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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]As a history PhD who taught in many colleges and universities over the years, it saddens me to see how many people here don't have any understanding of how folk beliefs like Santa come to be.  The folks (including me in some cases) posting about ancient gods with flying reindeer are trying to show what any person with a college education should know - that holiday celebrations and folk beliefs evolve over time and absorb bits and pieces of many past  traditions.  The roots of Santa are ancient.  No one said the Slavic sun goddess was the original Santa - what a sad lack of reading comprehension on the part of the PP who claimed that.  It was one of many examples given of Santa features that pre-date Christianity itself, thus clearly showing (or it should be clear, anyway) that Santa as we know him is not wholly, or even mostly, derived from Christian texts or a saint.

I can't even remember the original point of this thread, but I think it had to do with non-Christians celebrating Christmas, Christians popping up to claim they basically have a monopoly on Christmas and that it's disrespectful for others to celebrate it, and then people trying to show that the most popular Christmas traditions aren't rooted in Christianity in the first place.

But unfortunately, as usual on dcum, ignorance reigns supreme and many posters are either trolling or just incapable of understanding history.  How sad for those of us who have spent out lives trying to teach it.[/quote]

I don't think any Christian objects to non-Christian celebrating Christmas. Most religions are excited to have others recognize and accept their traditions. There are a small group of strange people that suggesting that anyone celebrating Christmas is giving Christianity some sort of legitimacy or ownership of the holiday. At this point, Christmas isn't really owned by any religion. This is America, celebrate or don't celebrate.[/quote]

I'm not sure if some posts have been deleted earlier on, but of course no one wants to read 15 pages of comments anyway.  There were some people implying that it's a Christian holiday, [b]with various reasons why others shouldn't celebrate it[/b], and a lot of the posts were a reaction to that, and it just kind of took off from there.  One hopes those ideas aren't widespread, but seeing someone say something like that - that I shouldn't celebrate a holiday that I love so much and that my children love so much - just because I am not Christian, kind of made me see red and led to a lot of posts on my part to prove otherwise, even knowing I was probably being trolled.  [/quote]

This never happened. If you’re going to make claims, you do need to back them up. [/quote]

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