Time for CHRISTmas!!!

Many of you know God changed my heart this January and I became a born-again Christian, or what many commonly called saved. I thought I was a Christian most of my life because I said a prayer, got baptized, did good things, went to church, and went through the routine. I was a false-convert who never repented (turned from sin) and put my trust in Jesus Christ. With that being said, I see everything in a new light, including the holidays.

As I have researched extensively and witnessed already, this is an extremely controversial subject for many Christians. I will probably take some heat for this one I’m sure. This will be my first Christmas as a born-again Christian. In this article I am not knocking anybody or anyone’s beliefs, but you may disagree with what I say. So please understand I am not being dogmatic or legalistic in what I am saying, it is simply my views for my family’s traditions.

My family and I revamped our Halloween traditions this year. Instead of celebrating Halloween we participated in it in a way to glorify God. My wife dressed up as a princess and my son was a firefighter. We setup a table outside my sister-in-laws house where we handed out bottles of water, gospel tracts, bibles and candy. It was truly awesome and we will continue to do that every year from now on. It is a tradition shared by some of my brothers and sisters in Christ called, “Light in the Night”.

There is without a doubt traces of pagan origins in Halloween and Christmas traditions which is why there is so much hostility. Is it a sin or pagan that my wife and son dressed up, no. Is it a sin for children to go house to house and ask for candy, no. Others see Halloween as Satan’s day and we should have nothing to do it with it. My view is that every day belongs to God and we can use any and every day to bring glory to Him. That is why we did not sit out on Halloween. However, my family will never have Halloween decorations such as witches, devils, ghosts and such, nor will my child ever dress as something of the sort. As a Christian family it is our personal conviction to never celebrate or participate in the occult side of the holiday. It really shouldn’t even be considered a holiday because there is nothing “holy” about it, lol. Now onto Christmas!

I have always been a big Christmas guru caught up in the “magic” and commercialism of Christmas, big time. Becoming a Christian has changed my views on the holiday a bit. Believe it or not, there are many Christians out there that view Christmas the same way as Halloween, whether it was because Christ was most likely not born on December 25th, the Catholic church tried to replace a pagan holiday with Christmas, and other traditions that are rooted in pagan origins on December 25th. Is it true? Yes. Are there Christian traditions on Christmas as well? Yes.

This is the position my family will take on December 25th. We will celebrate the birth of Christ as He was God’s greatest gift to the world. It doesn’t matter if it was the day He was literally born on or not, because we do not know for sure. Everyday we should celebrate Jesus Christ, and this is a day that is allegedly recognized for that, so yes we are going to celebrate, recognize, and promote the true meaning.

Now this may offend you if you haven’t been already. We will not have Santa decorations in our house or play the Santa game with our child. There, I said it. So why have I taken this position? I don’t think people who do the Santa game are evil, pagan, or anything like that at all. But for me personally it has taken away from celebrating Christ in a time where He should be the center point. For my family, I don’t believe a holiday about Christ should be shared with a magical man that is not real. Yes, there was a real St. Nicholas and I highly doubt he would approve of the way he has been esteemed and commercialized on a holiday that is supposed to celebrate Jesus Christ whom He served.

Both of our parents did the Santa Clause with us so it’s not because we were raised differently than other people. I care more about my son knowing truth and the full glory of Jesus Christ rather than lying to him about a man coming down our chimney to leave presents depending on his behavior. It’s something I personally cannot and will not do.

Does this mean that my family is going to go around saying Santa isn’t real or protesting any who do the Santa game? No. Can a family honor Christ and partake in the Santa game with all the traditions? Sure they can, I personally think it’s harder to have most of the emphasis on Christ, but again it is up to the family. We aren’t going to shelter our children from the world either. We just aren’t going to reinforce it in our home. We will probably come up with more of our own traditions honoring Christ throughout the years as a family. These are some of the things we will be doing.

We will still have decorations such as a tree, Christmas lights, snowmen, nativity scenes, and stockings. We will still do a couple of presents as well, but we won’t say that Santa Claus put them there. None of these things such as the tree and lights are idols or superstitious to us as they were when they were considered pagan traditions long ago. Most people nowadays don’t consider them that way either. A good quote from an article I’ll leave a link to is this: “What is important is not the origins of traditions, but their significance to us today as believers in the Son of God.”

We will also sing Christmas carols, a couple songs will be excluded, read the story of the birth of Christ in the bible, make a birthday cake for Jesus, give bibles, tracts, and of course pray and give thanks. We will even probably read the true story of Saint Nicholas, as he was a great Christian man who gave gifts anonymously and generously. My wife and I have made it a tradition since we have been married to have some kind of charitable drive or project we participate in every Christmas so that is something we will include our children in as well.

These are my views on Halloween and Christmas. You can probably assume what they are regarding the Easter bunny after reading all this, lol. Being a rather new creature in Christ, I was greatly concerned with what I should participate in and what I shouldn’t. As a Christian I found myself lost and wanted to make sure I wasn’t doing anything wrong and that I would be giving glory to God. There are a lot of sites and books out there that are very legalistic, presented in an ugly way, and hateful about what we should and shouldn’t do as Christians. I have gone though much prayer and many headaches, but I have reached this conclusion for my family that I am sharing with you. Hopefully, this may help you as well if you have the same concerns that I do.

This article and site is one of the best I believe on the subject. http://www.gotquestions.org/Christmas-traditions.html This ministry has written other good articles as well about the holidays and other common questions.

If you have any good suggestions or sites on Christian traditions I would love to hear them.

Thanks and God bless you!

In Christ,

Joey