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	What Really is Christmas? by Karen Pesta
Astrology, Tarot, and Self Improvement for the New Age.

Astrology Tarot New Age (Home) / Real Life Lines -- Inspiration

If You Think You're Enlightened, Have Kids

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What Really is Christmas?
by Karen Pesta

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Christmas Cookies Are for Giving: Recipes, Stories and Tips for Making Heartwarming Gifts
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Kristin Johnson, Mimi Cummins I recently read that we in America owe our version of Christmas to Charles Dickens. His short novel "A Christmas Carole" is credited for the 19th century's changing attitude toward Christmas. Something apparently the early church could not do even by poaching the secular celebration from German pagan practices like stuffing stockings and Yule logs.

The transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge from miser to humanitarian epitomizes a spirit that is more universal than just merely Christian. Perhaps this is why it has endured. Recently at a holiday party I overheard one woman saying, "They're trying to take Christmas away from us, you know this country was founded on our Christian values and needs to get back to the roots."

I've heard this comment before by someone who feels slighted by the constraints of not singing "Silent Night" in schools. And I wonder would Christmas impose itself so much on our culture without the secular influences? Charles Dickens influence might be the most enduring but there are others. Clement Moore's poem "The Night Before Christmas," introduced us to Santa Claus or St Nick as he named him. Queen Victoria and her husband Albert put up a Christmas tree every year since 1840, a custom that spread to America by 1848.

So exactly who is this woman referring to when she fears someone taking away Christmas? Can you even begin to imagine such an undertaking? Our financial world would supposedly collapse without Christmas to boost end of the year profits.

I decided to dig a little deeper into the roots of this celebration. The man most responsible for these beliefs was Pope Gregory (590) who set down some rules to encourage pagans in England and Europe to convert to Christianity. He was definitely a man ahead of his time, he realized that he would make more converts by adding to what was already an inherent practice, rather than trying to eliminate it. So the winter solstice and the gifts to deities morphed into celebrating the birth of Jesus. Pope Gregory was hoping to bring the people out of the darkness. But did he?

How much more enlightened are we than our pagan ancestors when we fear for our beliefs? If organized religion and its practices are our true moral compasses than a brush with something different should not be a cause for fear. Our true norths cannot be changed. Universal principles like honesty, fairness, kindness, respect, and justice can no more be challenged by a set of practices than the law of gravity can be by disbelief. They transcend our opinions and our differences.

I like the idea of bringing light into the darkness. The winter solstice is the darkest time of the year. Light can be a metaphor for our own transformations. When we bring in the light we expose those dusty corners, those things easier to ignore because we can't see them clearly. Perhaps instead of worrying about non-believers or different believers we can shine that light onto ourselves and see what change might come.

(c) 2008 Karen Pesta, All rights reserved.

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Karen Pesta provides character education for students K-12 that helps "sharpen the saw" through enrichment promoting academic and social achievement and physical and emotional health. If you are looking for a program of character education that is deliberate, holistic and reaches your entire student population visit: Creative World Connection

Choose your friends carefully. Your enemies will choose you.
~ Yasser Arafat ~
Born August 24, 1929

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