Christmas as a Christian

[Bleakmidwinter1977]

Those of you who are celebrating Christmas, and consider yourself to be Christian...just wondering why you do, and what parts you opt out of/in to?

Asking as I'm interested, not because I have an opinion either way.

I listen to the carols as I prep my meal. I feel it connects me a little to the reason for Christmas

Work for a red top or doing an essay for school/college, Op?

Could you go to a church and find out?

I read the Christmas stories in Matthew and Luke.

I actually want to become Christian

C of E here.

I do lots more singing. I'm in the church choir and band and Christmas singing is the most glorious of all. I love the friendship and community feel of church, especially at this time, and the welcome extended to everyone. We're always glad to see people in church, even if it's the only time they come!

I always do some specific charitable giving.

We also have a full appreciation of Advent - the season of preparation for Christmas. That build up makes it all the more special.

Carols from Kings on the TV on Christmas Eve.

What do I not do? No Santa (I don't have children that sort of age), no excessive consumption, no Christmas Eve box etc. But definitely not Puritan and still a LOT of fun. It's more about old traditions than new ones.

And a lot of family time.

I could, but I could also just ask here?

God loads.

Church every week in Advent
Plus the Advent course (this years theme is 'Out of the Ordinary') every week for 5 weeks on a weekday night
I'm a Methodist preacher so I'm actually doing the Christmas Day service !
Carols at the Albert Hall
Carols along with hundreds of people from my church circuit at a local pub
The main Carol service on Christmas Eve (with Father Christmas and mince pies/fancy star 🌟 biscuits)

Yes I do this too.

and what parts you opt out of/in to?

Not sure what you mean by this ?
What part of what?
Opt in / out in what way ?

We have a couple of extra / special church services E.g the children do a nativity and we have a carol service. Sunday services throughout December tend to have more Carols / songs relating to Jesus’ birth etc.
There’s usually some Christmas social events too amongst the church
members (others also welcome).
The Christmas Eve service and Christmas Day service are brilliant, so powerful etc.
We don’t really opt out of anything. We have a baby so not yet at the stage of understanding Santa, and not sure what we’ll do. I grew up believing in Santa and I know other church goers who did and others who didn’t. No one seems affected either way.
I guess the only difference from someone who doesn’t believe would be that our day is more focused on Jesus etc. Like recognising more that it’s a celebration of him. But we have loads of food, family time, some presents. It’s just nice to have that extra special meaning to the day too.

We are lapsed Catholics in my home. It used to be breakfast Mass every Friday morning before school during advent, which was lovely and good fun, and then obviously the Christmas Eve service. We did the Midnight Mass once, but it was too late for me. That's it really, everything else was the same as the atheists did it 🤣

Thank you. I'm struggling this year. My husband is Christian, as am I, but he is becoming fixated on all the aspects of Christmas that are not necessarily related to Christianity, e.g. Christmas tree, santa, etc, and removing all the joy from the season. I just want our children to enjoy Christmas as a time of peace and joy, but I'm now questioning the validity of Christmas (a festival which he constantly reminds me is a pagan festival hijacked by Christmas).

The birth of Jesus and the solstice both celebrate the light. One in a physical sense (the solstice) and one in a spiritual sense. I think tying them together makes sense of a sort.

But for me, the power of Christmas is all in the birth of Jesus.

We do the same things as most people but also go to church. There were a couple of years when the kids wanted to pretend that Father Christmas was coming, so we did. But we didn't pretend that he was real and they were happy to treat him as a Christmas game.

The full works!
Various church services, all really atmospheric and enjoyable.
I like listening to 9 lessons and carols.
We do the usual things at home.

We don’t do getting drunk, going to the sales, massive gifts from Father Christmas. The elf.

Oh and an advent candle to burn every day.

Different from usual? I give more to charity during advent and lent. I have more choir practice for Carol concerts. I help out and attend our church fair as well as the school ones. Otherwise it's similar to everyone else. Christmas itself is a chance to go to Weekday masses on 25th and 1st.

I bless the house at epiphany...

Really sorry to hear that OP 🙏

I will share one other thing we've done this year which is all about Jesus

We have put up a Refugee tent outside the Church, put two chairs in it and a fruit box manger with a baby in it - with the words 'Love is here'

Outside the tent are three HUGE signs:

'No crib for a bed'
'Christ was a Refugee'
And the Matthew verse: "When I was hungry you fed me... when I was sick you took care of me.. I was a stranger and you welcomed me"

We've gone ALL OUT this year in our church

We did that for a bit with the kids about Jesus but they saw through it.

I think the tree and santa etc are all part of our history and heritage, they are a good opportunity to teach children about St Nicholas and charity. The tree and wreath symbolises eternal life, the angel or star at the top speak for themselves. (Don't research the St Boniface's rescuing of the human sacrifice under the sacred tree!). Constantine merged bits of the old religion to make Christianity work for everyone in the Roman Empire, but that's fine because it's keeping alive rituals that predate recorded time.

God loads

I like that. I read it as God (Loads of)

We also mark Epiphany. Our Christmas decorations have a religious slant with nativity scenes, angels and so on.

We do more celebrating Christmas from 4pm Christmas eve onwards, until epiphany (or going back to school, whichever is first). I try to keep advent lower-key. So we don’t put decorations up until the week before Christmas, don’t listen to Christmas songs, watch Christmas films, etc., until the actual event. Plus church services etc. makes it more special

Love Christmas as a Christian. Because it runs from Advent Sunday to Epiphany and is a whole lot more than one day of excess.
We still do the tree and gifts and a meal. And we did Santa when kids were young.
I love advent and thinking and preparing for Jesus birth. We have the advent wreath in church and lots of special services. Advent Carol service, Christmas Carol service, crafts afternoon for children.
The wise men don't reach the Crib until Ephiphany (they sit on the church window ledge) and we celebrate them at Ephiphany with a Kings party after church.
This year as a family we are swapping the Christmas Eve crib service for midnight communion- a new tradition for my older teens. They have taken part in the Crib service for years!
My decorations stay up until epiphany.