Did you know that William Bradford of the Plymouth Plantation made all the Puritans work on Christmas day in the 1620s? They considered it a totally pagan holiday. (Click here for a straightforward account of it.)
We are extremely glad the Messiah was born—we just choose to remember that at the time of year when it happened (i.e., in the late fall—at the time of Sukkot, which is likely the origin of the Thanksgiving holiday in North America). We dislike what the Christmas holiday has become: a consuming focus on want, want, want and obligations to give to meet those perceived needs. It makes scores of people super depressed. It centers on everything they don’t have.
‘Tis a far cry from sitting in a chair and worshiping Him in spirit and in truth—feeding on Him, meditating on some nurturing portion of scripture, and being caught up to the heavens with satisfaction in Him.
For the past several decades we as a family have occupied ourselves with some delightful project that day and been happy as clams. I get to sew. And we all sit around the table and do our projects right next to each other, and hug each other lots. We love being with one another, producing. On some years we have met up with our materialistic relatives and neighbors later in the day. They usually have long faces and are depressed, because they spent the morning tearing through presents and then sat on their couches depressed—because things can never satisfy. Things are like leeches saying more, more, more.
I did the same thing when I taught school—worked my little ones ‘til the day and the hour school closed—and because they were producing, they were the happiest kids in school. The others walked around with sugar in their guts, aimlessness, and depression.
Blessings on alternative plans, to fight off the ways of our increasingly pagan world. For further info on this, you can download our 49-cent eBook, Why We Got Off the Christmas Bandwagon. For even more, order our new 106-page softcover book that explains the Biblical holy days vs. the pagan holidays.
