Christians - do you feel Christmas is devalued in modern western society?

[skihorse]

hello everyone, I am just hoping to canvass a few opinions amongst those of a Christian faith (I am Jewish).

I am simply astounded by the way "Christmas" is held up in UK society these days - yet, at the same time, Christians are ridiculed.

Do you find this offensive or do you of course simply turn the other cheek?

Does it hurt your sensibilities to see people eating to excess, drinking to excess and worshipping the idiot box and material posessions and calling it their "special time" with seemingly no knowledge of the concept behind the holiday?

(I am generally a bah humbug at Christmas, please take no offense! )

I have never heard that mass meant death. I thought that mass came from the latin word missa. I don't think it is especially important though. I wouldn't go around saying cunt instead of vagina. Being a more ancient word does not always make it more correct.

The timing and the semantics are not all that important to me. DHs great grandmother never knew her date of birth so she made one up. No-one said to her that she couldn't celebrate on that day because it wasn't the 'correct' date and it was already taken with someone elses celebration.

Smithagain My dcs school has a special assembly every day during advent. Parents can go too if they want. Its very reflective and they have appropriate stories etc. They do it by candlelight and its a lovely calm, contemplative atmosphere.
I would love it if Christmas could start on Christmas eve and go on until Jan 6th. Christmas day was only 2 days ago and I feel as if its over.

Seriously if Christians find it 'hard to celebrate a Christian Christmas in the face of the rampant consumerism and endless hype' why not put your celebration back to whatever it was originally. Whatever day it was it will not then match up with our celebration and you won't have a problem.

Also while you're at it you might want to move celebrating the resurrection away from the Goddess Astarte/Eastre's fertility rites.

The rampant consumerism won't move to the new/old date because none of you would be spending extra money on that date. It could then be a time of quiet reflection or whatever you had in mind.

It was Dec 25th originally in the sense that it wasn't celebrated at all in early Christianity (probably because Jews didn't celebrate birthdays) and out of the numerous competing dates in the 3rd (approx) century Dec 25th was declared the official date of Jesus birthday. I don't think many people are under the illusion that it is accurate. If it was moved to another date then there would still be rampent consumerism. It is a feast period after all whereas Advent is 'a period of waiting and joyful hope' and the early rampent consumerism can be a bit distracting wrt the waiting. Its a bit like eating easter eggs during lent then finding there are non left in the shops by the time easter is here.

Haven't visited Mumsnet for a while, and I've come today because I've been asked to take part in a BBC 5 Live debate tonight on whether Christians feel diffident about speaking of their faith in UK. So this debate on Christmas has been very helpful.

I tend to agree with the comment about the unimportance of semantics and dates. My daughter's birthday is 23rd Dec and we always gave her an 'official' birthday - like the Queen - on 23rd June.

However, whether you're a believer or not, I tend to think that the Christian belief - that Christ was God's gift to mankind (and that that's why we give gifts) - is edifying to us all. Nothing wrong in feasting and celebrating either in my book.

But the excess and commercialism debase - not simply a Christian festival - but human beings generally. I'm inclined to think that we'd be better doing our giving - and teaching our children to give - by raising some of the children of the world out of poverty, starvation and disease. Now that really would be a 'proper' Christian celebration and message.