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My family is Buddhist, but we DO celebrate Christmas. We don't do it like Christian people do it, though. We don't go to church. We don't do prayer. We only have a big family dinner and then hanging around, talking to each other, playing cards, singing karaoke, watching movies to wait for midnight. At midnight, we open our presents, taking pictures, hugging each other, and that's the end of a Christmas night. It doesn't sound like fun when I say it like this, but it's really fun in real life. Christmas is always my best winter holidays of the year since I have one month for winter break. :)

I think the most people like party and doing something different, I don't think much people celebrate Christmas as what it "should" be, but they celebrate a pair of weeks (if your job allows you ;O) ) when you stay with family or do other things...

I can't see why anyone who is not Christian would want to celebrate Christmas. I mean after all christians are celebrating the birth of Christ. If you aren't christian why would you want to celebrate his birth. If you still want to have a party on this day it shouldn't be in celebration of christ. It doesn't make any sense! :? :o

shazzam1452 wrote:I mean after all christians are celebrating the birth of Christ. :

;O) December 25 is not the day of Christ's birth, is the day of an ancient tradition Christians "absorved" in the Christianism in order to make those people stop believing in ancient traditions and believe in Christianism ;O)

The world didn't started with Adan and Eva... etc

There was a lot of traditions, religions, wisdom... before Jesus ;)

pob wrote:

shazzam1452 wrote:I mean after all christians are celebrating the birth of Christ. :

;O) December 25 is not the day of Christ's birth, is the day of an ancient tradition Christians "absorved" in the Christianism in order to make those people stop believing in ancient traditions and believe in Christianism ;O)

The world didn't started with Adan and Eva... etc

There was a lot of traditions, religions, wisdom... before Jesus ;)

Your point is?? My comments wasn't about history it was that christians celebrate Christs birth on that day!

NOUBARA wrote:

Seyda wrote:ın my opinion everybody must celebrate their own festival about their religion.

Christmas is a festval celebrated longtime ago by christian to commemorate their link to Jesus. I think that muslims and other religious also believe in Jesus as the first Prophet before Mohamed. So they could celebrate this festival in order to express this fath. They are free to celebrate it

I think everyone has the right to celebrate this day if the chose too. I really liked your comments it is good to see that there are still people in this world that have an open heart. 8)

shazzam1452 wrote: I think everyone has the right to celebrate this day if the chose too. I really liked your comments it is good to see that there are still people in this world that have an open heart. 8)

Christians celebrate it by going to church and dinner; non-Christians celebrate it by having dinner and not going to church. As for my case, I and some of my relative celebrate it in a non-Christian's way while some other relatives celebrate in a Christian's way. I'll explain you all why it happens like this. Well, my extended family is a Catholic born since the time of my great great-grandpa; however, my grandma and her children, except one, are Buddhists. Well, my grandma was a Catholic born, but she converted to Buddhism because of two reasons. One, my grandpa hated religions; therefore, he forbidded my grandma to practice it during their marriage. Two, she found Buddhism in hard times and found herself related to it, so she practiced it even my grandpa hated it. She chose Buddhism over her marriage, and my grandpa had to live with her new interest. Since my extended family has a mix of both religion, we think it's best for us non-Catholics to celebrate it with them except we don't need to go to church. All we do is having dinner, exchanging presents, playing games, and having fun with them all together. It's nice to spend time together, and it's nice to have presents. We only have two presents per year for birthday and Vietnamese New Year, so this day is an excuse for us non-Christians to have some presents. We love presents; therefore, we don't care what day it's supposed to be .

I think Christmas Day is about love, peace and togetherness. I doesn't matter why you celebrate this day, the fact that you celebrate it with your family and people that you love is exactly what this time of year is about. 8)

i guess this question take us to other question, who celebrate the birth of jesus in christmas? i know it's sad but i guess some of the kids in portugal not even know what we are celebrating, they just wanna the presents because christmas has become in to market party where the marketing offices have a lot of work trying to seel everything that you could ever imagine, so it's a faze of the year when everybody buy everything for the kids, friends and relatives.... so the concept of jesus in my opinion it's very far away of that, i'm not putting myself out of this society, i live and i make the things like the others do, and I can be wrong but it’s what I feel.

P.S.- Sorry about my english, it's difficult to talk about a serious situations when you don't have grammar and vocabulary skills

Rui wrote:i guess this question take us to other question, who celebrate the birth of jesus in christmas? i know it's sad but i guess some of the kids in portugal not even know what we are celebrating, they just wanna the presents because christmas has become in to market party where the marketing offices have a lot of work trying to seel everything that you could ever imagine, so it's a faze of the year when everybody buy everything for the kids, friends and relatives.... so the concept of jesus in my opinion it's very far away of that, i'm not putting myself out of this society, i live and i make the things like the others do, and I can be wrong but it’s what I feel.

P.S.- Sorry about my english, it's difficult to talk about a serious situations when you don't have grammar and vocabulary skills

I think you have put your opinion across very well. I do agree with you about the concept of Christmas. I feel that alot of what a child embraces comes from their upbringing. For example: church, school, family. If a child is brought up in a christian household (and school) they have a very good background on Jesus. Therefore their understanding is better. Of course, for children it is still about presents; but when you think about it so was Jesus's birth. Hence the three wise men bring him gifts.

Commercialism has definately impacted on the meaning of Christmas for children.

My family goes to church on christmas eve with the entire family (don't get me wrong we aren't overly religious) but it just touches your heart at that time of year; it reinforces the meaning of Christmas. 8)

Rui wrote:i guess this question take us to other question, who celebrate the birth of jesus in christmas? i know it's sad but i guess some of the kids in portugal not even know what we are celebrating, they just wanna the presents because christmas has become in to market party where the marketing offices have a lot of work trying to seel everything that you could ever imagine, so it's a faze of the year when everybody buy everything for the kids, friends and relatives.... so the concept of jesus in my opinion it's very far away of that, i'm not putting myself out of this society, i live and i make the things like the others do, and I can be wrong but it’s what I feel.

P.S.- Sorry about my english, it's difficult to talk about a serious situations when you don't have grammar and vocabulary skills

But don't you think Christmas is not all about remembering that Jesus was born and that's it. In Christianity, his birth means bring new concepts or joys to others, doesn't it? Therefore, even if the kids don't do it religiously, they're doing it gratefully-- they bring happiness within themselves and others by spending time together during a holiday. Isn't Xmas now mostly more about bringing happiness than remembering who Jesus is? Well, maybe I'm wrong since I think bringing happiness to others is more important.

no, you're not wrong in my point of view, i just said that because the question was "if only the christians should celebrate the christmas?" and my answer is that of course everybody should celebrate the christmas, because even some Christians don’t really celebrate the birth of jesus, but yes a opportunity to be with friends and family, I’m not saying this is bad, that’s what i do and I think it's right, but why the members of different religion’s shouldn’t do it, in fact… one of the things that I think it’s completely wrong it’s that sometimes we(christinas) don’t respect so much the others religions as we should do, we have holidays to celebrate our religions days and the others religions have to work in their religions days because they are seeing in the society as normal days.

Rui wrote:in fact… one of the things that I think it’s completely wrong it’s that sometimes we(christinas) don’t respect so much the others religions as we should do, we have holidays to celebrate our religions days and the others religions have to work in their religions days because they are seeing in the society as normal days.

Is that how it is in Portugal? :?

yes, in portugal we just have holidays in catholic days, if you would live in portugal and you are from a different religion, you have to spend one day of your normal days to go in vacations if you wanna stay in home to celebrate, what i mean is that in the catholic days we have national holidays where almost every company’s stop, the days of other religions are completely normal, every company is laboring at full power.

And some good news are coming…. next week we gonna have a holiday, again something about with the catholic religion, but please don’t ask me what we are celebrating, I just know that I’m gonna stay at home
8)

Rui wrote:yes, in portugal we just have holidays in catholic days, if you would live in portugal and you are from a different religion, you have to spend one day of your normal days to go in vacations if you wanna stay in home to celebrate, what i mean is that in the catholic days we have national holidays where almost every company’s stop, the days of other religions are completely normal, every company is laboring at full power.

And some good news are coming…. next week we gonna have a holiday, again something about with the catholic religion, but please don’t ask me what we are celebrating, I just know that I’m gonna stay at home
8)

Awww.... this is not fair. In the U.S. you can ask for a day off for religious belief. Like my manager she will be off on this coming up Friday because of the fasting. It will end on November 3rd, according to her. As a result, I'll have to work on that day so she could be able to stay home to celebrate it with her family. I'm so not happy whenever I think about it. That Friday will be my heaviest day since I have to work two jobs in one day plus study group .

I do not think that it is necessary to be a Christian in order to celebrate Christmas.

Isn't it is a great thing if people all over the would can celebrate Christmas together, no matter for their religions?

I think everybody can celebrate Christmas! It's not only a religious day. It's a worldwide festival! I am a christian but my boy friend is a Buddhist. But we celebrate Christmas together!

selokela wrote:I am not happy about most of the replies send about wether one should celebrate christmas if he is not a christian. remember that God loves us and he send His only beloved son Jesus christ to come and save us from our sins. everybody shoud celebrate christmas wether christian or not. It is by his blood that we are all still alive. When he Jesus died he carried all our curses with him. Please let us all cebrate christmas.

I am not a Christian.But I still celebrate the christmas.
till now,Christmas is not only the Christans,it belongs to every one in the word.So take it easy,enjoy yourself is ok!
Wish you having a lovely day on Christmas!

everyone can celebrate christmas if he likes. the festival is not just a religious one nowadays, maybe it's already a world festival to celebrate family coming together in that right day.

so take it easy. i wish you a nice day.

In my opinion, christmas is the time for you to express your emotion to your father, mother and maybe you lover by sending cards, gifts, etc. Therefore, It's a special day for everyone all over the world.

No because today we celebrate to be together with our loved ones.

I think that your religion has to know something about Jesus because Christmas is the birth of Jesus so you need to hane some information about him

Everyone can celebrate Christmas...as long as you don't make trouble

TalkingPoint wrote:Do we have to be Christian to celebrate Christmas?

No.

Nowadays Christmas has become so commercialised, that, unfortunately, it's rather about giving and receiving presents, cooking and eating the tasty food, not about believing. In such a case, everyone can celebrate it, just to have a good time. However, for someone who is a true believer, there should be (and I trust there is) much more in it, and in this situation this is a holiday for christians, for those for whom the birth of Jesus is really important.

I tkink that everybody can celebrate Christmas. Some people celebrate Christmas to entertine themselves and give or get presents. But for some people who really belive that it's birthday of Jesus it's the most important holiday of the whole year. These people don't think about delicious food or presents which they get, they think about birth of Jesus.

In my point of view, you must be Christian, If you want to celebrate Christmas. The "key" in this holidays is birth of Jesus. Unless you believe about it, yours Christmas is pointless. Increasingly, for a lot of people more importantly are Santa Claus, gifts, cards, dishes and cakes. I think Christmas without Jesus isn't "real".

I am Catholic, and the significance of Christmas is not gift giving, bright lights, or Santa Claus, it is the Birth of Jesus Christ. I feel the same way Muslims would feel if non-Muslims were celebrating Ramadan, or how Jewish people would feel if non-Jewish people celebrated Hanukkah. Christmas is a Christian holiday, and I believe it should stay that way.

I think that we don't need to be a Christian to celebrate Christmas. These holy first of all rely on a family meeting in a relaxed atmosphere, where you can hear about yours nearests. This is I think only one chance to meet all family in a year.

I think that Christians have some events to celebrate and people who are not Christians have own and different events. In my opinion people can celebrate Christmas and they don't have to be a Christian. If their religion does not ban it, they could get to know Christians traditions and I believe that it's good because then they can better understand Christians and they will have more respect to them.

In my mind Christmas is a time to be with family. In this time people approach to each other. I think somebody who is not Christian and he spend Christmas among his nearest and dearest can do this but then he can't for example go to church or share a wafer. It doesn't change this time is for him special.

I think that we don't have to be a Christian to celebrate Christmas because Christmas is a time when we not only go to church to pray but also to spend some time with our family, enjoy every day with them and what is the most important to not quarrel with them. Of course I know that if we profess different religion we won't spend Christmas in the traditional way but in the way which are consistent with our religion.

Hello Everybody
In the past Christmas was only Christian celebration but over time Christmas has started to be very commercial and in our days it doesn't matter if you are Christian or you aren't.

In my opinion, Christmas is for people who believe in the birth of Christ. Why celebrate something when we do not believe in something? Christmas became a symbol of a family atmosphere, giving presents, Christmas trees. Personally, for me, Christmas is primarily celebration of my faith, the birth of Christ.

I believe that we need not be Christian to celebrate Christmas. This Holidays are for all people. People belonging to different religion celebrate the holidays differently but no one can forbid anyone to celebrate these days.

I think that everybody can celebrate Christmas. You shouldn't be Christian to do it. Christmas is a time when we can relax and meet with our familly. We can also buy some presents to each other. In some country people only buy christmas tree and they decorate their houses in addition to that children belive in Santa Claus so it is a wonderfull time for everybody.

In my opinion, we should be Christian to celebrate Christmas.
Nowadays a lot of people celebrate Christmas, because : Christmas Tree, Santa Clause, Presents, official supper, time only for family and rest. Advertisments, decorations and all around us are connenced with Christmas.
Christian prepare to this event. They take part in Adwent ( they go every day for 4 weeks to church to the Mass) and they wait for birth of Jezus Christ. It is one of two the most important event in Christian calender.
Every religion has got own events and we should celebrate only own.

In my point of view we have to be a Christian to celebrate Christmas. This is time to worship Jesus and his birthday, not a common free day. Of course people who have other religious beliefs can spend Christmas Eve with each other but just like an ordinary meeting. Some people celebrate christmas because they want to keep the old traditions alive and added to that they are focused on present and christmas food. I think that nowadays we dont consider Christmas Eve as a religious event, it is more traditional for us.

As far as im concerned i think that we don't have to be Christians to celebrate Christmas. Nowadays, it is so popularized and we can say that it is just nice way to spend the December's days, get some gift, sing songs like "I all want for Christmas is you" and eat a lot. But if we really want celebrate Christmas like it should be celebrated we have to be Christian because its not opportunity to get gift but it is Jesus birth, it is very important day for Christians, and if we want to take it seriously we have to understand this religion and belive in its.

In my opinion you have to be Christian to celebrate Christmas because it is the memory of the birth of Jesus Christ. However, no one can prohibit a person from a different faith celebrate Christmas. For people who are not Christians is a time of giving gifts and meeting with family.

In my opinion we don't have to be Christian to celebrate Christmas. I think that, because Christmas is some kind of tradition and people of other religion celebrate this too and they don't look at religion, they want to be with their family and listen christmas songs. It's also about giving presents to each other, making others happy. These days a lot of people live in such hurry, that they don't have much time for their family and friends, very often this Christmas time is the only moment when they have time to meet with people important to them.

Everybody can celebrate Christmas. I have not heard or never seen an invitation that excludes non-Christians on this special occassion. I know this as the season for everyone to be happy.

Krisi wrote:Everybody can celebrate Christmas. I have not heard or never seen an invitation that excludes non-Christians on this special occassion. I know this as the season for everyone to be happy.

or I guess it's the other way around... it's probably the non-Christians who prohibits themselves to celebrate Christmas. We cannot tell but some could be following certain rules. (let's look at both sides... this is also possible)

Hello,

I usually always get a pine as a Christmas tree. But this year I have thought about a artificial tree. Are there a lot of benefits?

In my opinion, we don't have to. I mean it should be a globle event for all of the people around the world. I guess the holiday has been commercialized, everbody got the chance to go shoppimg and buy something for family members. And children will be happy too. For example, we do celebrate Chrismas in China, some of the families just follow the trend, they prepare the gifts and presents for their children. Also, it is really beautiful when it snows, it also called White Chrismas.