people have diff views on this, whether celebrating or wishing your christian neighbors, friends and colleagues and going to holiday parties is alright or something that is avoided.
on average, do you feel you are open to gatherings around the holidays in the US, or you feel differently?
INSHA’ALLAH…all going well, this CHRISTMAS will be the first ever occasion in my life..which I will be spending in LONDON…a place where the spirit of CHRISTMAS will be far more evident and visibly felt then the umpteenth I have seen and party’d in Bahrain, Qatar, Abudhabi and (ugh..) Dubai!!!
At the same time the New Year in Toronto would add to the winter mood and the occasion more befitingly.
CHRISTMAS has always been a wonderful occasion to not only christians but other religions..specially Islam–which upholds the rights and religious values of all other religions–high!
Best,
Raju Jamil
Re: Celebrating holidays - Christmas
I dont see anything wrong in wishing others on their festivals or even going to their celebrations...unless ofcourse there are any that are against Islam but i highly doubt it.
Hey Great topic :cheegum:
Its all good to as a muslim to be living by the rule of ‘live and let live’ but we have to know how the origin of each and every festival starts. As we know the christian holidays mostly coincide with the dates that ‘pagan’ holidays were observed. Christianity of ealier times, thought that if they were to just change the ‘motive’ give it a new twist of the ‘already placed’ holidays by the pagans, they may succeed in making it sound more appealing to the pagans and take them along for the ride and making an easy transition for them to a new religion. For eg. Easter is celebrated on the same day that the pagan Godess associated to* renewal, new beginings, re-births* “Ostara” was signified. http://www.goddessvision.net/Ostara.htm
Christmas:
No one really knew the correct DOB of Christ, it was assumed on the approximation a few tid bits from here and there. To make it soud more appealing, once again, a pagan date was chosen for it to make it all the more appealing.
Roman pagans celebrated Saturnalia, a period of lawlessness, indulgence and pleasure. The Greeks included in it: drinking, singing, raping, human sacrifices etc: which gave birth to the traditional of baked goods in forms of men/women still devoured as Gingerbread Man/woman
In the 4th century CE, Christianity imported the Saturnalia festival hoping to take the pagan masses in with it. Christian leaders succeeded in converting to Christianity large numbers of pagans by promising them that they could continue to celebrate the Saturnalia as Christians
**Christmas Symbolism: **
Christmas Trees
Just as early Christians recruited Roman pagans by associating Christmas with the Saturnalia, so too worshippers of the Asheira cult and its offshoots were recruited by the Church sanctioning “Christmas Trees”. Pagans had long worshipped trees in the forest, or brought them into their homes and decorated them, and this observance was adopted and painted with a Christian veneer by the Church.
Mistletoe
Norse mythology recounts how the god Balder was killed using a mistletoe arrow by his rival god Hoder while fighting for the female Nanna. Druid rituals use mistletoe to poison their human sacrificial victim. The Christian custom of “kissing under the mistletoe” is a later synthesis of the sexual license of Saturnalia with the Druidic sacrificial cult.
Christmas Presents
In pre-Christian Rome, the emperors compelled their most despised citizens to bring offerings and gifts during the Saturnalia (in December) and Kalends (in January). Later, this ritual expanded to include gift-giving among the general populace. The Catholic Church gave this custom a Christian flavor by re-rooting it in the supposed gift-giving of Saint Nicholas
Santa Claus
Nicholas was born in Parara, Turkey in 270 CE and later became Bishop of Myra. He died in 345 CE on December 6th. He was only named a saint in the 19th century.
Nicholas was among the most senior bishops who convened the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE and created the New Testament. The text they produced portrayed Jews as “the children of the devil” who sentenced Jesus to death.
In 1087, a group of sailors who idolized Nicholas moved his bones from Turkey to a sanctuary in Bari, Italy. There Nicholas supplanted a female boon-giving deity called The Grandmother, or Pasqua Epiphania, who used to fill the children’s stockings with her gifts. The Grandmother was ousted from her shrine at Bari, which became the center of the Nicholas cult. Members of this group gave each other gifts during a pageant they conducted annually on the anniversary of Nicholas’ death, December 6.
The Nicholas cult spread north until it was adopted by German and Celtic pagans. These groups worshipped a pantheon led by Woden –their chief god and the father of Thor, Balder, and Tiw. Woden had a long, white beard and rode a horse through the heavens one evening each Autumn. When Nicholas merged with Woden, he shed his Mediterranean appearance, grew a beard, mounted a flying horse, rescheduled his flight for December, and donned heavy winter clothing.
In a bid for pagan adherents in Northern Europe, the Catholic Church adopted the Nicholas cult and taught that he did (and they should) distribute gifts on December 25th instead of December 6th
Origin of Christmas | The Real Story of Christmas | How it Began
In the End, we all know that any holiday is just an legal and a solidly valid excuse to JUST HAVE A LITTLE FUN 
Re: Celebrating holidays - Christmas
All holidays these days have fallen prey to rampant commercialism, Christmas especially seems to be dominated by superficiality, less about family ties and religious conotation and more about stressful gift hunting. Corporate America has really hit a gold mine by capitalizing on Christmas and spreading the joy of mass consumerism. that said, if we ignore the crazy spending impulses, its a fun time to hang out with friends and family and enjoy the festivity and food around 
Re: Celebrating holidays - Christmas
I know I might irritate some people by saying this but I adore Christmas holidays in the US!!! Its such a fun time and the sales are spectacular! Its coming up and you can already see the lights all over the city and I believe Chicago will be putting up our city Christmas tree sometime soon too. Marshall Field's which is now Macy's has a yearly storybook display which is absolutely beautiful! Every town has their own HUGE tree which is decorated and put up in their own respective downtowns. There is red, white and green everywhere you look and presents! I always give presents to my coworkers that I like and of course my boss (when I had a boss) gets a tin of cookies. Its also a great time to stock up on anything you might need for the rest of the year because stores put up everything for sale like they're going out of business. I have a lot of fun with it.
Re: Celebrating holidays - Christmas
we have always celebrated christmas here. when the kids were little and in so many ways too young to understand we did it so the wont feel left out then when they got older and understood that even though we are muslims but still believe that jesus is on of gods prophet we as parents did not feel any harm in stopping the celebration. we have some non muslim family members and they have always gone out of their way to participate in ramazan and the eids i think we will send a very negative message if we didnt return the favor. our house use to be decorated for both eids and christmas when the kids were younger. they got eidy from us and exchanged gifts among themselves for christmas. my gift is just the christmas dinner. i believe that living in a non muslim society we tend to be more tolerant towards cultural and religous differences.
I love the spirit of Christmas..everyone's so happy and having such a great time! Love the colors too when everything is red, white and green!
Re: Celebrating holidays - Christmas
i lobeeee everything!
Re: Celebrating holidays - Christmas
time to get drunk and make kids who will have no fathers! yaay!
Re: Celebrating holidays - Christmas
^^ that sounds awsome.
^ Yayyy!
Re: Celebrating holidays - Christmas
Ive never had any egg nog, anyone ever tried the stuff???
I take advantage of the sales, longer opening hours of stores. I treat it like any other day off otherwise. I can mainly see myself using the holiday to sleep, play video games or maybe meet up with friends. I'll never give gifts or decorate anything or celebrate it as anything other than some time off from work.
Re: Celebrating holidays - Christmas
We dont celebrate christmas but i absolutely love the decorations and the atmoshphere at this time of the year. Michigan Ave in Chicago is decorated wonderfully and i think there is even a parade or two. Once we have kids, i know we will have to explain how we dont celebrate it but others do and thats ok.
Psquared: eggnog is totally yummy! I love that stuff. You should try it sometime.
cricketplaya: i am thinking you are confusing christmas with mardi gras or some other day where people get outrageously drunk. From what i am aware of, christmas is about family and gift giving etc.
Re: Celebrating holidays - Christmas
'Tis the season to be jolly, tra la la la la, la la la la....
Re: Celebrating holidays - Christmas
however you may wish to disguise it by calling it a commercial holiday, a public holiday, a day of fun etc.. it is still christmas
if they wanna make it a commercial holiday or anything else.. i say let it be every friday
muslims holy day: friday
jews holy day: saturday
christians holy day: sunday
no wonder we have saturday & sunday as the 'weekend'
Re: Celebrating holidays - Christmas
I love christmas songs.
Ive never had any egg nog, anyone ever tried the stuff???
Good stuff you can get it without alcohol
cricketplaya: i am thinking you are confusing christmas with mardi gras or some other day where people get outrageously drunk. From what i am aware of, christmas is about family and gift giving etc.
you think? maybe from the outset... trust me it's all the same