Why I Don’t Celebrate Christmas.

Top Ten Reasons.

• Jesus couldn’t have been born in the winter. Scholars say it was around July but latest by October. Either way the events narrated to us of His birth make winter the worst possible assumption to adopt. Nobody wants you to celebrate a fake birthday for them every year. I’m not really interested in celebrating Jesus’s fake birthday doing practices He doesn’t want. I would rather celebrate Him everyday and commit to remembering Him (all of Him) His arrival by birth, His exit through accession and promised return exactly the way He has instructed us to. That’s like your older brother leaving you his will and testament and then you deciding to ignore his instructions and doing what you want in his absence. In fact it is exactly that. In my future household we will celebrate Him constantly and give each other generous gifts whenever we want to.
  
• It is rooted in and chuck full of blatantly pagan worship practices. Jeremiah 10:1-3 “Hear the word which the Lord speaks to you, O house of Israel. Thus says the Lord: Learn not the way of the [heathen] nations and be not dismayed at the signs of the heavens, though they are dismayed at them, ³ For the customs and ordinances of the peoples are false, empty, and futile; it is but a tree which one cuts out of the forest [to make for himself a god], the work of the hands of the craftsman with the ax or other tool.⁴ They deck [the idol] with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers so it will not fall apart or move around”. Just as a general rule of thumb I now hold this sentence to be true “if the whole world agrees with you on something, check in with GOD again because you are most likely wrong”. The whole world rarely agrees with GOD on anything. Their complete acceptance and agreement on this issue IS the red flag.
  
• It encourages (nay forces) parents to lie to their children. Honestly, the amount of effort invested all year round into pretending that mr satan clause exists and forcing your children to believe and pray to him and “be good” because of him is a practice akin to worship. Taking attributes only GOD possesses like omnipresence (which is required for the global gift delivery to all of earths children in one night) and ascribing it to a fat old (obviously immortal man) is a dangerous seed to plant in your child’s mind. There’s no telling how it will clash with, confuse and can work against the truth you do tell them about GOD from scripture. You might be play acting but teaching them to do all those things towards GOD instead and not a made up character is even better. “God gave you these presents sweetie, He gave daddy and mommy money enough to buy you these gifts after all your other actual needs, isn’t He great? we should pray and thank Him this morning”. Words like these is what santa has robbed Christian families from having. I will not be participating in lying to my children. I don’t know how no one has an issue with parents telling their children is wrong to lie and simultaneously lying to them every year about santa clause aka fake (father christmas). I refuse to participate in this ruse anymore even if for “harmless” fun. Our enemy is a lot more sly than we give him credit for. You might think it’s just harmless fun and everybody does it, in fact he’s counting on you to do that. There are other ways to spur your child’s imagination and keep them in childlike wonder than contributing to deceiving them by perpetuating lies, no matter how harmless they seem. Things like these erode trust and force Christians to do as the world does so that in the end your home is indistinguishable from theirs. Besides, children follow your example more than your words. Remember that. It’s normal to think (even subconsciously) If my parent lied for years about that, what else have they lied about? Can they even be trusted? Is lying really wrong since they did it? The seeds planted in children’s hearts especially in those formative years are crucial. There’s nothing funny or cute about lying to them. My children will know the truth and understand the lies that the world tells in this season so that when they go out no matter how young they are they will recognize and separate fact from fiction because they will be raised to see lies for what they are. The sons of kings don’t lie. They don’t need to, talk more of sons of The King of kings and all for what exactly? What is the justifiable point of the lies of christmas? There is none. So I will just invent fun family traditions that don’t involve falsehoods and stick to them and that will be our holiday cheer every year at this time.
  
• Somehow sin goes up in this festive season. There is something in the air and many opportunities suddenly present themselves for social gatherings that are inherently sin full but they get a pass cus well, it’s Christmas. Detty December for instance.
  
• Something about a season globally dedicated to a fake father (father christmas) getting all the glory in the name of celebrating a fake son just irks me. If it were really celebrating Jesus then more efforts would have been dedicated to discovering His actual birthday. A fraudulent father figure who only pops up at the end of every year (bearing gifts that are never really from him) is no father to me at all and besides “…call no man on earth your father, for you have one Father, who is in heaven” mathew 23:9.
  
• How does Jesus actually want to be remembered by us? He said through the communion and your daily walk of abiding in Him. If you haven’t consistently been doing those two practices then don’t throw a party in His name every December. Just say it’s for you. That’s ok. Doing it in His name after abandoning what He asked you to do is at the very least fake worship isn’t it? You haven’t done what He asked you to do as LORD so don’t pretend like what you want to do is for Him.
  
• It’s more of a cultural activity than a biblical one. There is simply no ground for it in scripture.
  
• The early Church never celebrated it until the “acceptance” of Rome finally happened to her.
  
• It stopped appealing to me.
  
• I realized I had the freedom to not participate in it. It never was an obligation even though it can sometimes feel like it.

The Wrap-up

That said, be free to do as the Holy Spirit leads you because our Instructions and convictions don’t have to be the same on this issue. There are hardliners in the Kingdom of GOD, things that we cannot disagree on. I don’t get the sense that this is one one them. Just like Easter, Celebrate it if you want to. It’s been several years for me and I don’t miss it. I have corrected the notion that gifts are to be saved for a particular season or reason. Now I just give gifts whenever I want or am instructed to. Got to say, the freedom of not having to celebrate it and the break away from all the accompanying pressures have really been quite nice. In the end though, I like that the season genuinely seems to make people happy. It’s that “I don’t get it, but I like it for y’all” kindov feeling. Just try not to wait and store up all your jolly until Christmases in Decembers and your whole life might just change. After all it’s “the Joy of The LORD that’s our strength”. You don’t want to be walking around weak do you? Practice intentional joy all year round.

¹³ And you who were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh (your sensuality, your sinful carnal nature), [God] brought to life together with [Christ], having [freely] forgiven us all our transgressions,

¹⁴ Having cancelled and blotted out and wiped away the handwriting of the note (bond) with its legal decrees and demands which was in force and stood against us (hostile to us). This [note with its regulations, decrees, and demands] He set aside andcleared ^[j]completely out of our way by nailing it to [His] cross.

¹⁵ [God] disarmed the principalities and powers that were ranged against us and made a bold display andpublic example of them, in triumphing over them in Him and in it [the cross].

¹⁶ Therefore let no one sit in judgment on you in matters of food and drink, or with regard to a feast day or a New Moon or a Sabbath.

¹⁷ Such [things] are only the shadow of things that are to come, and they have only a symbolic value. But the reality (the substance, the solid fact of what is foreshadowed, the body of it) belongs to Christ.

colossians 2:13-17 – Niv version

I pray for you all to have a happy and safe festive season.