by Golden Girl 4 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
I saw a statement about the first state to officially celebrate Christmas so I looked it up to be sure...
First state to OFFICIALLY celebrate Cristmas was Alabama in 1836.
Last state to Officially recognize Christmas was Oklahoma in 1907.
Didn't take long to catch on did it?
Snoozy..
So in the USA was it everywhere illegal to celebrate Xmas before 1836? That's surprising.
Not illegal, greendawn, just not "done." You have to remember who the first settlers were here, they were puritans. They were adamantly against catholicism and anything that smacked of it or paganism. They thought catholic religion was rife with pagan symbolism (well so they were right) and so they preached against that type of religion.
Right up to the time that Jack Kennedy was voted in in the 1960s there were a lot of people that wondered if a catholic could ever be president here.
So, yes, in this country it is a relatively new thing to "recognize" christmas and give it any form of legitimacy.
Now the puritans are taking back over again!
Sherry
Well, christmas sucks anyway, the JWs got it right there. Placing a damn tree in the livingroom, and the (what`s the english word, the green spiky things) just fall off all over the floor. And all that greasy food, which I don`t like. In my country we have all these weird food-traditions at christmas, like "pinnekjøtt" ("stickmeat"), which basically is salted rib from a sheep, and then there`s "lutefisk", which is a half-rotten, prepared in a very mystical way, fish, and it just tastes horrible. And then there`s spending a ton of money on presents, and in return, you only get crap. Because you make an agreement with the people in your family (or well, in my case, the woman I live withs family) about a certain price range for the presents, not to expensive. So everyone get`s a present that`s not to expensive, and I don`t need a lot of cheap, unnecessary stuff which will just be put in the attic anyway, what I need is a new guitar amp, and those things are really,really expensive (cause I want a big Marshall-amp), so I need to save my money, and not waste it on a whole lot of crap to wrap up as presents for my womans family at christmas, and I certainly don`t need to get a whole lot of crap in return, like ties (which I never use), socks, etc. And so my kid, he has a ball (he went just nuts on christmas eve, when we opened the presents) gets a whole bunch of toys, although he has a ton allready (does he really need another remote-control car, he has two allready!?) - and he`s getting spoiled, and the last thing I want is a spoiled brat for my son. Christmas just sucks!
Awwwww... somebody's getting grouchy about XMas.... lol
Well you've made a fair point about the spending craze on such a holiday, Hellrider. It's not fun to spend extreme amounts of money to please so many people. But I disagree that we should bolster the WTS's arguments against XMAS.
One should remember that not everybody's XMas is necessarily plagued by commercialism. This fact the WTS very very conveniently ignores in their most recent Christmas-slamming Watchtower. I think there was also a mention in the same Watchtower how these XMas get-togethers often see fierce family arguments. Another desperate attempt to make non-celebrants feel better.
INQ
