Catholics celebrate Christmas as the birth of Christ; the rejoicing in the birth of our savior, and His influence on our lives today. It can also be a time of healing and renewed strength. While looking back and celebrating the birth of Christ, it should also be a time of looking ahead in preparation when He will come again. Many people lose sight of this aspect and get entwined in the material trappings of the holidays. They forget there is a spiritual meaning that does not require boxes and bows, but rather service and love. In our family, this is significant to our religious beliefs and what my parents hold sacred. The true meaning of Christmas is unconditional love for and service to others. Three words come to mind when I think about the Christmas season: faith, hope and love. The faith that there is a divine power who watches over us each and every day. The hope of a better day today and a greater tomorrow still to come. The love of family and warm friends preparing a holiday meal and breaking bread with one another. These three emotions are the reasons this particular time of year fills my heart with such excitement. A hope for a sense of awakening religious traditions and the spiritual realization of the genuine meaning of Christmas. As you grow up, you realize getting presents is not the most important aspect of Christmas. Many people cherish when their family gets together to celebrate. Other may just enjoy going sledding and drinking hot cocoa. It
In this paper I will discuss Social Theories such as Structural Functionalism, Conflict theory; with emphasis on Karl Marx’s early work and how it relates to the conflict theory and Symbolic interaction. I intend to define and discuss relevant sociological terms of these theories and how these theories could apply to my favorite holiday which is Christmas.
Christmas is a Christian occasion that is commended on December 25 to pay tribute to the introduction of Jesus Christ or the timeframe that precedes and after this occasion. Christmas developed more than two centuries into an overall religious and mainstream festivity, fusing numerous pre-Christian, agnostic conventions into the celebrations along the way. Today, Christmas is a period for family and companions to get together and trade presents. Christmas is celebrated within the church of the Lord.
Christmas like Thanksgiving believe it or not, do happen to share many traits. One major factor that the two own is the warmth and love of bringing family and close friends together. It’s the few times a year that everyone has a reason to all gather around to
When most people think of December they tend to think about Christmas. It is supposed to be a time of everyone coming together, being joyful, and
According to the American Heritage College Dictionary the word Christmas is defined as “the annual festival of the Christian church commemorating the birth of Jesus: celebrated on December 25 and now generally observed as a legal holiday and an occasion for exchanging gifts.” When one thinks of Christmas they may think of Santa, elves, Jesus, and Christmas music. One such as Scrooge, who hates Christmas and is greedy. However one English author reminds readers Christmas can be found in the most dark people. Charles dickens’s A Christmas Carol helps readers identify the negative effects of greed.
I get to put on my big jacket and my gloves, rushing to the school to launch poorly formed snowballs at my friends. Winter is all about Christmas though. I couldn't escape it, everything around me felt magical. My school always held activities involving Christmas somehow. Wether it be a lesson on the history of Christmas or just connect the dots that unsurprisingly managed to form a reindeer or jolly old saint Nicholas himself - it didn't matter. I was ecstatic for Christmas. When the day came, presents packed around the tree coated in fake snow, I ripped into each present with anticipation and excitement plastered over my face. A brand new update on the toys i owned. Then Christmas dinner at my grans soon after: the classic turkey and gravy shoved into my face, as my family told jokes and wore hats they got from the Christmas crackers. It was too big to fit my small head, but it was Christmas, there was no such thing as
Christmas can have many meaning to different people depending on how they interpret it. However, if looking at the Christian aspect of it. The
As we approach the holiday season, we occasionally lose sight of the true meaning of Christmas while on getting a steal on our favorite pair of boots. Christmas is a time for honoring Jesus and giving. For my community service activity, I helped my grandmother decorate her house for Christmas on December 20th.
‘What else can I be,’ returned the uncle, ‘when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in ‘em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will,’ said Scrooge, indignantly, ‘every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas,’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!” (Dickens, 5-6). This quote shows that Scrooge believes Christmas is a nuisance in that, despite being
We all know what Christmas is. At least I hope so. You may not celebrate it, but you know what it is. Some have Hanukkah and others have Kwanzaa. Hanukkah is for the Jews who celebrate the victory of the Maccabees over the larger Syrian army. While with Kwanzaa, people light a kinara and give gifts to each other. This takes place over seven days. Isn't that nice? Seven days of celebration! Christmas however… Is a single day. With Christmas, the children believe in a big, old, jolly man in a red suit called “Santa Clause”. On Christmas night he comes down your chimney, leaves presents and take the milk and cookies. For one thing, that's breaking and entering and for a second thing, he leaves unknown gifts?! You don't know whats in there! It
Christmas is a holiday that is nowadays pawned off as celebrating the birth of Jesus. If you tell a young child this, he’ll think you mean that Jesus was born on December 25th. This, however, is not the case. Most scholars doubt that December 25th is the true date of Christ's birth. There is no biblical support for it, and some against it. When Christmas originated; it was a time of giving. A time where, even if you weren’t Christian, you would gather together with your family and celebrate how much you mean to each other. It was a time to rejoice and above all, a time to give rather than to receive. However, one cannot give without another person receiving, and over the years these lines have been blurred to the point where, for many, it has become at least just as important to receive as it is to give. Ask any child
Christmas As times changed in the 1800s’ of England, Christmas provided as an anchor to bring familiarity and joy into the lives of people. Christmas had become a festival based off of family and friendship, with charity towards others. Though deceiving, religion was not actually the strongest element of the holiday. Christmas began to develope this way, because of the Victorians stage, and the Medieval periods.
“One concern about Christmas comes from Christians who fear that the spiritual meanings of the season get lost in the midst of so many cultural symbols and activities” (Forbes, 2007, p. 1905). My number one concern has been and will continue to be the lack of spirituality and focus on Christ during the season, however,
As aforementioned, the initial true meaning of Christmas is religion - one that has now been muchly downplayed. Of course at first glance religion is only an important element of Christmas for those who are actually religious, for which then religion plays the dominant role of what Christmas is to them. However, religion means to show obligation to something through faith, it could be argued that the majority of society is actually religious. We follow a society which has
Christmas is my favorite holiday of the year. I love seeing the shinny Christmas lights that decorates my street and the sound of fresh fallen snow on the ground. Christmas reminds me of family, the laughter and loved we shared, and the gifts we gave to each other. My house on Christmas became the center of my joy.