CHRISTMAS

Well, there's caps in the English.. Darn you, auto carrot!!

That’s awesome. This hasn’t been my experience though.

You know who gets the most upset when I teach against Santa? Other Christians. Don’t mess with their dear Santa. They can hear profanity and the Lords name taken in vain and don’t blat an eye, but as soo as you speak out against Santa...rockets red glare and bombs bursting in air.

As believers, we celebrate Jesus’s birth, life, death, and resurrection every day.

My family gets together on Christmas Eve. We have a nice meal, we maybe watch a movie. Before openings presents (we do this on Eve because I live 2 hours away and we go home the same night), we pray together and worship. We also laugh so much together when we open presents

Christmas Day is a lazy day for my home. We lounge around. Since getting married, we started a new tradition and go to a Chinese buffet for either lunch or dinner. We got the idea from A Christmas Story lol!

I celebrate anything that gets pharisaic legalists in a twist. Christmas is the apex.

This is about idol making. Gold and silver plating the wooden image.

Except a tree is not a graven image. Graven images are created, not grown naturally as a tree is..

What ever you do honor God with it. Keep Christ the center of your celebration and enjoy.
I personally am not a fan of Christmas but it's the secular way that it is foisted upon us commercialized and industrialzed and made demand of. Not that I mind buying gifts, it's just so over done and expectations are created, and demanded of us. I like simple and loving celebrations.
And I loath the songs are the people who wrote this crap infantile sociopaths or what. There is maybe three of four Christmas song that are tolerable, but the worst offender ever is the little drummer boy, I mean come on you wrote a song about a drummer boy playing his drum for the Lord, but did not include any drumming at all in the song. It seems as though having an actual drum in the drummer song would be reasonable, but no, not one drum. In fact they make a pathetic attempt at simulating drums vocally. It kind of embodies the whole phony facade that American cultural Christmas is.

Ok rant over.

Except read the scripture and see this sentence in it, "and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel." And now you see that it is a graven image because Craftsmen shape it with a chisel.

3Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth - Romans 14:3

Just replace 'eateth' with whatever disputable custom or observance you want, but the point is clear that we need to let people be governed by their own conscience without despising or judging them.

When he said pharisaic, he was referring to those who go about imposing their views in others, not those not observing for conscience sake.

That is the warning sign.
Idols are crafted and formed by men.

Which makes me think...
What false god,specifically, did the creation of Christmas honor?
Serious question.

False gods are created by men, so they create nothing.
There is only one God, so commit your deeds to him.

Romans 14:5 One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind.

Just do with Christmas what you want to do, and don't try to force your opinion of the matter on other believers. They answer to God, not to you.

Fair enough, but so many Christians automatically call another believer's conviction to do something, or not to do something that they don't agree with 'legalistic'.

I can think of at least two uses of the word 'legalism' in the Bible.
1) Trying to earn salvation through 'legalistic' works, and
2) doing something in a 'legalistic' way that removes the original intent or meaning of what that something was supposed to accomplish.

Does Christmas fall into either of those categories?
With all due respect, I don't see the Christmas non-observant believer refraining for either of those reasons. But maybe somebody can show me otherwise.

Yes, we know false gods are created in the imaginations of men. But what imaginary god was the idol of Christmas, with all it's trappings, created for? Just curious.

We do Christmas.
In fact when our kids were younger we used sing happy Birthday to Jesus with a birthday cake and candles.

Though never mention Santa in front of my wife.
If you do, you better run for cover.

Or should I say 'wrappings'.

(Yes, I laugh at my own jokes.)

I guess we know if your wife was a pilgrim which ship she wouldn't have been on.

No disrespect, but I don't know nor do I care. They aren't real nothing within the celebration is inherently sinful (stealing, killing, destroying, or sexually immoral) So just as Paul spoke of eating meat it's nothing to me so I eat giving thanks to God, and I celebrate giving thanks to God.
But here is a video for you that may help with your question.