How do you refer to this season?

I thought Roman X's were 10? How would they tell the difference?

X is ten as a Roman numeral, but there's probably a letter X that was written with a different shape. Maybe the lines were more curved or something.

I've never heard where the X in Xmas came from before. Interesting stuff... those early Christians certainly had a lot of ways to represent their faith that have fallen out of use.

I say merry christmas or happy christmas when it is christmas season. That's the way i've always done it.

Secret_Surfer wrote:

Actually, though, in a manner of speaking that may be correct about Jesus not being born on Christmas, because, there was no Christmas day until a very special event happened and caused it to exist in the first place. That event was the birth of Jesus "Christ". "Christmas" did not exist until the day/night Jesus was born, thus "Christ" and "Mass" (a celebration) = "Christmas". The First Christmas ever. Jesus was not born on Christmas - Christmas was born because of Jesus' birth.

This is not necessarily true. Christian leaders wanted more members, so they converted celebrations of other Pagan religions (like the Roman Festival of the sun) into Christian holidays, and in this case, Christmas.

The star on the tree? Christians say that it's the star that shined when Jesus was born, but think about the Roman festival of the sun (the sun would make a good star, yeah?). They'd exchange gifts on this particular day. Also takes place on December 25th. Hmm...

Christmas trees? I don't think there's any explantion for this, other than Santa Claus wanting to make them pretty (and what does Santa have to do with Jesus?). But there were pagans who worshipped trees, so they included them in their holiday!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas
Wikipedia is your friend! I'd rather be educated about these things, rather than believe what most people in society are told. When it comes to these things, there's usually more to it, y'know?

Where did santa come from? St. Nick was who?

There was an actual guy called Nicholas who was supposedly generous at giving gifts. He was made a saint, hence St. Nick. His legend has evolved and changed a lot over the years, picking up many new elements and eventually becoming what we know as Santa Claus today.

Tsunami wrote:

Christian leaders wanted more members, so they converted celebrations of other Pagan religions (like the Roman Festival of the sun) into Christian holidays, and in this case, Christmas.

This is not necessarily true either. However you look at it though, the word "Christmas" comes from "Christ" and "Mass", so that would seem to be quite clear that the word and the celebration day were indeed firstly related to Christ (Jesus Christ), no matter what else was added along the way or through the years.

Tsunami wrote:

The star on the tree? Christians say that it's the star that shined when Jesus was born, but think about the Roman festival of the sun (the sun would make a good star, yeah?). They'd exchange gifts on this particular day. Also takes place on December 25th. Hmm...

Actually, the Star is said to have been the sign that told the Wise Men, or Magi, of the birth of Jesus and then it led them as they followed it to Bethlehem where Jesus was. The Roman festival of the sun is interesting and intriguing on its own merits. However, they would seem to be two different events.

Tsunami wrote:

Christmas trees? I don't think there's any explantion for this, other than Santa Claus wanting to make them pretty (and what does Santa have to do with Jesus?). But there were pagans who worshipped trees, so they included them in their holiday!

First, there is a very good explanation of why there are Christmas Trees. The tree has long been celebrated as a "symbol of life". What better way to celebrate life than on someone's birthday!

As for Santa, I think Thoul ellaborated a little in his post above regarding the beginnings of Santa, also known as Saint Nicholas, or Father Christmas, etc. Santa brings gifts to everyone. The gifts given at Christmas (by Santa or Santa wantabees ) are a symbol of the gifts the Wise Men gave to baby Jesus.

Tsunami wrote:

Wikipedia is your friend! I'd rather be educated about these things, rather than believe what most people in society are told. When it comes to these things, there's usually more to it, y'know?

I like Wikipedia to some extent. It seems to be a nice and very informative place. However, if I understand it correctly, a lot of the information there comes from various contributing sources and may or may not be totally correct all the time and possibly open to questions or discussion even then. I do agree there is usually more to be found or considered on any subject and One might be wise to also consider other possible sources of information, viewpoints, and ideas when seeking help or meanings regarding any topics.

At school we're taught to never go on wikipedia, if we use it to help us on a project we automatically get a 0. Their reasoning is anyone can go onto wikipedia and change the information. You don't have to be a member, you can't be banned, and anyone can make it completely untrue. And even though they have the checking thing where you can recorrect it, whoever knows whats really the truth isn't going to go searching for it, because they already know about it. So I haven't actually used wiki in a LONG time. XD

SparkyIII wrote:

At school we're taught to never go on wikipedia.

Same thing to me too although my teacher never said why we can't use it.

A lot of schools have that stance due to the open nature of Wikipedia. Unfortunately the good thing about allowing anyone to edit the information is that they don't restrict or check the edits before publishing them.

It is possible to be banned from Wikipedia. The first (and only) time I tried to edit an article there, I found that my IP address was already banned. I decided after that to never try again; it isn't worth my time if they're going to ban people that have never edited the site before.