up the holly and mistletoe above the two of you, Crosshair tapped you on the shoulder.

You turned around to face him, and noticed that he was holding something above you. Eyes going up, you blushed as you saw the little bundle of plants he was holding above you.

“I know about this tradition, sarad,” Crosshair purred as your eyes met his. Your blush deepened, but you leaned up and gave him a peck on the cheek.

Crosshair tsked in disapproval. “You missed,” he said, using his free hand to grasp your chin to hold you in place as he pressed his lips against yours.

Your mind short-circuited by his bold move, but your body responded for you, returning the kiss as you wrapped your arms around his neck, eyes closing in bliss.

There was a spark between you, that metaphorical one when you found the right person, and it made your heart soar.

After a moment, you both reluctantly parted from each other, but Crosshair rested his forehead against yours.

“Been wanting to do that for a while now,” he murmured, holding your face gently. This surprised you, and Crosshair gave a soft chuckle at the look on your face.

“I call you sarad. It means flower in Mando’a. A pet name. Because I am…” he trailed off, sighed, and murmured “Ni kar'tayli gar darasuum.”

“Cross… I don’t understand Mando’a,” you said softly, but you knew in your heart of hearts what that meant.

“It means that I hold you in my heart forever,” Crosshair translated after a moment of hesitation, which you noticed. So you decided to lighten the mood.

“Forever is a really long time, you know that, right?” You teased, earning a rare smile from him.

“You’re worth it, so I’m not complaining.”

This made your heart soar again. Especially when Crosshair kissed you again to prove his point.

[xclowniex]

Thoughts on whereserpentswalk? I know they're controversial on jumblr and you seem trustworthy

Tagging them as whilst I will answer, I don't like talking behind peoples backs. I also did reach out to get the okay to post as it does deal with someone's identity. @whereserpentswalk

I'm not sure 100% why they're considered controversial as I have never heard of them before. I'm like 90% sure this is in reference to them being a pagan jew aka ethnically jewish and religiously pagan.

Because Judaism is an ethnoreligion, the topic of being ethnically jewish but not practicing judaism and instead another religion is a complicated and nuanced one. Each jew has their own opinion on this, two jews 3 opinions type deal.

Obviously, if you worship or idolize any deity or similar category, besides Hashem, you are not longer practicing judaism. They do not claim to be practicing judaism, so I and hopefully everyone else should have no issue with that specific bit.

In regards to whether or not they can still call themselves jewish.

Overall, I don't really care? Like there are so many other intracommunity topics which matter more than this in my own opinion.

The only thing which doesn't fall into this are messianic jews, because whilst a lot are lead to believe they are ethnically jewish, most aren't. And the religion wasn't started by jews. Like jews didn't start believing in Jesus and that's how it came about. It was started by non ethnically jewish Christians who decided they were the real jews, which is where the misleading of messianics as a whole being ethnically comes from. I'm sure there are messianics who have jewish blood as nothing is impossible when it comes to types of people believing in a certain religion, but the majority of messiancs do not have jewish blood.

But whereserpantswalk is pagan not messianic so like again, doesn't fall into that.

I'm going to be speaking very general here and not directed at whereserpantswalk.

Like besides messianic jews being the exception, I don't super care.

I myself dabbled in paganism when I was a teen and exploring religion. I don't really talk about it much not because I dislike paganism or think it's bad or anything. I just had religious psychosis surronding it as I am a diagnosed schizo so don't really like to talk about that point of my life online mainly for my safety as some people may use it to try to trigger an episode.

Drawing from my own experiences from that time which I am willing to share, my jewish culture was still important. I grew up orthodox and that doesn't all just go away. Same thing if you grow up reform.

I still participated in secular versions of the Jewish holidays. I still held Jewish values. I still did things certain ways because I was raised jewish, and that doesn't really just go away.

To give like a definitive answer, if someone born Jewish and converts out of Judaism, gets rid of all ties to Jewish culture, including secular Jewish culture. Because Judaism is an ethno religion, I personally don't see any point in continuing to refer to yourself as Jewish. It is a tribe. If you turn your back on the tribe completely and cut all ties, then you are no longer part of the tribe. If you still keep some connection then to me personally I do see a point in calling yourself ethnically jewish as you are still connected to the tribe.

Overall, I don't really care. Like I know I've said this a bazillion times already. The majority of jews are either religious or secular. I see no point in kicking up a fuss about a tiny group of jews.

I believe in inclusive judaism, where people with varying attachment to the tribe are welcome as long as they have some or want a connection to the tribe and convert properly.

This isn't like some hard, set in stone opinion I have. There are more important topics at hand right now like genuine jew fakers than someone with jewish blood who practices paganism.

[katnissdoesnotfollowback]

Hello? It’s snowing outside and it made me wonder does Spellbound Katniss and Prim do Christmas? They doesn’t have to because they are not religious and doesn’t let anyone in they house so no need to pretend…

It's snowing where you are? Gah. It was 80 degrees (Fahrenheit) where I live two days ago. It's still warm enough for short sleeves. What is this discussion of Christmas already???? Granted, I am currently freezing my nose and fingers off whilst sitting at an ice arena, watching my son's third hockey practice of this long ass week, but also the Gulf of Mexico is a twenty minute drive to the south of this arena lol. I love hearing about the weather wherever my followers are.

So, to answer your question, the thing is... a lot of people in the USA celebrate Christmas even if they're not religious. The secular version of the holiday is more about spending time with loved ones and exchanging gifts than it is about anything Jesus and religion and church related, so it wouldn't take much for Katniss and Prim to blend in, in this regard. In general though, Spellbound Katniss and Prim would observe something similar to pagan holidays and traditions, where the sun cycle (solstices and equinoxes) and the moon cycles take center stage. And a holiday like Samhain/Halloween would also be a large part of their lives.

But in terms of Christmas, the pagan traditions of Yule and similar holidays would've been incorporated into their modern witchcraft practices. Also, to point out the elephant in the room, since a lot of pagan customs and traditions are alive and well within Christian holidays (gotta make the new religion palatable, so rulers tended to keep or borrow a lot from other religions), they wouldn't even stand out that much for this one. The decorated tree, the celebration of the hearth and home, even the mistletoe can be traced back to non-Christian and pre-Christian traditions.

So I see Spellbound Katniss and Prim having a decorated tree in their house, with homemade ornaments representing the stars, the sun and the moon, or derived from a celebration of nature. Think decorated pine cones and intricate feathered ornaments. Preserved flowers and leaves, that sort of thing. They'd bedeck their home in fragrant greenery and candles, have a quiet gift exchange between the two of them, enjoy a good feast and warm drinks like spiced cider and hot chocolate. They'd probably have a bonfire in their back yard and sing, maybe cast a few spells for the new year, enjoy the stars in the cold winter night, that sort of thing.

At least that's what they'd be doing before Peeta walks into their lives and they form their coven. ;) Then some adjustments might be made.

Thanks for the ask!

<3 kdnfb

[greenerteacups]

I'm on my nth re-read of books 1-4, and I keep finding new things to be delighted by, on top of the old reliable lines that make me giggle every time. Like in book 4:

“Yeah,” said Harry, whose success had overdosed him with optimism. “Hey, think about this: you reckon I can just Banish the water and walk down?”

“Oh, bless, he thinks he’s Moses.”

How does (presumably pagan-ish or non-religious based on holiday celebrations) Draco know about Moses? Does he think Moses is a wizard??? I mean... he DID accomplish several miracles with a big stick. Any of the implications here make me cackle

Oh this is awesome, I've been wanting to talk about this for ages: I think wizards know what the Bible is! And Christianity, and Judaism and Islam, and I think there are practicing members of all of those religions (and more!) in the Wizarding World. Here's why.

The Bible (Old Testament specifically — Draco's references lean towards the OT because that's the broader cultural referent, it's the common glue of the Bible/Quran/Torah and if wizards know any Abrahamic text, it's that) is a huge, ubiquitous, world-shaping cultural text that was thousands of years old before the International Statute of Secrecy. The date of 1692 for the SOS means that any muggle culture before the 17th century is fair game, even if it's not accepted by wizards. So that's why I think atheist/agnostic/pagan wizards should still have at least referential familiarity with it.

The fact that wizards celebrate Christmas (NOT Yule, although obviously in Lionheart they do both) tells me that there is at least vestigial religious belief in the population. Expressions like "Merlin" in place of "God" tells me that wizards probably have a different relationship with it — Merlin's generally treated as a kind of prophet? — which is giving "splinter sect of Christianity defined by the emergence of Merlin as a separate prophet for wizards," but I'm not gonna spiral too far into that headcanon, because this is a lore analysis post. But that's my working idea, here.

The first-order response to the "what about magic?" problem is: Not everything that happens in the Bible can be explained by the Harry Potter magic system. Water into wine, sure. Resurrection? Impossible, as far as 99% of wizards know. Harry Potter is the only person we know of to be fully resurrected, and even he's never technically full-dead. Moses parting the Red Sea? I mean, we can imagine spells that would do it, but think about how much water is in the fucking sea! We don't see anything of nearly that scope happen in the series. And what about manna? We know for a fact that you can't use magic to make food!

But let's sidebar that, and drill down on what you can explain. Water into wine. Curing the sick. Okay, cool. There's still a big difference between "established in-universe ability that has been ritualized and turned into technology" and "literal miracles." Walk on water? Sure, you could probably perform a spell for that. But does Jesus? Do we know, for a fact, that he had a wand, or that he cast a spell? Had the spell for that been invented yet? Are you even sure he was a wizard? Can we prove it? Moreover, would it matter?

This leads me to my bigger point about the nature of religious belief: if you believe the dude's divine, having magic doesn't change anything, right? Because he's still the son of God. Christians don't believe Jesus was divine because he performed the miracles; they believe he was divine and so performed the miracles. There are many different IRL-theological stances on how much of the supernatural stuff in the Bible "actually happened," and you can be a skeptic about the scientific facets while still subscribing to its broader philosophical and religious claims about God.

Even if you take Jesus and other Abrahamic characters out of the question, there's still a place for religion in wizarding society, because of the afterlife. With the exception of ghosts (who by their account have never been fully "dead," and so don't know it) and inferi, the relation between the wizarding world and the afterlife is a one-way conduit. That means there's still plenty of room for wizards to adopt religious beliefs specifically about the afterlife, and religion would still play a social role in defining how people approached those topics.

Finally, the pagan elements of the Harry Potter series read less to me as an espousal of sincere religious conviction and more as a ritualistic vestige of prehistorical magical practices. Since the universe's magic draws heavily on pagan ceremonies — especially in the realm of potions/herbology/magical creatures — ironically, I can't imagine paganism as a religion in the universe of Harry Potter. Like, it's just straight-up true! It would be like starting a religion around meteorology, or chemistry. There's no element of mystery or divinity involved for faith and belief to fill in the gaps; you know how magic works, and you can be good at it.

What JKR did with the magic system — apparently on accident — was to textually validate huge volumes of pagan practice without invoking any of the associated spiritual or religious beliefs. And since we live for seven years in the mind of a competent, practicing wizard who does tons of magic without seeming to believe in any particular god at all, I have to infer that you don't need to. Rowling has, again, likely not on purpose, built a universe whose central conceit is: "what if the pagans were just straight-up right?" and revealed the answer to be: "well, then it wouldn't be paganism anymore."

[manicfoxmagick]

An Essay on Appropriation, Cultural Erasure, and Closed Practices

For those of you who have followed me for a while you without a doubt have heard my views on the ideas of a "closed practice". They are definitely not the typical views you would see posted on this subject, though they are not oppressive or bigoted in any way, and are honestly more tolerant, openminded, and accepting than what the average neoliberal wannabe has to say.

I make this claim because the way I view this subject is one that embraces and respects cultural identities and practices, respects traditions and values their history, and it does this for all cultures and communities, not simply the ones that the SJW extremists have deemed worthy. I also emphasize the importance of respect amongst all cultures and customs, regardless of origin, as well as how it's a positive and healthy practice for different cultures to influence and inspire each other so long as respect is made paramount.

The modern neoleftist approach to the topics of closed practices, appropriation, and cultural erasure are extremely divisive and do the opposite of their goal to promote inclusivity and tolerance. The obsession with keeping boundaries between different systems is not only unnatural, it is also antithetical to the overall goal of harmony between all people.

Defining Appropriation and Cultural Erasure

Appropriation is when a person from outside of a culture steals another culture's practices, ideas, symbols, or whatever they find sacred and removes all credit from them. The original creators have their valued beliefs stolen by an outsider who proceeds to erase their signature, claim it as their own, and bastardize it.

Examples of this can be seen over and over again throughout history. One well known example of this is the pagans of Europe being dominated by the new ruling Christian empire, who stole their holidays and traditions and rebranded them in hopes of making it easier for the heathens to convert.

For example: the Christian ruling class took a holiday like Yule, a celebration of the winter solstice, and modified it to align with the birth of their prophet to create the holiday we now know as Christmas. They kept the same basic dates and traditions almost exactly as they were, but added the birth of Jesus as the reason for celebration.

By making the new holiday that aligned with the values of the Christian ruling class closely related to the pagans traditional holiday, it made the transition into the new religion much easier by giving them familiar ground.

Of course, the pagans were forced to convert to Christianity under threat of execution, but the elite throughout history have always used both the carrot and the stick. The carrot: you get to keep your precious holidays (almost). The stick: say you're Christian or you'll be tortured to death.

And while most people would at first simply go along with it to save their life but be obviously lying about it ("Oh I'm Christina I swear." *prays to Hekate after they leave*). But, after just a few generations you'd find more and more people who were truly Christian, or at the very least much less pagan.

So what the Christian elite did was appropriate the pagan holidays which was used as a step towards cultural erasure meant to eradicate them and their beliefs.

Another example of appropriation that is gonna cause a lot of ruffled feathers is the spell jar. Spell jars, at least how we see them typically done these days, we're originally a Hoodoo technique that were known as "Sour Jars", "Honey/Sweetening Jars", and other names that follow the standard spell-naming approach found in Hoodoo. These jars are a method of spellcasting where the practitioner fills a jar with various corresponding ingredients, enchants it, and then either buries it, leaves it at a crossroads, or puts it out of sight somewhere.

That was a Hoodoo practice originally, with the basic formula for their creation that is followed by the average witch being a traditional technique done in the "closed" practice of Hoodoo.

But, what happened was they gained popularity back in the day and the average practitioner didn't realize their origins, so the idea kept getting passed around and it had a ton of broad, mass appeal that was attractive to post online. More and more people made them, ignoring its roots and really not even considering its roots, until eventually they've become so common place that searching the hashtag #spelljar on Instagram yields 125k+ results.

I've not seen one mention to Hoodoo going through this tag.

But, because it's a popular and generic things these days that social media posters love to make for aesthetics and whatnot, no one gives af that really it's a textbook example of both appropriation and cultural erasure. This practice was never meant to be used by the average bourgeoise, white witch from the suburbs. It's original design was by that of POC in deep poverty using the tools and ingredients they had at hand, and most of their practices are used as a means to defend and get revenge on their "owners", since Hoodoo was started as a practice by New Orleans slaves in the early 1800s. Even after the 13th Amendment, Hoodoo was practiced by poor people, even if its spread to the rest of the lower class eventually. It's intent was to be used against and in spite of an oppressive ruler and their class, not by some hipster douche going for broad aesthetic appeal to gain ego-boosting likes.

But here's the thing, and this point I'm about to make is where I tend to offend the neoliberals and overly sensitive Oppression Police.

It's absolutely fine to use a Spell Jar as a person from any culture or class or whatever. What really matters at the end of the day is if you are respecting its origins and history, have good intent behind it use, give credit where it's due, and simply treat it with as much respect as possible.

This means doing shit tons of research on the practice and culture, crediting the origins when discussing it, doing it with good intent (to improve your life is okay. To get validation through social media is not.), and just doing everything you can to not be a fucking dick about it.

The simple fact of the matter is, every single culture ever created throughout of all human history has been the result of, in part, separate cultures combining and changing each other. The ideas of Kabbalah influenced the practices of the Knights Templar who in turn influenced the Rosicrucians, and so on and so forth.

All culture is derivative. All knowledge is derivative.

And that's okay. It's a good thing to learn from other cultures and experience beliefs outside your own and to use them as a source of growth and inspiration.

What's not okay is stealing a culture's identity and acting like you're the creator. Or to act like you're better than them and you improved it because you're superior. Or to take it and say it's wrong and evil and whatnot.

This obsession with gatekeeping traditional practices is extremely divisive and does nothing positive for humanity. It separates us and makes the claim that you are only allowed to participate in your own culture.

That's fucking ridiculous. If Crowley was never introduced to Egyptian mythology we'd never have Thelema. If the Golden Dawn wasn't inspired by Kabbalah we wouldn't have the Rider-Waite tarot deck. It is healthy and natural for different cultures to borrow from and inspire each other. This should be done respectfully, of course, but the average neoliberal extremist keeps trying to push this crazy idea that it's wrong to use from other cultures entirely, unless they're white in which case they're free to be shit on as much as you want.

Just be respectful, guys. That's the only real rule.

[musea-reviews]

Museum Catharijneconvent (St. Catherine's Convent Museum)

‘’The collection tells the art and cultural history of Christianity in the Netherlands.’’ 

Location: Center of Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands Price: 15,- / students 7,- Duration: 2 - 5 hours Transport: easy to walk to from the central station Language: All text is in Dutch, I didn't ask if the audio tour could change the language Activities: look & read Date of visit: Friday 17 February 2023 Expo at that time: History of Gospel Check out the website

The building was very beautiful from the outside as it was located inside a medieval monastery. You could look in the small garden area for free.

The Children Room The first part of the museum I went to was intended for children and was about all the holidays, this part of the museum even had information on other religions like Judaism and Islam. As these religions and Christianity come from the same set of stories and historical events. The information didn't go very deep since it said things like “the Christmas tree is a part of Christmas because it stays green all year around‘’ instead of explaining it came from pagan religions. I did learn however that we have new year's on the day that we do (8 days after Christmas) because that's when Jesus supposedly got circumcised. Which was a shocking reason to me that I didn't knew. This part did also have some fun interactive elements, such as opening food lockers from a wall to connect 4 kinds of food to the right holiday. Sadly, one of the screens was broken, and the lights were off/broken in that corner, so I couldn’t film it.

Another cool thing there was a built replica of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, with light projections explaining why these 3 religions all want to own this place and fight for it. I was all alone in this part of the museum, probably because it was on a school day

The Treasury The next part of the museum was the treasury, a dim lid room full of shiny objects, I loved it. This is also where the ‘’real’’ museum started, so I got handed an audio tour. I love audio tours. However, on the lowest audio setting, it was still too loud for me. But I simply put the headphones further from my ears, you can also use your own headphones if they have a cord. 

Keeping it real I found it all very interesting, I was a bit disappointed that it was not about other religions anymore, but I went in this blindly and didn't know it was specifically a museum of Christianity. Personally, I don't believe in anything, but love to learn about religions. Next to the normal audio tour that talked about the paintings and the history, they also added some new numbers to the audio tour talking more about controversies about some paintings and people. I liked this since they weren't glorifying the religion and showed more about how it was done back in the day. For instance, in the extra audio tour, they talked about Jesus' skin colour and how everywhere in the museum he's portrayed as a white man with long brown hair, meanwhile, this doesn't have to be the case. They explained that it's easier for people to feel connected to stories if they can see themselves in them. The person being interviewed said that when they visited a church in Surinam they saw the painting of ‘’The Last Supper’’ but with everyone being black. They stated in this interview that they're working on adding more diverse pieces like that to the museum, and assured that they were working on a big new collection of different interpretations of the catholic stories. For now, they had an exposition about the history of gospel in America and told the stories of black artists. I didn't see much of it since I couldn't find the right way to walk thou the exhibition and my legs were already hurting since I had been there for 5 hours.

TLDR + Fun room about holidays, not only about Christianity but also about Muslims and Jewish religion. + In the centre of the city, easy to just pop in and out on a city trip. + inclusive and does not give a blind eye to the bad things of Christianity.

- it was pretty hard to navigate the museum and I kept getting lost, don't know if I missed parts of the museum - I do not recommend it to children/teens since there was not a lot to do

Would I pay the price: No, this would not have my interest Would I revisit it: probably not Who do I recommend it to: Adults interested in Christianity or history Interactive:         2 Educational: 4 Storytelling: 2 Price: 3 Memorable: 4 Total score: 3

[hollywoodevilgossip]

Red one will be the flopped movie of the year why because it looks so stupid really this is not Christmas movie this is more like coco cola advertisement that they did for Christmas where polar bear and Santa like wtf

Aka satan

In my culture we don't believe in satan clause it's all pagan ritual we believe jesus was born in may where the dates come to rise he was born in may where the dates season crawling in

Mary jesus mother was holding the date trees while giving birth to jesus due to labour pain and the dates were falling down on her

It was not Christmas everyone

I used to love Christmas when I was kid now its completely big blah

After going threw so much in life nothing excites me anymore Christmas, Halloween, valentine's days Thanksgiving all of the holidays are completely big blah I think when we are kids we enjoy all the little things but as soon you grow old you dont like those things you dont like going out wasting money and anything.

And I dont waste money anymore the things we don't need why buy i don't like expensive clothes, shoes makeup so yup i like to keep it simple anyways that's my thought not hurting people beliefs

[strawberryclothing]

I’m Like A Midwest Princess Shirt

Welcome to cleveland Shirt

Most Christian countries have a public holiday on the 25th & 26th. So in 2018, the Welcome to cleveland Shirt went: less tha one day of work, two days off, and two unproductive workdays. Many companies enforced the taking of 4 days annual leave during Christmas week & the following Monday (in Oz we usually get 4 weeks discretionary leave (take it when you want)). Economically, a better idea is to make the secular Xmas on the last Sunday in December, and the following Monday New Years day. Leave the religious aspects to the religionists to commemorate their observances in heir own time. Muslims, Jews, Eastern Orthodox Christians and other religions do so every year successfully, why not Western Christianity? And to keep workers happy where public holidays might be lost, replace them with the Friday before & Monday after the last Sunday in December with public holidays. At at least that way business has two weeks of four contiguous workdays, and people can do something creative with the long weekend (nb: in Oz, January 1st is a public holiday, so that could be replaced by declaring the first Monday in January a public holiday. Thus the workers get two long weekends in a row, and three weeks of just 4 workdays).

Utah Football Cameron Rising 7 Front Stripe Shirt

When different Western European pagan cultures were evangelized to, the Utah Football Cameron Rising 7 Front Stripe Shirt (the traditional Catholic order of missionaries) tried to be mindful of not needlessly erasing new disciples’ culture. These disciples only needed to abandon the sinful parts of their culture, to follow Christ. Unfortunately, some of these parts slipped through, effectively syncretizing Catholicism somewhat with these pagan religions—hence, veneration culture; undue fixation on Mary the mother of Jesus; etc. However, the intent at least was always to keep from putting unnecessary burdens on new disciples’ backs. These evangelizers were looking out for those they were taking under their wing. In that sense, these peoples’ cultures were actually preserved: at least far more than they would have been, were their newly Christian-identifying constituents required to make themselves Hebrew and Greco–Roman. So no, these festivals were not “hijacked.” It is merely that masses of people who had once celebrated them decided not to observe them, or their religions comprising them; and decided to celebrate other things, with the guidance and consideration of their disciplers.

My Hope Is In The Lamb Shirt

If you’re flying out of China before Chinese New Year (“spring festival”) and flying back to China after Chinese New Year, you can probably land yourself a My Hope Is In The Lamb Shirt cheap ticket. The other way around, no (a lot of overseas families travel to China during this time while the vast majority of Chinese nationals travel only domestically during this time). This is roughly similar to the reason why it’s not too difficult to find cheap international journeys from the USA around Thanksgiving, as long as you don’t have domestic segments in your itinerary. Christmas time is likely to be expensive in any direction anywhere unless you fly on the day of Christmas or Christmas Eve, or after western New Year. That said, book your tickets early — it’s always hard to predict these kinds of things and you never know what you’ll actually find out there in terms of tickets; every now and then you might stumble across something cheap especially if you really pay close attention.

Lake County Captains Baseball Shirt

India decided to abrogate the Lake County Captains Baseball Shirt provision of Article 370 in Aug because that’s when the terrorist activity is was highest. They were attacking the military and were planning on attacking pilgrims – as they do every year. To forestall that, the gov removed the temporary provision and merged Kashmir with India as per the original request of the King.Since its Aug, when article 370 was removed, Kashmir has seen an unprecedented level of peace, is riot free and has held local elections without any violence! It has been a boon to those who want to do legitimate business in the state. Terrorists and separatists hate the move, but that is to be expected! They hate peace and refuse to allow the local population to prosper. CAB / CAA helps all religious minorities in afghnistan, bangladesh and pakistan who wish to see asylum in India. Religious minorities who are constantly harangued in pakistan, locked up on false blasphemy charges, abducted, raped and forced to convert, will find it easy now to move to India and seek asylum and get citizenship. Last year, local thugs in pakistan blew up churches just before Christmas. So CAB, which includes Christians, will help them for sure. There is nothing special about it being introduced before Christmas, but I am sure they will be grateful for having this provision.

I’m Like A Midwest Princess Shirt

The first thing you need to understand is the background of the word “jolly.” It has reached the I’m Like A Midwest Princess Shirt now of being purely a noun, meaning a paid-for day out, commonly in your employer’s time. But a jolly? Strange word. Back in the relatively innocent days of the mid-twentieth century, jolly was a round-cheeked, smiling, uncomplicated word. It went with fat, beaming, seaside-postcard ladies, having a cheerful time on the beach or at the funfair, or Enid Blyton schoolgirls having a midnight swim down at the beach, or a midnight feast up on the roof of the jolly old school. It was all very jolly, with never any repercussions, and it was all jolly good. Before that, the word seems to have come from two possible directions, and quite possibly both of them. It may be from the French joli, meaning merrry or joyful, or from the Norse word jól, from which we get Yule, as an old word for Christmas festivities. Put them together and the result is a jolly good word for everyone having a good time. It’s a pity it’s been corrupted into having overtones of something slightly dishonest!

[switchbladedick]

litha just passed (pagan holiday for the summer solstice) so i’ve spent a lot of time outside and i’m totally not an exhibitionist (totally not absolutely not probably not maybe probably i probably am) but i’ve been thinking about us fooling around in the woods 😖 you know those videos of guys pinning people much smaller than them to a tree and pulling their underwear to the side and fucking them until they can hardly stand? it’d be like that <3 - 💌

(also oh my gof your boobs jesus christ i’m going to faint from the sudden redirection of blood flow you’re so hot what the fuck)

SHY ANON YOU ALSO CELEBRATE LITHA........... HOW DO YOU KEEP GETTING MORE PERFECT

fucking you up against the tree talking about the longest day of the year and honestly just chatting your fucking ear off totally enthused about the seasons and shit while youre falling apart against me trying not to make too much noise on case there are other people out and about ^_^

also teehee THANK YOU i will post more boobs soon. for you my sweet <3

[itsyourchoicedevotionals]

Is Enough

“…Many false prophets will appear and deceive many people” Matthew 24:11NIV

One relative has discovered— we Christians have been deceived for the last 2000 years about everything to do with serving God. Royal anger rages because of this supposed deception, and that especially because Lou and Debbie will end in hell by the deception. I have been looking seriously into the allegations.

— “Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy,” Exodus 20:8NLT. I’m seriously considering this— not because it’s a requirement of Law. As a new Christian, I put Sunday dinner in the oven before church. After church we relaxed, visited with friends, played games, napped went to Sunday evening service— no work all day other than cooking and washing dishes. 

Over the years, I’ve become lax and break the commandment, in that I don’t like to cook Sunday dinner anymore, preferring rather to eat out. I’ve been known to write devotionals on Sunday. (Could the ‘keep the day holy’ be an open door for satan to attack through?) Per ‘Relative,’ I’ve become seriously deceived, sinful, headed for hell. Especially because I consider Sunday to be the “Sabbath” day, not Saturday, the supposed Sabbath. Decision… Jesus’s blood is enough, period.

— “Thus says the Lord: “Learn not the way of the nations, nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens because the nations are dismayed at them, for the customs of the peoples are vanity. A tree from the forest is cut down and worked with an axe by the hands of a craftsman. They decorate it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move.” Jeremiah 10:2-4ESV. ‘Relative’ believes Jeremiah is speaking of Christmas trees— freaks out because I put up a Christmas tree. Yes, the Romans and Druids put pine trees in their homes in worship of their gods. Jeremiah’s point had nothing to do with the “tree” but with what was created out of the tree— an idol to be overlaid with silver and gold— object worshipped.

—Spiritually, decorating with lights has special meaning, supposedly started by Martin Luther declaring ‘Jesus is the light of the world.’ Green stands for God’s mercy; gold or yellow lights represent God’s shekinah glory; blue represents the hope we have in Christ Jesus; red represents Jesus’ blood shed for us; purple represents our Savior’s royalty. 

—FYI: Christmas is not celebrated in all parts of the world on December 25. ‘Relative’s’ big gripe here is— December 25 isn’t really Jesus’ actual time of birth, plus it’s very close to pagan celebrations. —True Christ’s birth was probably around Yom Kippur. My thought— Jesus’s blood is enough, period. 

‘Relative’s’ ‘religion’ screams against Resurrection Sunday, (pagan holiday), screaming we must be — “…a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light:” 1Peter 2:9KJV. 

— “Do not be conformed to this world,..” Romans 12:2ESV.

Most peculiar of all peoples, those who love in contrast to this evil world— loving even enemies. Meanwhile ‘Relative’ adheres to the following Law is being peculiar, hating non-conformity like the rest of the world. Peculiar — “By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another” John 13:35NIV. ‘Agape’ love—unconditional, not brotherly love, or romantic— sermon on the mount kind of love.

— “…A Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.” Romans 2:29ESV. Jesus’s blood is enough.

What Jesus did on Calvary is left out of ‘Relative’s’ every equation— making His death in vain. Ephesians 2:8-9 —erased along with Colossians, Philippians, Corinthians. The religion of law is from a false prophet deceiving many. Don’t be one of them. It’s your choice. You choose. 

LET’S PRAY: Father God please save ‘Relative’ from this deception and everyone else being deceived by this, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ.

by Debbie Veilleux 

Copyright 2023 You have my permission to reblog this devotional for others. Please keep my name with this devotional, as author. Thank you.

[ray-moo]

>Okay, stop shoving Christmas down our throats for two months of the year, then. We don't even have the power to stop christmas from being secularized and turned into a commodity, with what say do you think Christians are going to stop Christmas from being marketed as a product to people for two months straight? I hate the overmarketing of Christmas as well, the Christmas season should start at the beginning of advent. We should petition our capitalist overlords to cut that out together.

>Christmas is like, a solid 80% Pagan, my dude. So if you want to keep Christmas Christian you gotta drop several things: Honestly if we ditched 90% of the christmas pageantry I would not complain too much. However, Christianity does not call us to abandon our past cultures, only those elements of our past cultures which are opposed to God. Thus it is only right and natural for Pagans who converted to Christianity to retain cultural celebrations from around that year. But whether pagan or secular, said trappings should not, for Christians, overwhelm the main point of Christmas which is Christ's birth. And yes, Jesus might not have been born on December 25th. The Orthodox celebrate His birth a little later. But if we don't know the date of His birth, Dec 25 is as good a date as any.

Being said, you may ask why do we get to keep the pagan elements if Atheists and Secular folk can't keep the Christian elements? But it's exactly the Christian elements which the Secular folk want to discard. If Secular people and Atheists want to come to Church on Christmas or the sunday prior, and bow their heads in worship of Our Lord, then we would be delighted. Rather, it's the extraneous trappings overwhelming a day which is still ostensibly about Jesus Christ that Christians complain about, especially a day which becomes dedicated to promoting consumerism. Which, whether christian or secular, is just kinda disgusting. So Christians can keep the Christian bits and the Seculars can keep the secular bits. Only don't call it Christmas. Call it Saturnalia or Yuletide or Pine Sunday or the winter capitalism season. We do get to keep Saint Nicholas though. >And that's not counting non-Biblical parts of Christian Christmas mythology like The idea that the Bible should be the only source of Christian culture is itself a non-biblical idea.

Also I'm relatively sure most Christians know that the wise man lore beyond there being wise men who gave certain gifts and came from a certain place at a certain time for a certain reason isn't recorded in the Bible.

>You can't force Christianity on people then act like a victim when people start celebrating Christian holidays. I neither believe in forcing Christianity on people or Christian holidays. It's the non-Christmasness of Christmas I object to. Similarly, it isn't the fact that secular people are celebrating Christmas, but rather that Christmas has become an excuse for capitalist excess which would be ugly whether christian or secular.

That being said, that isn't to say that there isn't association with secularism that means the secular side of christmas is so ugly. IMO it isn't an ugliness with secularism per se, but rather simply that everything humans produce that is of meaning and beauty is grounded in a profound spirituality which is by definition absent from secularism.

As I said before, it's not like people can't enjoy the cultural aspects of a spirituality they're connected to. But the secularization of Christmas doesn't even do that much.

>Easter was borrowed by Christians from the feast of Ostara, who was a fertility goddess, which is why bunnies and eggs are symbols for the holiday. I think that only goes from some cultural practices in easter considering Ostara is germanic in origin and not all Christians had contact nor inclination to syncretize any germanic pagan practices. But all Christians celebrate Easter, whether we call it that or Pascha.

I hate to say it but I do fear we need to take Christmas away from non-Christians.

‘Secular Christmas’ babes that’s just capitalism…

[breelandwalker]

Historical Blindness - A Very Historically Blind Christmas

I love Christmas: the family time, the music, the classic movies, the decorations, the aroma of evergreen trees and spice apple, the taste of gingerbread with my coffee and nutmeg in my eggnog. I am not, however, much of a churchgoer or man of faith; therefore, I have some ambivalence about this holiday which is so often and heatedly defended as a Christian tradition.

"We must remember the reason of the season, and we must keep Christ in Christmas," or so many remind us while lamenting a culture that does not encourage people to keep the nativity scene at the forefront of all thoughts throughout December.

Recently, I saw an image being posted on social media with these statements: “Christmas is based on a pagan holiday. Jesus wasn’t born in December. Christmas trees are a Heathen tradition.” And of course, this wasn’t the first time I’d heard these claims.

Being something of a know-it-all and a pedant who is only too happy to challenge preconceived notions about both history and religion, I have been known to make such statements myself. But of course, as I have learned in making this show, critical thought challenges all preconceived notions, not only the ones that you dislike and want to dispel. The claims of the agnostic, the atheist, and the anti-religious must be examined just as skeptically and fairly as any assertions made by the religious.

So this holiday season, I’ve set out to explore the veracity of these claims and get to the bottom of just how pagan or Christian are Christmas’s origins and traditions.

Join Nathaniel Lloyd, host of the Historical Blindness podcast, on a deep dive into the origins of the Christmas holiday through the lens of secular and religious history.

If you need some more historical holly-jolly, you can also check out the subsequent episodes discussing Father Christmas, the Epiphany of the Magi, Christmas Carols, and The Iconic Christ.

From what I can see, it's gingerbread all the way down....

[bichristian]

Hey! Im a christian and am asking this in good faith, is easter not based on a pagan holiday? thats always what i was taught...

I'm always here for asking questions! It's a popular misconception and it's rather pervasive. My main axe to grind is that I think if you want to be a content creator you owe your audience slightly more research than "well this is what everyone thinks" and "I'm allowed to say this because I was raised Christian".

Disclaimer: I don't care what denomination you are, how much emphasis you put on traditions/liturgy/whatever. HOWEVER, because some of this boils down to "high" vs "low" church (which the high vs low thing is an Anglican creation, but basically it's how much priority you put on liturgy, vestiments, ceremony, sacraments, etc. I rarely use the terms, but it's concise here), anti Catholic bias, and my theories on where the breakdown in communication occured, it may seem like I'm leaning one direction. I'm not. Celebrate Easter how you like. Or don't, as some people are wont to do. Let's just make sure we have our facts in a row!

Firstly, how you feel about the origins of Easter probably at least in part depends on what tradition you grew up in. If you went to a "high church" (such as yours truly), most things involving Easter tended to have very strong ties with scripture and basically have us walk through a several month period of Jesus's life (excluding specific cultural or denomination traditions, which includes the Easter bunny and egg hunting!). Because Easter isn't just one day, it's an entire SEASON. First you have the pregaming: Ash Wednesday (the start of Lent), Lent (Jesus's wandering in the desert, where we stop counting Sundays as a part of the week to get an even 40), Maunday Thursday (Passover, the humiliation of Jesus), Good Friday (the crucifixion), and Holy Saturday (Jesus actually being dead, honestly the entire day felt like its own liminal space, personally). And then we finally get to: Easter/Ressurection Sunday, and then the Easter season lasts until Pentecost, in which you often talk about all the stuff that happened after Jesus came back. With "low churches", your milelage varies much more, but in my experience a lot of these events are diminished or completely taken out. Which I'm not knocking, it's everyone's choice and liturgy isn't everyone's cup of tea, but you can see how when you start removing or lessening all these things that you can follow 'how we got from scripture to here' in a neat line, it leaves room for people who don't do these things to say "wait, paganism", or at least assume some non Christian influence.

The argument about Easter being descended from a specific fertility goddess (I think it's fertility goddess, but it doesn't matter because, spoilers, she more than likely didn't exist) tends to focus on a Germanic goddess, which if that was the case you simply would not see a lot of churches all over the world having overlap in their celebrations of Easter, because we know that a Germanic Christian people did not bring the concept to the world. We also have no existence of this goddess before a monk in the 8th century said 'oh look, Eostre/Ostara! that is definitely where we got the name from!' This argument was also perpetuated by certain Protestant groups to invalidate Catholic practice (again, getting into the "high" vs "low" priorities of traidition and ceremony and how people who are very against liturgical traditions and ceremonies could use lack of knowlege, context, and understanding to villify other Christian's celebrations). You can see how these misconceptions can perpetuate themselves to the point that it's just one of those things that must be true because we have no reason to question it. After all, it matches a pattern that we've seen in other areas of history and Christianity, so it makes sense this would be another one, right? And trust me, I'm not judging, I'm certainly guilty of doing this too. I tended to keep a mindset of 'not my circus, not my monkeys', on this (and Christmas, which I honestly have so many opinions on divorced from the pagan argument) because in the end, I didn't see a point in poking the topic. We celebrate what we celebrate and there was enough scripture (and multicultural overlap) swimming around to make it make sense as to why we celebrate it. It wasn't until the information literally fell into my algorithm that I put some effort into learning about it and oh boy, did I develop some opinions.

Another argument is about eggs and rabbits, which is actually a pretty simple answer (relatively). Eggs are one of the foods that was (or still is, depending on your tradition) taken off the menu during Lent for fasting. The same was true of dairy and meat (hence why on Shrove or Fat Tuesday pancakes are common, it's a holdover of the time when everyone would feast to empty out their cupboards of foods that were banned during Lenten fasting and why certain groups will still offer up some sort of minor fast, such as chocolate, and why the Fillet o' Fish from McD's exists). Since eggs keep longest, the most common food you'd still have at the end of lent was eggs, which is why they tended to be associated with Easter celebrations. They then started being dyed red (for the blood of Christ) and green (for fertility and new life, because ressurection). Rabbits are believed to be a thing in Easter because turns out European brown hares (which are not rabbits but they're relatives and this should not be where our hang ups live, guys) can conceive a second time while already pregante (which is horrifying), which before we understood biology sounded kinda some sort of miraculous conception without sex, like Mary. They're also just very fertile in general, which again, new life. And are bunnies a common thing in other religions? Of course! But not everything's a "stolen" conception, sometimes everyone looks at a rabbit and sees a good fertility metaphor because rabbits are an excellent fertility metaphor.

Unfortunately tumblr is rude and won't let me add multiple videos in one post, so I'm going to have to try to reblog a few times, but there are a few tik tokers who have good, succint points, which I'm sure you can see I am physically incapable of, so bear with me (and check the reblogs) as I try to beat this beast into submission. Also some sources:

(if you can't read it, do a quick double tap on the refresh, it should bring up a version not restricted by subscription)

Anyways, hope this was helpful and not too boring and join me next time as I shake my fist at the monster of Christmas and also figure out where exactly the paganism ends and the capitalism begins (which tbf, it's mostly capitalism at this point). If someone wants to remind me, feel free otherwise I'll see you probably Christmas of 23.

Update: turns out Tumblr should be put in JAIL because I can't add more than one video, so the rest will be up soon and I'll see if I can at least link them.

[sideprince]

Not to keep hopping on this post every time it's on my dash, but I can't get behind the "Christmas is older than the Statute of Secrecy" argument and I've seen it a couple times now. Christmas wasn't a significant holiday in Britain (and most places) until the Victorian period. During various periods in British and American history, it was even banned (by the Puritans, surprise surprise).

In Medieval England holidays and feast days were pretty much a monthly occurrence, based around the needs of the harvest schedule, and of varying cultural significance. Advent calendars, sending cards, and gift giving didn't become a widespread part of Christmas observance until the mid-late 19th century. There's also a connection between the rise of the cultural significance of Christmas happening in the Victorian Era, the rise of industrialization before labor laws and regulations were passed, and the extent of British colonialization during that period. Christmas was an opportunity for those who worked 7 days a week to take a short break; it was also a way for a global colonial power to homogenize the culture of countries they had colonized (obviously not the only way, but it was a convenient part of that cultural mechanism and thus played up in significance). Plus, in a time when mass production was a new and boundless horizon of financial possibilities (for those who stood to profit off it, at least), there was a great benefit in a holiday that could be centered around gift-giving.

So the idea that the Statute of Secrecy had a great impact on whether or not wizards celebrate Christmas to the extent they do doesn't make a lot of sense. It would have been interesting if, instead, another holiday had remained more significant in the wizarding world while it became less so in the muggle world, like Michaelmas or the Carnival before Lent, or Good Friday, or Midsummer's Eve. I say these ones specifically because there's a lot of medieval imagery in Harry Potter and these were significant festivals in medieval England. Michaelmas in particular would have been a interesting choice, because it was abolished in the 18th century, after the Statute of Secrecy was passed, and so it would be a statement on Wizards retaining their own culture and the ways the muggle world both affected wizarding culture and had limited influence over it. (And obviously the most relevant choice would have been Yule, which, while celebrated by medieval Christians, is more overt about its pagan roots than Christmas.) If anything, the significance of Christmas implies a closer tie with the muggle world, as the elevation of the holiday to a culturally significant one is so historically recent. We could therefore infer that wizarding cultural trends follow muggle cultural trends, at least when it comes to larger cultural shifts, which would also imply a relatively close relationship between the two cultures.

I also feel I have to point out, re: the reblog before this one, that we don't know if Harry was baptized, only that he has godparents. It's not specified what the practice around naming godparents is in the wizarding world, but the words "baptism" and "baptised" don't occur in the HP books whatsoever - I checked to be sure. In the same vein I disagree with the idea that "christian wizards migth see Jesus' story as 'knowledge' more than 'beliefs', in other words, be more devote than christian muggles." These points assume a personal interpretation of both the HP and Christian canon to be a universal one, and with no textual proof either cited, or, tbh, any that I could even infer given knowledge of the text.

Although Harry Potter as a story has strong Christian undertones, such as the whole thing being a Christ allegory, that imagery doesn't have the same role in-universe. The Christ allegory is a Doylist element, but the Watsonian elements don't even acknowledge the existence of Jesus or even of any kind of significant religious body. We don't even see muggle characters like the Durlseys ever go to church, which could imply a deliberate choice on the author's part not to contrast a pagan wizarding world with a Christian muggle one.

So the idea that wizards might have any opinion on Jesus, let alone one that might lead them to consider themselves more knowledgable or devout that muggles, has absolutely no basis in the books. It also is a perspective I find somewhat problematic in the way it takes for granted the presence of Christianity and a cultural perspective on Christ as a figurehead in the wizarding community of HP in a way that excludes other religions and beliefs. While the story is clearly written from the perspective of its white British author, it also includes characters (albeit minor ones) from diverse backgrounds, such as the Patil twins who might be Hindi, Anthony Goldstein who we can presume is Jewish, etc. Even so, it seems to be a significant point that these characters' (and others') religion isn't mentioned, because religion itself isn't mentioned at all. There's a conversation to be had (and it's been talked about a lot) that from a Doylist perspective a lot of the author's personal religious influence worked its way into the text and is projected onto it, but from a Watsonian perspective religion isn't mentioned in the HP universe, let alone specific religious figures like Christ.

question to the void: what watsonian explanation is there for wizards celebrating christmas?

[prodigaldaughteralice]

man, I’ve been feeling really conflicted about Christmas this year.

I went back through my own “happy christmas” tag to try and get myself in the mood, and I found a post all about how a bunch of Christmas traditions come from pre-Christian pagan stuff and it kind of just prodded at the problem and why I’ve been feeling so weird.

Because that post is largely true! A lot of Christmas stuff comes from preexisting pagan traditions, and that’s very important to me; I’m an atheist but I’m also a witch and my own personal hodgepodge of pagan cultural traditions means a lot to me. I find a lot of meaning and connection in that. But!

The cultural presence of Christmas, here in the US for sure and I’ve heard other places too, is overwhelmingly Christian. It’s everywhere. Nativity scenes, baby Jesus ornaments, home decor at the damn dollar store. Carols on the radio, some of them are really more about it being winter and just get called Christmas carols because this culture is deeply obsessed with Christmas as an ever-present Christian holiday, but then there’s also just! Straight up Christian songs! On the radio! Everywhere!

I used to work at a coffee shop chain and I had this manager I hated, mostly because she was shitty at being a manager and would schedule people contrary to their availability and tell them it was their responsibility to find coverage (and then complain about them to anyone present) but the first moment I kinda mentally went “ooh we’re not going to get along” was when I was talking to another barista-- not even knowing the manager was behind me-- about how weird it was that the chain’s radio station had audibly made an effort to have as many different kinds of xmas carols as possible, ones in different languages, gimmicky ones, choral ones, etc, and it honestly just emphasized how they were all Christmas carols? And I wished we could have some non-Christmas songs on the playlist. And the manager audibly scoffed behind me and went “What, you want them to make some up???”

and I’m just like ‘ma’am there are definitely already songs relevant to other winter holidays’

My sister booked us a ride on the Christmas Train which is a cute little hour-and-a-half round trip on a local old steam train that gets dolled up with lights, and there’s hot cider and people sing carols, and I was having a nice time and singing my heart out bc I love excuses to sing until we got to Go Tell It On The Mountain (over the hills and everywhere, go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born) and I kinda dropped out feeling deeply uncomfortable.

And I celebrate Christmas! I celebrate an atheist’s Christmas which is about family and love and the turning of the year, it’s about gearing up for what’s to come and taking a moment in the dark of winter to make things beautiful. But at the same time when a stranger says “merry Christmas!” to me-- I don’t make it their problem, I just say it back, but internally-- I feel kind of weird and sick and conflicted, like, “does this person assume I’m Christian? That cultural hegemony thinks it has me?”

And I feel guilty about enjoying the parts of Christmas that I do enjoy! I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but the presence of Christmas is so oppressively Christian to so many people of other faiths-- and the specifically Christian parts of it are oppressive to me of no (religious) faith! But is it hypocritical of me to pick Christmas apart and try to keep the parts I like? Is it making me part of that oppression?

(I feel like I should specify a total lack of ill feeling towards people who are Christian for being Christian, it’s just the super oppressive culture of assuming everyone is and trying to press it on those who aren’t that fucks me up. Another ex-coworker of mine sweetly gave us all pamphlets about how we were going to hell for not being members of her church when she left.)

I’m not a lapsed or raised Christian, even-- there’s cultural christianity you can’t really escape growing up here, but my parents are staunch atheists and raised me that way. But we’ve still always celebrated our version of Christmas, and it is my childhood and my tradition. Is it bad that it has this aesthetic and nominal connection to the religious hegemon? The fact that a lot of those traditions originate with earlier pagan stuff doesn’t make them not also associated with Christianity and its stranglehold on our nation, our supposed religious freedom which is being steadily eroded by religious conservatives who cite the damn Bible in their policy opinions.

I made several kinds of cookies, including the Viennese crescents that are a family tradition. I made a regular batch, and a half-batch with alt flour to avoid my mum’s allergies, and she was so thrilled that there were some she could eat that she almost cried and she hasn’t shut up about it since. I cross-stitched my sister and her boyfriend a portrait of their cat with a ST:TNG quote on it. I sent some nice things to my gf I won’t describe here bc she follows me (hi babe if you read this sorry I’m melancholy). We’re going to bring the tree in tonight-- family tradition from my dad’s side, bring the tree in the house only on the eve, decorate it all together-- and my sister will come to visit. Once she’s here, and it’s just about us, it’ll probably be fine.

When we’re inside our house, it’s lovely.

It’s just what’s outside that makes me feel a bit sick.