HALLOWEEN
Sometimes depending upon how it is viewed, the same thing can be seen as either Satanic or godly. Take Halloween, which came from All Hallows (Holy Ones/Saints) Evening when parents had their kids dress as saints to encourage them to be good. The normally harmless Halloween pranks came from Ireland maybe taken from pagans, although this is no different than Christians using wedding rings, names of days and months, and Christian names in the Bible such Apollos and Jason, which also all came from pagans.
So some people say that Halloween, which as with many other holidays attacked and replaced paganisms with Christianity, is okay while others call it a "compromise" or "Satanic" since people now sometimes wear costumes for devils or witches etc. Regardless, Colossians 2:16 says let none judge you about a holiday or Sabbath. Christians observing Halloween in good conscience should not condemn those who don't; both need to allow freedom of conscience as Romans 14 counsels. Some not observing it substitute a Hallelujah Night as fun for their kids. Joy is a fruitage of God's Spirit. (Ga 5:22)
THANKSGIVING IS BIBLICAL AND INTERNATIONAL
Today Thanksgiving is celebrated in the Philippines, Liberia, Canada, Guam, South Korea, some of the Caribbean region etc, and there were also days of thanks throughout Germanic and Slavic speaking nations.
God began the annual autumn harvest Festival of Booths or Festival of Ingathering for Israel’s tribes. (Lev 23:33, Deu 16:13) The New Testament shows the giving of thanks as when Paul says many gave thanks to God for having saved his life. (I Cor 1:11) Pilgrim colonists in America later gave thanks for survival and bounty.
The various British colonies in what is now the U.S. had Thanksgiving, George Washington made it into a national holiday and it was not regularly celebrated in the U.S. until Abraham Lincoln. How strange then that some falsely claim Thanksgiving has no biblical basis or is a nationalistic holiday for the U.S. alone!
WHY DECEMBER 25 IS THE DATE CELEBRATED
Joseph and Mary traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem in winter not unlikely via the Jordan Valley because roads across it were less rugged and at 689 to 1,306 feet below sea level it protected them from cold weather in December although even during that month the land is not terribly cold and snow unlikely because of the warming current of the Mediterranean. The tax census was also likely in winter because then the people’s work had slowed since it was largely based on agriculture which had a lull during winter. Sheep wear a natural blanket of wool keeping them so warm they can walk about even in rare snowfall.
In the winter shepherds brought any flocks in the colder mountains down to where coldness or snow had not decimated the grass as much closer to their own homes where boys and men could care for them in field. We also know shepherds worked in fields in cold weather because Jacob complained to Laban that he had had to suffer from frost as a shepherd at night (Gen. 31:40). Further some shepherds may have been too poor to even have homes so naturally were outdoors, an interesting contrast of poor people (shepherds) joined with wealthy people (the magi) at Christ’s birth.
Justin Martyr (100-165 A.D.) wrote Marcus Aurelius that Jesus was born at Bethlehem ''as you can ascertain also from the registers of the taxing" (Apologia I, 34). Tertullian (160-250) noted "the census of Augustus-that most faithful witness of the Lord's nativity, kept in the archives of Rome" (Against Marcion, Bk. 4, 7). Cyril of Jerusalem (348-386) asked Julius to assign Christ's birthdate "from census documents brought by Titus to Rome," after which Julius assigned December 25th. John Chrysostom (c. 347-407) wrote that Christ’s December 25 date of birth was supported by the tax or census records still existing even in his day but not now known to exist which showed their registration at Bethlehem.
Besides the above evidence which strongly backs the birth of Christ in winter, consider these points. Interestingly the first Jewish Hannukah had also been on December 25 hundreds of years before Christ though varying since as lunar-based. If proponents for the birth being in early October were correct, still his conception or birth within Mary was nine months before October which means late December.
WHY SANTA CLAUS IS CHRISTIAN
It is recorded history not fiction although it may sound like it, that about 200 AD Christians who had prayed in a little church at seaside Myra, Turkey for their next bishop, selected a newcomer off a ship who was named Nicholas, then gave him a long red robe and cane or miter indicating that he was their choice.
Nicholas was concerned that poor girls at Myra did not have enough money to pay as a dowry to marry, so were often sold into slavery or prostitution. Since his wealthy family sometimes sent gold to him, he began to quietly at night go to their homes. He dropped bags of gold through windows to by the chimneys where the girls dried clothing so in the mornings they found it for their dowries.
People did not know who the gift-giver was until Nicholas was dying. Then somebody told people they had seen him. More European Christians felt inspired to give gifts. “St. Nicholas” became Sinter Klass in Dutch and Santa Claus in English. One reason Christmas is in December may be that Nicholas was born then, plus some believe Christ was actually born about Oct 1, which would mean Mary conceived 9 months previously about or on December 25.
So when someone claims Santa came from legends of wizards, goblins or an Oriental god who came down chimneys, tell them the real truth.
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