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My dad was married to a Jewish woman for 15 years. A dear friend of mine is part japanese and a budhist. I have friends that are pagan, born again christian, and atheist. I say HAPPY HOLIDAYS because I am not so arrogant as to think that the traditions I was raised with are the only ones. I guess you will have to stay out of my store because even though we have products that do say merry christmas, we also have things that say happy holidays and : gasp : season's greetings!! The HORROR!
P.S. According to biblical scholars, Jesus was either born in spring (that is when shepherds would have been in the fields tending their flocks, or calculated by dates mentioned, sometime in September. They do agree however, that he wasn't born in December.
"The early Christian church did not celebrate Jesus' birth.
It wasn't until A.D. 440 that the church officially proclaimed December 25 as the birth of Christ. This was not based on any religious evidence but on a pagan feast. Saturnalia was a tradition inherited by the Roman pagans from an earlier Babylonian priesthood. December 25 was used as a celebration of the birthday of the sun god. It was observed near the winter solstice.
The apostles in the Bible predicted that some Christians would adopt pagan beliefs to enable them to make their religion more palatable to the pagans around them. Therefore, some scholars think the church chose the date of this pagan celebration to interest them in Christianity. The pagans were already used to celebrating on this date.
The Bible itself tells us that December 25 is an unlikely date for His birth. Palestine is very cold in December. It was much too cold to ask everyone to travel to the city of their fathers to register for taxes. Also the shepherds were in the fields (Luke 2:8-12). Shepherds were not in the fields in the winter time. They are in the fields early in March until early October. This would place Jesus' birth in the spring or early fall. It is also known that Jesus lived for 33.5 years and died at the feast of the Passover, which is at Easter time. He must therefore have been born six months the other side of Easter - making the date around the September/October time frames.
Other evidence that December 25 is the wrong date for the birth of Jesus comes from early writings. Iranaeus, born about a century after Jesus, notes that Jesus was born in the 41st year of the reign of Augustus. Since Augustus began his reign in the autumn of 43 B.C., this appears to substantiate the birth of Jesus as the autumn of 2 B.C. Eusebius (A.D. 264-340), the "Father of Church History," ascribes it to the 42nd year of the reign of Augustus and the 28th from the subjection of Egypt on the death of Anthony and Cleopatra. The 42nd year of Augustus ran from the autumn of 2 B.C. to the autumn of 1 B.C. The subjugation of Egypt into the Roman Empire occurred in the autumn of 30 B.C. The 28th year extended from the autumn of 3 B.C. to the autumn of 2 B.C. The only date that would meet both of these constraints would be the autumn of 2 B.C."
http://www.allaboutjesuschrist.org/was-jesus-born-on-december-25-faq.htm
PAGANS are the reason for the season
See..i knew i was right.
As EweSheep pointed out many of the traditions associated with a "christian" christmas are actually warmed over pagan traditions. Christmas trees, holy, mistletoe, gift exchanging, parties this time of year, etc... all predate christianity.
