Myths about Christmas

As it’s the season of greetings, I thought I would greet everyone not with any particular season, but with a big Merry Christmas. I really love this time of year, as all sorts of wonderful, crazy, enjoyable, and ridiculous things happen, mainly because wonderful, crazy, enjoyable and ridiculous things happened last year and that’s just part of what we all do around Christmas time and the end of the year. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for Christmas traditions, family traditions, work traditions and even most cultural traditions, but because it’s that time of year, I have decided (and wanted to let all my fans know - yes both of you) that I am going to write a series of posts on a few of the traditions and myths that have grown up around Christmas. My posts and comments are not necessarily going to be theological or intellectual or even that original, they are just going to be a bit of a rant about some of the various myths that I have at some stage believed or myths that other people believe.

Now before you stop reading, don’t worry, this is not going to be an anti-shopping anti-commercialisation tirade, or a series of posts about finding the “true spirit of Christmas”, (whatever that is). Nor will it be a extreme anti-Santa crusade or in fact anti-Christmas anything, it will simply be a look at the Christmas story as taken from the bible and a comparison to some of the traditional (or not so traditional) claims about what Christmas is or should be.

It will assume some basic knowledge of the Christmas story, so for anyone interested, you can read about it here in the gospel of Matthew or here in the gospel of Luke. You don’t have to read these passages, but for Christians it will be a great reminder of what you believe, and for non-Christians a great reminder of what you don’t believe.

But regardless of whether this is the only post you read in this series, (or even if you’re not reading this at all), I just wanted to again wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a season of great greetings.