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Do you celebrate Christmas?
Hi guys!
I was recently talking to our university's Buddhist pastor. He said that the best part, for him, of becoming a Zen priest was that he gained a bulletproof alibi for not celebrating Christmas.
I'm spending the season with my parents, sister and young nieces and nephews. Even if I became a Zen Buddhist priest they'd never let me opt out of Christmas festivities!
I'm quite looking forward to their visit though, I'm even hoping we revive our family tradition of attending midnight Mass (my sister thinks the baby's too young for us to do it this year).
So, what about everyone else? Are you embracing or avoiding this holiday, and why?
I was recently talking to our university's Buddhist pastor. He said that the best part, for him, of becoming a Zen priest was that he gained a bulletproof alibi for not celebrating Christmas.
I'm spending the season with my parents, sister and young nieces and nephews. Even if I became a Zen Buddhist priest they'd never let me opt out of Christmas festivities!
I'm quite looking forward to their visit though, I'm even hoping we revive our family tradition of attending midnight Mass (my sister thinks the baby's too young for us to do it this year).
So, what about everyone else? Are you embracing or avoiding this holiday, and why?
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I don't know why I felt like going this year. I haven't felt like attending midnight Mass in years but I was recalling the times we used to go when I was little. We used to attend St. Patrick's Cathedral in Montreal and it was a wonderful church. I remember it being so big, but warm with all the dark wood everywhere and the lovely incense. It also had a most beautiful life sized pieta sculpture that I would marvel over which seems a bit ghoulish to me now but was completely normal to me when I was young. Regular Sunday Mass was in Latin which I loved because I had to follow the mass by tone rather than word which was challenging and I always loved how cosy it felt to be the littlest family member snuggled up between my mum and dad or one of my siblings. When the collection plate would come around my mother would let me put her money in it as well as my own. Of course at Christmas it was doubly magical with all the coloured lights and pine and cedar boughs and to top it off it was at midnight! When I was a kid there was nothing greater than being able to stay up past midnight on Christmas eve.
But the church where my parents and sister go now has 'midnight Mass' at 7pm for some strange reason. Maybe the congregation is older or something. But it loses an important element when it's held at that hour, if you ask me.
As for Christmas in general, I haven't really celebrated it in the last few years, especially since I found Buddhism. But for some reason, I'm feeling very Christmassy this year. There's plenty of snow on the ground so it feels like Christmas. I'm also much closer to my oldest sister now than I've ever been and she's crazy about Christmas. I got her some small gifts at this great fair trade store so she'd have a lot of presents to open (she's very childlike
On the day itself my folks are going over to my nephew's house for Christmas dinner and they'll bring me back some turkey. I won't be going because it's a bit of a trek and I wouldn't be able to sit for very long and it's a major hassle and I don't want to have to cut short their celebration if my back goes out. I'd much rather spend a nice, quiet day at home. My folks and I will be having a proper Eggs Benedict brunch at some point over the holidays as is our tradition. It's still one of my favourite meals and my dad makes a mean hollondaise. I like it lemony and I serve myself last so I can add more lemon juice to it.
I have no problem celebrating Jesus' birthday. I love him and what he taught very much. I don't feel like I have to believe in his divinity to be able to be happy that he was born. I can think of a lot worse excuses to have Eggs Benedict.
It's a bit tricky with our household as my husband is an atheist / agnostic and loathes all the commercial Christmas from September business and I usually celebrate the Winter Solstice (Yule).
So this year, especially as I have something to celebrate (being home and getting over my operation and generally a whole heap better than I was a year ago) we are doing Yule tomorrow, possibly Christmas and definitely New Year.
We're having a lovely feast and I'll do the Winter Solstice ritual of bringing back the light, just the two of us - at least my husband doesn't mind joining in the feasting!
If there is a spirit of Christmas about, he's given me and my household a miss this year.
I have as yet still done no Christmas shopping of any kind.
I've managed to send two cards out so far, and Festive don't even figure.
I worked my socks off today. Our store took just over £5,000 today.
Yup. You heard right.
It was me, my boss, and - Nick. He stepped into the breach, and was an absolute star.
I called him in on an emergency plea because our regular third arm was off sick. His GF rang us this morning at 09.20 to tell us his head was down the pan, and likely to stay there for the day's duration.
Something he ate...
Something he drank, more like......
He had a pal over last night. Hadn't seen him for years, and had a reputation for going on benders....
He told me that last night, before going home from work, right as rain, fit as a fiddle and all set to be in bright and early today. Humph!
Not something he should have let out of the bag, because now, naturally, we're suspicious..... :rolleyes:
Five grand.
That's a little under what I make in 3 months.
All in one day.
No wonder I'm pooped.
The shop is virtually bare. The shelves are looking barren.
Great stuff!!
Same stint tomorrow!
And Monday.
And Tuesday.
And Wednesday.
That's if we've got anything left over.....
We have been invited by some friends to spend Christmas with them, so we've decided to take them up on their offer.
But Nick and I have agreed that with the time completely lacking to do any shopping at all before we go, we're going to do our Christmas after Christmas. When everyone is full to the Gunnels, we're going to push the boat out.
I keep telling myself that as a Buddhist, I don't really celebrate Christmas, but 40+ odd years of Roman Catholicism are kinda hard to shake off.
But there is something I find more important. As Ebeneezer Scrooge was shown, it is important to keep Christmas in your heart all year long. I shoot for that more than on one day a year. I have a little exercise that I do when I'm downtown and have to pay to park. If I see someone's meter with less than 5 minutes left, I'll drop more in. They will never know who did it and may not get a ticket. I will never know their response, except it brings a smile to my face to do so. It can be fun trying to find ways to be kind to others, and even better if they don't know that you did it.
I celebrate being kind everyday that I can.
And does it really matter when you do it? No - any celebration of love and family and light ... any time is good.
Palzang
For those of us who live in or are descended from people of the North, this time of year must have been scary to the pre-scientific. All-Father Odin brings gifts and, tenacious as only and archetype can be, morphs in Saint Nicholas of Smyrna and then into his various manifestations of generosity and hope. So what's not to celebrate?
Just because we think we know that the days will get longer again, that the sun is 'only' a star and will continue on its journey from aphelion to perihelion and back again, there lurks an atavistic fear. Why else would people stock up as if for a siege? The darkness is out there, waiting to swallow the sun. But, by the 25th, we can just begin to see that the sun is "reborn": Mithras has come into the world; a baby is born in a cave/shed, affirming that the universe is, in Einstein's words, a friendly place.
The four marking moments of the year, the equinoxes and solstices are enormously important to the human psyche. We don't have to be 'pagans' to recognise it. 35 years of practice as a counsellor showed me that, at these special times, psycho-emotional symptoms are magnified.
It does rather piss me off that the Puritans of every persuasion, be they Christian, Buddhist, atheist or just miserable, want to squash the Christmas stories, strip off the glitter and the layers of meaning. Two here have mentioned the architect of modern Christmas iconography: Charles Dickens. Do you remember that Scrooge complains about giving Bob the whole day off? The attitude of the Marketplace which would lead, iof followed, to Tiny Tim's early death. But Dickens believed in liberation, 'redemption' and transformation. So do I.
That's why I celoebrate Christmas.
P.S. Palzang-la: I am so glad you love Scrooge with Alastair Sim. Glyn Dearman (see pic), who plays Tiny Tim, and I were playmates at the time and I spent happy hours on the set wityh him. Mr Sim was a wonderful, funny man as well as a perfect Scrooge.
But I've just got to ask - who in the heck is/was St. Mungo?! Is that a real name? I'm picturing St. Mungo, patron saint of fungus infections...
Palzang
Saint Mungo (or Kentigern) was a bishop and evangeliser of Scotland in the 6th century. 'Mungo' means 'dear one' or 'darling'.
The St Mungo's Trust, in London, delivers soup, bread and blankets to street people.
Ditto, on every note.
Les
Brilliantly captured Simon. Trolleys groaning under the weight, fridges stuffed full. Who knows, better to be prepared in case Fenris-wolf catches the sun this time round. If it's Ragnarok, then at least I've got one last pizza before Surt sets the world in flame.
I should have been at Stonehenge this mid winter.
Thanks, but then who is going to take care of all the fungal infections? :buck:
Palzang
Palzang
Last year was the first Christmas I celebrated that was completely calm. My partners' nieces and nephews were horsing around and enjoying themselves. We adults chatted about everything under the sun and it felt like home. It was the best gift I had ever gotten. The presence of people is much greater than the presents given.
So again
Merry Christmas
Happy Kwaanza
Happy Chaunnukah
Blessed Winter Solstice
Happy Human Light day (Agnostics, Free Thinkers & Rationalists)
Happy Thursday if none apply to you.
That's why healthcare does not get a day off. Some emergency room staff will have to attend to it as needed. It makes me want to wash my hands just thinking about it.
May you have many, many more happy Christmases, and May Buddha Bless Us, Every One!
Palzang
And thank you all for this wonderful thread.... this is heartwarming.....
Some 2000 people were at the Giants' Dance this Winter Solstice:
Stonehenge on YouTube 21 December 2008
Glyn passed from this life ten years ago, at Christmas 1998. He fell down stairs and broke his neck. It was somewhat ironic because he was terrified of lifts ever since another of our playmates had died in a horrific accident in a lift when we were 5 or 6. I still miss him and wish that we hadf managed to spend more time together in those last years. There always seems to be more time, doesn't there?
He was a very skilled radio producer, particularly of drama.
Christians are specifically called on to visit and support prisoners, although all-too-few do so directly. Not all of us can be Elizabeth Fry but we can all do something for those whom we (as members of our society) have pent up for years or for the rest of their lives. We have a direct responsibility for them and the PDN does a bit towards making their lives more bearable in a system which dehumanises and degrades.
Prison Dharma Network
Another site worth visiting is:
http://naljorprisondharmaservice.org/
I volunteered my services and taught for a while in a maximum security prison. Taught computer skills to the inmates, so that they may have a useful and necessary skill when they got out.
Some years later, in a store, I was approached by a young man, who said he was one of the inmates I had taught, and those skills had allowed him to get a job, and now he was managing this store.
If I only helped that one...
Sorry to hear that. Birth, old age, sickness and death are a bitch. Better to just get out of the mess altogether!
Palzang
I wait at this time of year to be given a good cause - it will never be a charity to donate to or a service to volunteer, it will be something much more personal - a family that are facing destitution just over the road, someone I know on line who is not going to be able to buy their children a present .... something I can wade into on a personal basis and do my bit.