Comments on: Christmas: a time for cookies, carols, cookies, and conflicting ideals

By: Two whispered words « Raising My Boychick

Two whispered words « Raising My Boychick — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 08:48:41 +0000

[...] Christmas: a time for cookies, carols, cookies, and conflicting ideals [...]

By: Dw3t-Hthr

Dw3t-Hthr — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 22:37:30 +0000

I’m a pagan raised Christian, as so many pagans are; unlike a lot I didn’t have a particularly bad breakup with my birth religion, which means that I tend to be fairly mellow. (Though I have a profound hatred for secular Christmas music, which is of course what gets played in public spaces out of misguided belief that crappy tunes with no spiritual meaning are less offensive to non-Christians than religious carols.)

The thing that matters to me from my childhood is actually a family-specific tradition: each person who spent a portion of the Christmas holiday with my family had their name inscribed (in glitter and glue) on an ornament. From then on, if they were visiting again, their ornament would be set aside for them to put on the tree; if they weren’t going to visit, the ornaments were a means of remembering friends and family. (My father’s tree has ornaments for cats who died before I was born, old family friends, etc.) Other important things involve food.

So the way I think of Christmas these days is actually as my culture’s ka-festival. Which will probably make a good blog post, but in brief: the ka is the animating spirit, shared among members of a family (and if extended far enough, all beingness). One nurtures the ka with food, love, and gifts.

This understanding lets me bridge the conceptual gap and give me some way of relating my religious practices to the surrounding culture, and, y’know, keep peaceably with my family (mostly secular generic Christian) and in-laws (Catholic).

By: Tiffany

Tiffany — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 02:46:15 +0000

our holiday tradition has been to bake cookies on the weekend before xmas, this year it happens on the day before Yule. in my little mock nuclear family we celebrate Yule, and like to give gifts, hand made are the best of course, and put up lights, and light candles, make sun shaped cookies(from scratch of course!)and talk about the sun coming back.
my parents and siblings do the whole American xmas, with a tree loaded with presents, lots of cheap plastic stocking stuffers, buying gifts to look generous even though they are nothing the recipient would want, the whole schpeil. but, we also go to my grandmas house and have a big family dinner, give the kids gifts, do a white elephant swap, and spend time catching up.
i wish the american xmas wasnt so prevalent in everyones lives. you cant walk outside without seeing something about BUY BUY BUY. and if you have a tv, or the internet, you are bombarded by media in your own home too.
it saddens me that our society is so ingrained to consume, and purchase, and gimme gimme gimme.
i get sad to hear my children tell me they are strong believers that Santa is real,even though it is not a game i wanted to play with them, but my parents do, and so does everyone else in their lives.
it is inescapable.
and it freaks me out.