We Criticize Halloween, But Christmas Gets a Pass.
I believe that there is nothing more confusing than a Christian who doesn’t believe in her child participating in Halloween activities, but thinks it’s fine for her child to participate in Christmas activities.
The sad part is that both holidays are based on Pagan rituals.
Until recently, most Christians have not questioned the traditional celebration of Halloween. The Druids honored Samhain, the “lord of the dead”, and his demons; on November 1st. Halloween actually means “holy or hallowed evening.”
According to the Roman calendar in which days began at midnight, the evening of October 31st was the eve before the hallowed day; hence Halloween or All Soul’s Eve was kept throughout the ancient Pagan world. All Hallows Eve, because it is the day before All Hallows’ or All Saints’ Day, was a holy day in the Roman Catholic Church, Episcopal Church, the Church of England and the Greek Orthodox Church. This festival honors all martyrs, known and unknown, who have died for the church. During the time of Constantine, these two holidays were merged in an attempt to Christianize the heathen. The church could not prevent these heathen practices, so they thought “taming’” them would be the answer. They were, of course, not to worship their gods on the church’s “All Saint’s day.” However, as it is with all compromises, soon the evil overrode the good, and hence we still honor these heathen practices by celebrating Halloween.
Having a Christmas tree is the celebration of a Pagan tradition started by the Druids thousands of years ago as a means of recognizing Noah’s great-grandson Nimrod. Numerous references to this can be found throughout the Old Testament (I Kings 14:23; II Kings 16:2-4; 17:10; II Chronicles 28:4; Jeremiah 2:20; 3:6,13; 10:1-5; Ezekiel 6:13).]
Personally, I have no problems with a parent who doesn’t want his or her child to celebrate Halloween, Easter, or whatever holiday they feel is inappropriate. But let’s not confuse the children. If you want to be consistent, don’t shun one Pagan holiday while celebrating another. That’s hypocritical in my mind.
October 26th, 2004 at 8:54 pm
Christmas is Jesus Christ’s Birthday. The presents are given to represent the gifts brought by the wise men. To compare Halloween and Christmas is plain dumb. I know the tree started with a pagan ritual, but most children are taught the real reason for the season.
October 26th, 2004 at 9:07 pm
If you have no problem with parents that dont want their children to celebrate holidays, then you shouldnt care which holidays I choose to celebrate.
I grew up knowing what Christmas and Easter meant to me as a Christian. I learned that Halloween was about me getting candy. I did eventually stop “celebrating” Halloween (Untill my child is born). But I will never stop celebrating “Christ”mas or Easter, and I will proudly teach my child what they mean.
October 26th, 2004 at 10:30 pm
I think all nytcrwlr70 was saying, is that we need to be consistent. He’s saying (if I read correctly) that we need to omitt the whole Tree thing from Christmas. I don’t know; perhaps he’ll post a comment about it.
Christmas did start as a pagan holiday. The Catholic church “made it their own” by adopting the Tree, and….other things……
anyway… blah. zzz
October 26th, 2004 at 11:18 pm
Christmas didnt start out as a pagan holiday. How can you believe that when it is Jesus’ birthday. If I am not wrong, isnt his birth the start of the holiday.
I already said the tree was pagan, the Catholics adopted the tree to get pagans in church. This doesnt tarnish the entire holiday.
I will be consistent when raising my child. I will consistently teach my child the christian lifestyle which includes the Nativity scene on christmas.
October 27th, 2004 at 6:50 am
I don’t think it tarnishes the holiday.
October 27th, 2004 at 7:58 am
to call a christian holiday pagan, tarnishes that holiday
October 27th, 2004 at 11:08 am
i read awhile back that easter was originally a pagan holiday as well. the romans even went so far as to paint eggs with menstrual blood, if memory serves. then christianity came along and hijacked the holiday and turned it into jesus rising from the grave day.
October 27th, 2004 at 11:10 am
ps: it was originally a holiday celebrating the coming of spring (and fertility and all that, thus the menstrual blood), and for the record, i don’t condone painting eggs with menstrual blood.
ich.
October 27th, 2004 at 11:42 am
Easter to CHristrian represents all that we are about, THe death and rising of Christ. I dont care who romans or whoever celebrate it.
It is a special day for christians.
October 27th, 2004 at 11:49 am
it was a special day for pagans, too. and still is, i’m sure. i’m saying christians “tarnished” the original holiday by claiming it as their own and giving it a new meaning. that’d be the equivalent of some new group coming along and laying claim to easter as being some new holiday representing THEIR god, and to hell with what the previous group (christians) celebrated under it.
October 27th, 2004 at 12:37 pm
Easter is a Christian Holiday. I dont know pagans who consider Easter a special day. If you choose to not believe in the christian faith, that is your choice, but just because you dont like Christians doesnt mean that all Christian holidays are false.
October 27th, 2004 at 1:50 pm
Guys guys….this isn’t anything new. One of the best ways to combat paganism (as decided by the Catholic church, many centuries ago) was to “Take on” certain aspects of the pagan holidays as their own. They KNEW that by doing so, the pagan holiday would soon be squashed. This is a typical tactic by a lot of people. Take the “N” word. It’s still a very offensive word, but black people have taken it for themselves to use so that it isn’t as offensive.
That’s not a *great* example but it somewhat served the purpose.
The point is, it was common practice to adopt certain practices of pagan holidays and make them part of the Christian holiday. This ended up killing the pagan holiday. This was done with both Easter and Christmas, to combat the pagan holidays that were around the same time as those holidays.
October 27th, 2004 at 2:04 pm
The Pagans didnt celebrate Christmas. Just because they had a special day around the same time as CHristmas doesnt mean the invented Christmas. Just because they celebrated a special day around Easter, doesnt mean they invented Easter. The word Christ is in Christmas for a reason. Some aspects of the holidays were used to reach pagans, but that doesnt mean it was the pagans special day.
The “N” word is still VERY offensive if a white person uses the word. Just because Blacks use the word doesnt mean that the word is less offensive if used in society. Plus there are alot of black leaders who strongly disagree with the word being used in the black community.
October 27th, 2004 at 3:29 pm
from http://www.religioustolerance.com/easter.htm
Modern-day Easter is derived from two ancient traditions: one Judeo-Christian and the other Pagan. Both Christians and Pagans have celebrated death and resurrection themes following the Spring Equinox for millennia. Most religious historians believe that many elements of the Christian observance of Easter were derived from earlier Pagan celebrations.
so, it’s just total coincidence that christians have a holiday at almost the exact same time with a very similar name (the pagan name was Eostre) that both celebrate death/resurrection themes, except pagans were doing it quite awhile before christians were?
November 16th, 2004 at 2:21 pm
It’s just anohter thing that people are trying to start a big thing about. the pagen tree they are refering to used to alway have a start on top which also gose back to the wise men, and it being a tree didn’t Jesus get nailed to a tree. Now lets think about this, it doesn’t even come close to halloween.
January 27th, 2006 at 8:28 pm
Personally I have a problem with halloween. I’m not sure if I will allow my children to participate in the idea of halloween. I know this may sound dumb to many,but too bad! Technically I see the point of a christmas tree being pagen; however, we shouldn’t disclose on the entire holiday. We don’t actually know the correct dates of the birth and death of Christ. Christianity decides to give Easter and Christmas the dates we all know. As I christian myself who loves the lord more than chips is very greatfull for the holidays. I hate the fact that someone would even say that Easter and Christmas are pagan holidays, even if our society says they are!
December 1st, 2006 at 1:12 pm
As a Pagan, I can tell you for sure that Xmas, Easter, and Halloween stem from Pagan holidays. Yule, Eostre, and Samhain have been around centuries before the birth of christ.
Christians, in an attempt to get more converts, cleverly placed their holidays over existing Pagan holidays. Pagans, to avoid persecution, made a show of celebrating the Christian holidays, just as followers of Voodoo did. When slaves were abducted to Haiti and forced to convert, they morphed their own faith to coincide with the faith of their Christian masters. They placed their holy days on the same days as the Catholic saint’s days so that they could continue to practice their own religion. Hence, Voodoo was born.
Blessed Be,
LA