ABOUT THE 25TH OF DECEMBER

When we first started looking at the whole Christmas thing we went back to
the very beginning and found that actually it STARTED out being pagan, so
not surprising that it's been taken back by the pagans!

What we have found out is that some pagans had some sort of terrible festival
on the 25th of December, so the Catholic church came along and more or less
said "let's claim this date for our own, and tidy it up a bit, and pretend
it's a Christian thing."

Then they said "We know! Let's say that the 25th of December is the day we
celebrate Jesus' birth!"

If they had said "Let's call the 25th of December JACOB DAY or ISSAC MASS or JOHN THE BAPTIST DAY" (or something else) then people MAY have said "God has not said we should
celebrate this day - why are you creating this day?"

We don't know what real Bible-believing, God seeking Christians said back in those days, but the 25th of December turned out to be a real success (especially
amongst those SELLING things!!!!) and was taken up by most people.

Even to the extent that they ignored this warning from God:

"For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not."

Jeremiah 10:3 and 4

When we read this we looked at each other in surprise and wondered HOW we
could have missed it before!

I think the whole "The Real Reason For the Season" and "Let's give Christmas
back to Jesus" sort of thing is a smoke-screen really - it makes people feel
cross with The World for making Christmas so commercial and frenzied and
Santa orientated, and people don't see that the whole 25th of December
started out pagan, and then was created/changed by the Catholics who are a
very dangerous cult (we have just finished reading a historical fiction about John Wycliffe who was a man brave enough to teach God's pure, undefiled word in the face of persecution from the very powerful Roman Catholic church).

There are actually many reasons we were happy to stop being involved in
Christmas - one was the stress of presents, another was the children getting
too many things at once and having an appetite for more and more ... the
biggest one for me was because I was so excited by the lead-up to Christmas,
always have been ... and then on Christmas afternoon I feel very low, like
it's all over for another year and what's the point of even going on.
Well, not quite that depressed, but because I'd been so excited then I would
tend to fall rather flat and find it very hard to get going again.

We haven't had any celebration on the 25th of December for several years now.

This year we have made a count-down calendar marking off the days until
Daddy's holiday starts. He is home for three weeks (and has a list of jobs
to do which is about six weeks long!!!!).

We really feel that God does not want our family to celebrate Christmas, so
that is the bottom line. We ask God for His direction, His guidance and His
wisdom which is going to be FAR superior to our own wisdom! And we want to
obey his direction and live in the peace of his guidance.

Blessings
The Mummalady