So tis the season to be Pagan.So if your Christian do you celebrate Christmas? My sister is Messianic Christian and she and her family do not celebrate Christmas because of its Pagan origins.
Horace and other Gods were born on December 1st, what is Jesus true birthday? What about Santa and Rudolph do you teach your kids Santa exists and Rudolph and Frosty the snowman Christmas elves?
I love it all. I think of it as a way of having family time together.
You are quite right. EVERY SINGLE TRADITION WE HAVE that belongs to Christmas, including the date, is of pagan origin. I once had a really fun time tracking down the 'provenance' of all the Christmas traditions we all use, and there isn't a single one that is purely 'Christian' in origin....except the reason we celebrate it.
My own opinion?
So what? How fun is that? Of course, for ME it means that I get to celebrate Christmas twice; once in December with everybody else, with all the carols and the tinsel and gifts and Santa and the reindeer and all.....and then again, more quietly and reverently, at a time that is far more likely to have been His actual birth date. Works for me.....
And yes, I taught my kids that Santa and the elves were real, and when the time was right and it looked as if suspicions were catching up, I taught them that Santa was absolutely real...until we grow up and BECOME Santa ourselves. All five of my kids grabbed onto that idea with great verve. The only kid who was disappointed was my youngest, because of course she didn't have a younger sibling to 'be Santa' for. She was supremely unhappy until we showed her the giving tree in the church hallway, with the names of children who needed a little extra help for Christmas, widows, older couples, singles...people who didn't have families. She found the name of a child a year younger than her, and got to be Santa.
All was well.
but then, we also taught them that everything about the December Christmas was a joyous celebration of jesus' birth, and everything about it is 'stories with a purpose,' or 'fiction with truth..." because Jesus wasn't actually BORN on December 25th. So...for that time we can all believe in Santa, and Rudolf, and elves, and the wise men, and every wonderful, fun and joyful thing in the world.
Then, around about April, we have a far more quiet, reverent and respectful celebration...very low key, and very NOT 'pagan.'
(shrug) but I don't have a problem with 'pagan.'
Look at the dictionary definition:
pa·gan
/ˈpāɡən/
noun
noun:
pagan; plural noun:
pagans
1.
a person holding religious beliefs other than those of the main world religions.
To me, then, 'pagan' is a word that means about the same thing 'cult' does:
"your beliefs are weird and I don't like you." It's used as a pejorative, and really doesn't mean anything at all concrete, except....you don't believe the same things I do.
So....I'll decorate the tree (Roman)
Hang the mistletoe, wish I could have a yule log (celtic)
give gifts (again, Roman)
and all the other things, and love them even more BECAUSE Christianity adopted them from 'pagan' roots.
Why not?
A symbol means what the user says it does.