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We have not had a poll for a while so I thought I would post one for good christmas fun. Can you tell I am off on Holiday now with the massive posting spree!

What is Christmas all about for you?

Oooh, pretty new poll!

I'm going for the family option as it's currently the only time of the year that I stay with them for an extended period of time. I'll have changed my mind by next Wednesday when I want to kill them all!

Yeah, gotta be family. Unfortunately my sister's going home today as she's working on Boxing Day, but it's been good to see her. Will be seeing my aunt, uncle and cousin on Christmas Day as well, which is cool.

Well, it's all of those things - family, friends, church etc - but for one reason. It is an extremely important Christian festival (second only to Easter). Sometimes, I do wish to ask, do you believe in Jesus/God? Not do you go to church, even. But if you don't believe in Jesus then what are you actually celebrating? And even if you say well, I'm spending time with my family and making a effort to be with certain people then i'd still say why? I think Christmas has become quite arbitrary to a lot of people.

Claire, I'm sure you're right. Probably if you asked people what Christmas is really about then a scary number of them would have no idea.

However, whether people believe in God or not, if they treat Christmas as some sort of time of Goodwill when families come together, people are forgiven and the hand of friendship is extended, then perhaps it's doing some good anyway?

on tuesday 25th december i was, as were all us truly religious believers, celebrating the winter soltice and the birth of the new sun. before this date was hijacked by the catholic church, it represented the conquering of light over darkness as the days finally began to get longer after the onset of winter. and isn't easter the celebration of the spring soltice, hence the fact the date changes every year, or could jesus never make up his mind when he was going to rise from the dead? my tongue is so firmly in my cheek at this moment it is threatening to explode out of the side of my face - yes, christmas has become the simple celebration of our increasing material wealth and the consuming of poultry products, and i for one have to say thank god for that

Claire wrote:But if you don't believe in Jesus then what are you actually celebrating? And even if you say well, I'm spending time with my family and making a effort to be with certain people then i'd still say why?

I'm celebrating my family. And why not? I quite like my family, and I get more time off to allow me to travel around now.

I'd agree that Christmas is fairly arbitrary for most people, in that they go through a routine simply because it's traditional without really questioning or understanding it, whether this involves religion, or seeing family that you don't really like but still invite anyway, or whatever.

Fez is correct in that there are actually an absolute load of pagan festivals that were celebrated around this time (Ishtar, Mithras, Sol Invictus/Winter Solstice were all celebrated on the 25th December, and also Yule). We could perhaps view it as a pagan/secular reclaiming of the date?

John also makes a good point in that, whether or not we're religious, if people make an effort to be nicer to each other at Christmas then at least some good has come out of it.

It amuses me that some of you are clearly in denial about the fact that we are - like it or not, adhere to it or not - products of a country whose culture is implicitly Christian. For example, you may well be celebrating your family Mr e but the fact is the date has been chosen for you and it does come back to the Christian festival. I would be interested if anyone could claim anything but an idealised connection with this country's Pagan past???

Christmas does coincide with the winter solstice for obvious symbolic reasons; however, what's said about Easter/ the vernal equinox is not accurate. Easter changes date every year (on a rotation of, i think, 11 years) while spring always begins on 21st/22nd march.

i am not denying the influence christianity but culture changes; christmas is becoming a non-religious public holiday

It is very interesting to hear all of your opinions. I think there are studies to show that the country as a whole is becoming more apathetic towards religion but we can not deny the past.

The Winter Solstice is the 20-23 December (and other solstices are on 20-23 of the month too) and new religions were very keen to promote similarities to current religions to convince people they were really celebrating the same things. The obvious example is the Roman gods being compared with English gods during their attempts to conquer these fair isles.

I realise I'm being pedantic but I'm a stickler...it's Solstice at Winter and Summer; it's Equinox at Spring and Autumn!

Fez wrote:christmas is becoming a non-religious public holiday

I would actually agree with you here, Fez, but my argument is that -in a sense - it is not longer Christmas. Maybe it'll go the way of Hallowe'en, which was a Pagan thing, then (and technically still is) became All Hallows Eve to Christians and is now just an excuse for frivolity and parties.

Hallowe'en, in name at least, still owes more to All Hallows Eve than it does to the pagan equivalent, Samhain. We could take the argument a step further and say that, like Hallowe'en, Christmas has already been secularised but that no-one's bothered to change the name yet. It did lead me to thinking: how many things that we associate with Christmas are specifically Christian in origin?

Claire: in terms of the date, I'm going to argue that even without it having been chosen for me by Christian tradition, I'd be celebrating something at a very similar date regardless of what religion my culture had (Eid-al-Adha for Muslims, Solstice for Wiccans/pagans, etc). This time of year has always had deep significance for every northern-hemisphere based culture. Christianity is a more modern religion/belief system, but happens to have arrived when our cultural and technological development really began to take off, hence I'll admit it's most likely had more influence on our culture. The really fun debate to be had is "would things be much different if we'd had another official religion?".

Randomly looked the Easter date thing up, and it's complicated stuff:
In Western Christianity, Easter always falls on a Sunday from March 22 to April 25 inclusive...The cycle of Easter dates repeats after exactly 5,700,000 years, with April 19 being the most common date, happening 220400 times, or 3.9%

Claire wrote:I realise I'm being pedantic but I'm a stickler...it's Solstice at Winter and Summer; it's Equinox at Spring and Autumn!

Indeed you are correct!

mr_e wrote:
Randomly looked the Easter date thing up, and it's complicated stuff:
In Western Christianity, Easter always falls on a Sunday from March 22 to April 25 inclusive...The cycle of Easter dates repeats after exactly 5,700,000 years, with April 19 being the most common date, happening 220400 times, or 3.9%

I thought it was quite technical but a little more simple than that. An RE teacher at school told us once. I'm sure it's worked out based on something to do with the first sunday after the first full moon after some other date in the Christian calendar. I will investigate.