not celebrating Christmas

I was raised as a Jehovah's Witness and as such I never celebrated Christmas or most other holidays. Now I guess I would classify myself as and agnostic.

My wife has always celebrated Christmas. As a result we have a tree and give and recieve gifts although I cant help but think about how ridiculous it can be at times. I certainly cant stand the local shopping plazas' and malls.

I tell my kids the the tree is Mom's Christmas tree and Dad's winter solstice tree. The only thing that I do personally for myself as a ritual or celebration of the season is fasting on the solstice. I take no food. Water only. The first few years I did it I though it was pretty easy. The older I get the more difficult it gets every year. Dont know why really. Maybe my aging body requires the nourishment more than it used to.

 

does he get holiday pay?

 

his company's policy is that everybody gets holiday pay for 10 designated company holidays. if an emnployee has a religious holiday that falls outside one of those days they can take the day off with vacation pay. but due to the nature of the job (it's a call center for a rental agency with 24 hour emergency service) no one is allowed to take "major" holidays like christmas or thanksgiving off if it falls within their regular schedule, unless they can get someone to switch with them. this is because these are traditionally very busy days and they are taking emergency calls. if someone's toilet explodes on christmas or whatever, they want enough staff to handle the calls.

his previous job allowed him to take a couple of "floating" holidays off every year; he would usually spend this time on samhain and yule (which is also our handfasting anniversary.) on years those sabbats fell on days he'd normally have off anyway, he might use them for beltane (may 1), imbolc (light festival, feb 1), or mabon (autumn equinox & fruit harvest, celebrated similar to thanksgiving.)

 

all my previous employers did both the holiday pay and the vacation pay. the major holidays got time and a half, and the vacation days got regular pay. we had one girl complain, because the holiday pay didn't include her faith's holidays, which didn't make any sense to me, since she wasn't going to work on her faith's holidays, but she would work the "regular" holidays, therefore getting the holiday pay. anyway, i wondered about that.

so you have an anniversary coming up? or has it passed? i'm afraid i don't know the dates.

 

I celebrate "Xmas". I celebrate it as a national holiday and an excuse to have a good time. I also respect it's pagan roots (being a pagan myself) and realise that it has even less to do with jesus than hotdogs... (Heck, they can't even get his birth date correct).

 

Pretending Christmas is a secular holiday is foolish. That's why people give me crap over not celebrating Christmas becuase I'm Jewish. Well guess what? They're wrong. The name of the holiday is Christ Mass. It's a religious holiday. You don't have to like it, but denying it is stupid.

If your looking for an excuse to give presents, than make up your own holiday.

As for the Pagan roots, that's only half true. Only some of the rituals involved are pagan, and they weren't even a part of Christmas until the middle ages. So saying that they made it up just to be more popular is just plain wrong.

 

feministhippy, for a start, christmas means diffrent things to diffrent people... just because it means one thing to you, that does not mean someone else has the same view on it.

Second of all, a name means nothing. by your reasioning, everyone that lives in s****horpe is a ****?

Thirdly, YES, christmas is a pagan festival that has been rebranded. Sure, they might have changed the theme a bit here and there, but you can't deny the truth.

(and lastly, on a personal note, I celebrate xmas... not christmas).

 

I dont celebrate christmas, though the commune and I did observe and celebrate the solstice.

 

I celebrate Hanukkah (more out of personal family tradition than because its an important Jewish holiday, which its not) and the winter solstice, but not Christmas. Maybe if I had been raised celebrating it and had fond memories of it I would continue to celebrate despite not being a Christian, but I was not. Oh, well.