Bah humbug!

notanewuser

j.e.j. wrote: »

does X or xmas fall on the same day as Christmas by any chance :whistle:

Never. That's part of the point. 6th Dec this year.

j.e.j.

notanewuser wrote: »

Never. That's part of the point. 6th Dec this year.

Ah! St Nicholas day

notanewuser

j.e.j. wrote: »

Ah! St Nicholas day

Is it? It's just "the day we can all get together". Might be the 7th. Last year it was the 13th. Year before the 23rd and year before that the middle of November.

lostinrates

notanewuser wrote: »

i never said it wasn't christian. As I said, I don't call it christmas. I only ever call it xmas. We're celebrating "X" :rotfl::rotfl:

Mas or mass, being the pinnacle point of Christian worship.

Personally I don't care what your family day is called so long as its a nice day. I think respect is deserved each way.

I'm not a Christian by belief but I am respectful and fond of many aspects of my cultural heritage, and I find the attitude of some who aren't cAn be as offensively belligerent as the enthusiastically observant in denial of other's beliefs or lack thereof.

Brighton_belle

j.e.j. wrote: »

Ah! St Nicholas day

That made me laugh

Torry_Quine

mumps wrote: »

When my kids were young we used to go to a friend's solstice party on the shortest day, is it the 21st? The children would all dress as children of the dark or children of the night and bang on drums, biscuit tins or whatever and gradually the children of the dark would get quieter and the light would win. They loved it. We still went to church at Christmas but were happy to celebrate both. I don't know if it would bother some Christians, seeing it as pagan but to me it was celebrating a fact. The soltice happens.

As a Christian I personally wouldn't celebrate a pagan festival while of course acknowledging that the solstice is something that of course does happen.

notanewuser wrote: »

i never said it wasn't christian. As I said, I don't call it christmas. I only ever call it xmas. We're celebrating "X" :rotfl::rotfl:

You do realise that the X of Xmas is the Greek for Chi so is still Christmas!

j.e.j.

Yup, Dec 6th St Nick

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Nicholas_Day

It's where we get the word Santa Claus from. It was our attempted pronunciation of the Dutch Sankt Niklaas

j.e.j.

Torry_Quine wrote: »

You do realise that the X of Xmas is the Greek for Chi so is still Christmas!

:rotfl:

Oh dear, sorry notanewuser, but Christmas is following you like a bad smell

lostinrates

mumps wrote: »

Obviously Christmas is Christian, I'm not disagreeing with that but Notanewuser was saying there isn't another name for celebrating around that time, As a Christian I am happy to celebrate soltice and don't think it is unChristian but I think some might so just thought I would mention it.

We're a non observant Jewish / Christian couple with observant family of both faiths. When we meet family at that time we use Christmas for my family, and for prickly relatives ' holiday period' ' festive break' 'seasonal holiday/ vacation/ get together ' as appropriate. ( tranches of the family would not DREAM of using Christmas as shorthand)

There are plenty of alternatives if you really want to avoid Christmas. But it has become a holiday celebrated by non Christians too. E.g. Dh's immediate family celebrate it in a notional way. ( giving gifts if they see each other, eating the seasonal meal of what ever country they are in etc etc). We celebrate Christmas because though its not guaranteed my husband has always had the day off, and we love it.....its a beautiful idea, a beautiful celebration, both the idea and the practice and traditions grown around it. . We do lots of other stuff around that time of year too though.

notanewuser

Torry_Quine wrote: »

You do realise that the X of Xmas is the Greek for Chi so is still Christmas!

Okay, again, the only reason it gets called anything is because of the general expectation in this country that everybody does something for christmas. I demonstrated earlier the surprise shown when you ell someone you don't do christmas.

As I don't follow christianity i don't use the word "christmas" out of respect for those that do. What we do has nothing to do with jesus or any other deity. I'm also not greek, so that has no relevance to me either!

The only reason we use the word xmas is because there isn't another word to describe what we do in common usage. It's a shorthand so that I don't have to spend a lot of time explaining it!

We do our "thing" on whatever day we can. Regardless of any saints or solstices or anything else.