An Atypical Christmas

I got up late this morning, but thought if I make haste I could get to the closest Sabbath keeping church on time, for they will surely have good food prepared for afterwards, seeing that it's Christmas and all. And then I got this impression: “So you just wanna go to church so you can get free food?” With my less than admirable motivation thus pointed out I decided not to go to church, but rather to listen to some sermons online. I like how the Holy Spirit convicts us — in a soft whisper.

Soon afterwards a friend of mine came over. He had had a terrible Christmas Eve. I guess his Korean wife doesn't get the Christmas thing or something for they had a fight and what not, and she gave him the silent treatment even after he gave her her Christmas gift—I'm not even sure if she gave him something in return. Be that as it may, he came over this morning in a bad mood. I kinda tried to tell him that I don't celebrate Christmas much, so I had a pretty normal Friday night. Being Sabbath evening I listened to some sermons (like this one) and watched an animal documentary called Eternal Enemies, about lions and hyenas.

That was my Christmas. A friend of mine is DJing at Lounge Purple Z in Itaewon tonight. The way she promoted it made it sound like quite a swell event. It goes by the name of 아싸! Assa!, which is the Korean equivalent of cool! Unfortunately the freez-your-butt-off-weather, with temperatures around -15° Celcius, is keeping me inside like a hermit with agoraphobia. No thank you. While I'm sure it will be an assa! event, I'd much rather stay inside where it's nice and warm. I'm planning to watch a nice movie like Crazy Heart or Detective Dee instead.

Well, to keep with the spirit of things, here is a Christmas song by Sheryl Crow:

Some Christmas Thoughts

Last year I mentioned why I do not celebrate Christmas as a holy-day. The following little animation illustrate my points in an entertaining way.



As the video points out, there is a beautiful message to Christ-mas, and although I don't consider December 25th as particularly special, I do have great appreciation for the historic event when Love became embodied in a human being who would have it as part of His mission to demonstrate to us what love-in-action is. And by implication also to demonstrate to us our sinful nature -- that when Love foils our selfishness, we would kill Love to silence it. Luckily, Love, like Truth (for the two are intimately related), cannot stay dead, and even if we were to bury it, eventually it will always come out again -- it will always rise from the dead.

Incidentally, we see this motif in the WikiLeaks-saga. When the Truth of corrupt governments come to light, the messengers of truth are persecuted. But Truth, like Love, will eventually prevail.

Sufjan Stevens -- "You Are the Blood" and "Joy to the World"

I recently discovered Sufjan Stevens' music. I definitely plan to get much more acquinted with this artist. The song above is a cover of "You Are the Blood," originally by Castanents. And seeing as it is the Christmas season, below is a rendition of "Joy to the World" by Sufjan Stevens.

Hallelujah!

I wish I was there.



Better yet, I wish I was part of this.

Chrismas Eve

So what did you do on Christmas Eve?

Well, my initial plan was to go see the band The Moonshiners, but when I got to the area where it was (Hongdae), it was so overly crowded that I got irritated and decided to give it a skip. Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve are terrible congested in Seoul and unless you like extreme crowds it is better to stay home on these evenings. So instead, I went to a Korean friend’s home. He had some female friends he wanted me to meet and although I was quite tired (and feared that he wanted to hitch me up with one of them), I obliged. There is a time and a place… Nonetheless, it turned out quite nice, especially since they brought an ice cream cake to treat us.

Now as some of you may know, I’m somewhat of an ice cream snob. I used to think that I don’t like ice cream – that was until I had high quality ice cream, and now I cannot get enough of the good stuff. The ice cream cake – in the form of a snowman – was from Baskin Robbins. It is not the best quality ice cream, but it is above average and edible.

Taking photos is one method I keep track of the “events” in my life, so, of course, I had to take some pictures of the snowman ice cream cake, and my relationship with it. With the cake came this pink little cap, of what I’m assuming to be a penguin. As the foreigner it immediately befell on me to be the wearer of the pink penguin face. Just for the kick of it, I wore it again the next day when I went out with colleagues and friends for a Christmas Lunch. The only place I’ll get away with wearing pink penguins on my head is in Korea.

Was this another attempt at looking cute? I do not think I succeeded. Maybe I've been in Korea too long...

What do you do on Christmas?

Three posts in a row… Clearly I’m procrastinating. I still have to grade some exam papers, but instead I’m surfing the Net and coming up with more things to post about. Luckily the grades are only due Sunday at midnight, so I still have time.

What do you do on Christmas?

In a previous post I mentioned that I do not celebrate Christmas. What I meant was, that I do not consider it a spiritual occasion or holyday, neither do I buy into the European traditions of setting up Christmas trees and buying grand gifts for everyone.

Sometimes, however, if I do get swept up by the spirit of the season, I’d do some Christmassy stuff. For one, if I’m going to listen to Christmas carols, let it be from Diana Krall’s Christmas Songs (2005) album.



The Trans-Siberian Orchestra is also a favourite alternative to the typical Christmas carol vibe.



I also like to read or watch Terry Pratchett’s “The Hogfather.”



…or any Terry Pratchett novel, for that matter.

Tonight I’m planning to go to a Korean Rockabily concert, featuring The Moonshiners, and tomorrow I will join colleagues and friends for a Christmas Lunch in Itaewon.

Apart from these moments of social activity, I'll be spending much of today and tomorrow grading papers...

Why I Don't Celebrate Christmas

(Image Srouce: RareBirdFinds)

I do not celebrate Christmas.

People are generally terribly shocked when I tell them that I do not celebrate Christmas. “You don’t celebrate Christmas?! Isn’t that sacrilege?” Such exclamations often come from both my Christian and non-Christian acquaintances. I guess part of their distress is the fact that I am Christian. That is another topic altogether – I seldom call myself “Christian” as I do not associate with the typical Christian. Nonetheless, the people that know me know that I believe in God and believe that Jesus Christ is God Incarnate. Now, if you believe that Christ is God in the flesh, then I guess you qualify as Christian. This is a bad assumption, because a study of the Bible would show that demons also recognized Christ as the “Son of God,” and one wouldn’t be so quick to call demons Christians. Although some “Christians” may act more demon-like than Christ-like, so I guess it could be difficult to determine what a Christian really is; hence my own aversion at labeling myself Christian, apart from the fact that I hold some peculiar believes that are not held by Orthodox Christianity. For one, I keep the Sabbath.

But I digress… Back to me not celebrating Christmas…

To understand my reasons for not celebrating Christmas I think my previous digression was not completely off the mark because there is some confusion with the term “Christian.” Typically, it can refer to at least two things. First, it could refer to people that try to follow the teachings of the Christ, hence the term Christian. Second, it refers to a cultural heritage – usually of European descent.

Most people that call themselves Christian fall into this latter category. Christianity is part of their cultural heritage and with it comes certain traditions like celebrating Christmas and Easter, and going to church at least three times in their lives (when they are “hatched, matched, and dispatched”), and so on. These “Christian”-traditions are usually bastardized with other (pagan) traditions which also flow from their European ancestry. For instance, Easter is celebrated with eggs and bunnies – symbols of fertility, which were part of the pagan European fertility cults. And Christmas is celebrated on December 25th, the birthday, not of Jesus, but a day of festivities for various pagan (Sun) deities. December 25th was fixed on the Julian calendar as the winter solstice (Northern Hemisphere) for Europe. The Church of old, which was emerged in pagan traditions, incorporated the pagan sun-worship holiday and made it a “Christian” holyday, and dedicated it to the birth of the Christian Deity. Other European winter-symbols associated with Christmas, but not of Christian origin, is the Christmas tree, mistletoe and snow.

So why don’t I celebrate Christmas?

Well, firstly, I don’t keep Valentine’s Day, neither South Africa’s Braai Day (BBQ-Day). If I’m not going to keep secular commercialized celebration like Valentine’s Day or Braai Day, why should I keep another secular commercialized holiday? Did I just call Christmas a secular holiday? Yes, I did. This brings me to my second point. Christmas has no Biblical foundation. There is no certainty on which day Jesus was born. In fact, it is most unlikely that Jesus was born in winter; as the record states, the shepherds and their flocks were outside in the fields, which would place the setting in time in late spring or summer. Furthermore, even if the day of Jesus’ birth was revealed in Scriptures, the Bible still does not call on us to celebrate or worship His birthday. The Christian has been given three Biblical sacraments to keep: baptism, communion, and the Sabbath. Any additional ceremonies are, just that, additional – and are probably unbiblical.

It is not that I dislike Christmas, I merely do not think of it as a special spiritual season, like most people do. I don’t spend much money on Christmas gifts (I'm not intending to buy anything this year) and I don’t expect people to buy me stuff either. And most of all, I don’t think of Christmas Day as a holy day. By not keeping Christmas I’m not trying to make a point. I don’t condemn other people for celebrating it, whether they are Christian or not. I would occasionally buy people something (for their sakes, rather than mine) and I won’t refuse a gift given. There is an intrinsic joy in giving, so I won’t spoil it for people that wish to do so.

Living in the Northern Hemisphere now, I can see what the fuss is about. The Christmas lights are beautiful and charges the air with a festive spirit. But so do the lights during Buddha’s birthday and I don’t celebrate his birthday either, although I do enjoy the lightshow.

In South Africa Christmas has a similar function than Thanksgiving in the United States. It is a time for family to come together and enjoy each other’s company over great food. Enjoying food with loved-ones is a wonderful thing that I do enjoy too.

So while I don’t celebrate Christmas as a holy (or even special) season, I do enjoy the moments of spending time with loved ones. And while I don’t believe in Christmas as a truly “Christian” event based on the Christian Scriptures (i.e. the Bible), as a Christian, I guess it is neat that non-Christians can learn about our Deity, whose message was Love, Peace, Joy and Forgiveness to all.At least that is the original message of Christmas, if you are able to get through the commercial clutter and Santa Clause.

Pomplamoose's "Always in the Season" and Give-a-Goat Promotion

Christmas Deconstructed

Illustration by Rob Sheridan.

Queen Elizabeth II's 2008 Christmas Message

The media is full of hype over the Queen of England’s sombre Christmas Message. She uses the word “sombre” early in the message, and I think the media just grabbed at it to distort her message for their skewed benefit.

I watched Queen Elizabeth’s Christmas Message (see below) and thought it not sombre at all. Instead, it is a beautiful message. Albeit starting with a look at the difficult current world situation, it ends with the following poignant focus on the message of Christmas.

I hope that, like me, you will be comforted by the example of Jesus of Nazareth who, often in circumstances of great adversity, managed to live an outgoing, unselfish and sacrificial life. Countless millions of people around the world continue to celebrate his birthday at Christmas, inspired by his teaching.

He makes it clear that genuine human happiness and satisfaction lie more in giving than receiving; more in serving than in being served.

We can surely be grateful that, two thousand years after the birth of Jesus, so many of us are able to draw inspiration from his life and message, and to find in him a source of strength and courage.

Watch the YouTube-video below, or read the full transcript here.



Her annual Christmas message is one of the few times the Queen can publicly voice her own opinion without the consent of the cabinet; she writes her Christmas speech herself. I respect her for choosing not to exploit this occasion as an opportunity to take a stab at parliament; but instead, focus on a message of goodwill, hope and encouragement. And as such, I can overlook the shameless PR she is doing for her son, Charles, and her grandsons, the princes William and Harry.