Merry Christmas to Everyone

It was created by American liberals as another attempt to dissolve the
cultural significance of Christmas. Funny how I've met hundreds of
black Christians that celebrate Christmas and not one, ever, that thinks
much of Kwanza.

I have a feeling this is going to turn into a long thread.

Jon Kraus wrote:
Did you know that only people in America celebrate Kwanza? Folks in
Africa never heard of it!! Go figure..

Jon Kraus
PP-ASEL-IA
Student Mooney Owner

On Sat, 25 Dec 2004, Blanche wrote:

G.R. Patterson III wrote:

Dude wrote:

BTW, be careful about saying "Happy Holidays" anymore. There are now
reactionaries out there that think you are trying to secularize Christmas if
you say that.

Screw 'em if they're so stupid they think the only holiday is Christmas. Don't
know 'bout you, but *I'm* celebrating Saturnalia. :-)

What about the winter equinox earlier this week?

Any excuse for a celebration!

Merry Christmas, all. It's still the 25th here, but by the time most read
this it'll be Merry Belated...

Brian
www.warbard.ca/avgas/

"Jon Kraus" wrote in message
...
Did you know that only people in America celebrate Kwanza? Folks in
Africa never heard of it!! Go figure..

Why is that so odd? It was invented here. Wouldn't you expect the primary
celebrants to be here?

http://www.cnn.com/EVENTS/1996/kwanzaa/history.html

"G.R. Patterson III" wrote in message
...


Blanche wrote:

What about the winter equinox earlier this week?

That's really what we all are celebrating, regardless of what we call it.
As
nearly as anyone can tell, Christ was actually born sometime in August,
and his
birth was originally celebrated then (though the early church didn't put
much
emphasis on that holiday - Easter was the biggie).

Actually, spring. That is when shepherds are in the fields with their
flocks.

Christmas was originally not celebrated at all and I have never seen a
reference that it was ever celebrated in August. The earliest references I
can find show it being celebrated in December starting about the 4th
century. There is no indication that anyone paid any attention to it at all
before that. Church leaders wanted to convert the pagan holiday to a
Christian one. By doing that, however, they basically gave up the right to
dictate how the holiday would be celebrated, so it is celebrated the same
way as was the pagan holiday. The only thing they changed was the name and
some of the symbolism. Even then, the celebration of Christmas nearly died
out several times and the modern observance of Christmas probably bears
little resemblance to Medieval practice, which was more like Mardi Gras than
anything else.

Puritans thought that celebrating Christmas in December was pagan and
obnoxious (which it was; it had degenerated into a drunken orgy -- well, it
was always a drunken orgy, but now it was even worse), so for many years it
was actually illegal in Massachusetts to observe Christmas. Oliver Cromwell
banned the celebration of Christmas in England in 1645 and no one celebrated
Christmas there until after the coronation of Charles II. After the War of
American Independence the celebration of Christmas almost ceased, as
Christmas was widely regarded as an English custom. We still do not
celebrate Boxing Day for that reason; the very idea of lords giving gifts to
their servants is un-American. Christmas as it is celebrated in America
today was invented almost entirely out of the imagination of Washington
Irving, who had never seen a Christmas celebration but who patched together
a vision of Christmas from fragments of medieval and English traditions.
What he didn't know he simply made up. Charles Dickens inspired a similar
revival of Christmas in England, again 'inventing' traditions that may never
have existed before that time and discarding many of the seamier ones.

Be that as it may, most Christians enjoy the celebration of Christmas and
they attach considerable religious significance to it. Since no one knows
when Jesus was born, December 25 is as good as any other day. After all,
most Christians know that the wise men probably did not arrive in Bethlehem
until at least a year later, but we cheerfully pose the wise men in nativity
scenes anyway. For that matter, no one even knows how many wise men there
were or who they were, though legends and songs about them are perennial
favorites.

For the Christian, then, Christmas is a pleasant fiction that enables them
to remember the birth of the Savior through favorite stories and symbols,
exchanging of gifts and gathering of families. No one really cares whether
it is historically accurate and in fact most of them never did care.
Christians believe in the reality of Jesus Christ and his birth, but care
little about the historical accuracy of the holiday in which they remember
it. Obviously, there is no record of Jesus or any of his immediate
associates ever having celebrated it.

I say, in the spirit of Irving and Dickens, who invented Christmas as we
know it, that we should observe the traditions of Christmas related to
flying, claiming (like Irving and Dickens) that they were observed anciently
whether they were or not. I am sure the QB would have some good ideas along
this line.

Just seems odd to me that Kwanza is piped up to be this big African
celebration and "real" Africans have never heard of it. The Politically
Correct crowd in this country won't allow you to say Merry Christmas
without mentioning the phoney made-up "African" holiday that is Kwanza.
Just my .02. YMMV.

Jon Kraus
PP-ASEL-IA
Student Mooney Owner

Peter Duniho wrote:

"Jon Kraus" wrote in message
...

Did you know that only people in America celebrate Kwanza? Folks in
Africa never heard of it!! Go figure..


Why is that so odd? It was invented here. Wouldn't you expect the primary
celebrants to be here?

http://www.cnn.com/EVENTS/1996/kwanzaa/history.html

What about the winter equinox earlier this week?

I'm convinced that Christmas (and the older celebrations of the equinox)
were invented so that we all wouldn't kill ourselves from depression during
the darkest, coldest month of the year. It's not so bad now, with
incandescent lighting and central heating -- but can you imagine what it
must've been like 500 years ago?

The modern shopping frenzy does a marvelous job of diverting everyone's
attention from the bleak and dreary weather!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Blanche wrote:



What about the winter equinox earlier this week?

Now THAT would be worth celebrating! g (Lots warmer than we get with
the usual winter solstice!)
--
Alex -- Replace "nospam" with "mail" to reply by email. Checked infrequently.

"alexy" wrote in message
...
Blanche wrote:



What about the winter equinox earlier this week?

Now THAT would be worth celebrating! g (Lots warmer than we get with
the usual winter solstice!)

George and Blanche need new calendars. :-)

Merry Christmas CJ! and to the rest of the Gang too!
Bryan "The Monk" Chaisone

"Jon Kraus" wrote in message
...
Just seems odd to me that Kwanza is piped up to be this big African
celebration

By whom? I never heard anyone call it an "African celebration".

and "real" Africans have never heard of it.

It's not an African tradition. It's an African-American construct,
celebrated by a minority of African-Americans, and a few other people.
There's no reason to expect Africans to have heard of it, nor is it telling
or unusual in any way that Africans have not.

The holiday does borrow a lot from African culture, but that doesn't make it
African.

The Politically Correct crowd in this country won't allow you to say Merry
Christmas without mentioning the phoney made-up "African" holiday that is
Kwanza.

Ahh, I see. You're just trying to co-opt Kwanza in your goal to write an
anti-PC tirade.

Still, I don't see why you have to be so hostile toward Kwanza. It's no
more "phoney" or "made-up" than any other holiday we celebrate. It's just a
lot newer. It's never been advertised as an "African" holiday. It's
African-American, which is an entire culture unto itself. You should at
least broaden your horizons enough to understand the difference between
"African-American" and "African". They aren't the same thing.

Pete