Reply to Talking about Santa

Forum Index » Religion

Reply to "Talking about Santa"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We're Jewish and Santa comes to our house every year.  Santa is not really a Christian figure, just one appropriated by Christianity a long time ago, so we don't see any relationship between Santa and other religions.  I taught my child from an early age not to taunt other kids and to remember that not everyone celebrates holidays so it's best not to talk a lot about it at school.

It concerns me that OP thinks Santa is only for Christians, and makes sense that her kid might taunt other kids.  [/quote]
If your family enjoys the Santa tradition, I’m glad he visits you. Nobody else gets to dictate your household celebrations. However, your view on Santa is not widely shared. Santa is definitely associated with Christmas, and Christmas with Christianity.[/quote]

I disagree.  The majority of educated folks know that [b]Santa has nothing to do with Christianity[/b] and don't feel any obligation to be Christian while celebrating a secular Christmas.  Only Christians constantly whine about how everyone needs to put Jesus back into Christmas and how materialistic and secular it all is today, without realizing the irony of all of that being much older than Christianity itself.[/quote]
I mean, he's been pretty secularized, but it's just wrong to say he has "nothing" to do with Christianity.  Christmas is a Christian holiday, celebrating the birth of Christ.  Santa is based on a Christian saint.  Even if he's been turned into a secular cartoon, his origins are pretty clearly based in Christianity, and not everyone agrees that there are no religious aspects to either Santa or Christmas.  Not all Jews celebrate Christmas or "do" Santa, for example.  [/quote]

I'm guessing if non Jews started celebrating Hanukkah because 8 days of gifts is better than one some Jewish people would find that offensive. Choosing to celebrate one of the holiest days for a different faith because it's "secularized" even though the name of it has the name of their Savior IN the name of the holiday is a bit of appropriation. I'm an atheist but I can see why some Christians would not be happy with folks and yes I celebrate. I was raised a Christian and it is part of my family culture. Don't care what anyone else does but the inability of people to consider the other side of anything is disheartening. [/quote]

You have it the wrong way around.  Christmas traditions like trees, gifts, lights, and a guy on a flying sleigh who gives gifts to good children are all traditions that pre-date Christianity.  Many are part of the celebrations of pre-Christian religions.  They were deliberately and consciously appropriated by the Christian church, with a kind of "if you can't beat 'em, make them join you" mentality, as a way to combat what it saw as pagan tradition in a population it was actively trying to convert.  By not recognizing that appropriation, we simply take back what was always ours.[/quote]

Well, that’s pretty ahistorical, but if we went with your flawed logic….when were pagan traditions Jewish or celebrated by the population which became Jewish? We’re Santa and the Easter Bunny hanging out in the Land of Canaan? FFS. [/quote]

Ha, this. Pagan or whatever the origins may be, they indisputably aren’t Jewish, so to proclaim Jews should celebrate the non-religious aspects of Christmas misses the mark. [/quote]

The point is that the traditions themselves aren't Christian, so I guess by your logic Christians shouldn't celebrate with them either.  You all should just go to church and say some prayers or something.  Or,  you can myob and understand that people like to celebrate the things they celebrated growing up, whether it's Santa or a Purim carnival, or both.  It's normal and natural for holiday celebrations to be shared among people  living in the same communities - things get borrowed and make their way into a person's holiday tradition.  Christians don't get to have a monopoly on people's celebrations.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics