Should Christians celebrate Christmas, or did we just baptize a pagan holiday and call it Jesus?

• CM

  Casey M.4w ago

  The 'it's pagan' argument is the laziest thing I hear every December. By that logic your wedding ring is pagan, your days of the week are pagan, and the word 'Easter' might be pagan. At some point the church took things and filled them with Christ. That is literally called redemption. Maybe try it.

  187Reply
• D

  Drew3w ago

  at the end of the day my kids know Jesus was born, why he came, and that he loves them. we do it with a tree and cookies and carols and a candle service at church. if thats paganism then call me a pagan i guess. but my kids hearts are oriented toward Christ every december and i refuse to believe God is displeased with that

  173Reply
• I9

  Iris 923w ago

  My church doesn't even say the word Christmas from the pulpit because our pastor thinks it's compromised. But he also preached a sermon last week called 'the birth narrative and what it means for us' on December 22. BROTHER. You're celebrating Christmas. You're just doing it awkwardly.

  162Reply
• P

  Priya3w ago

  The real problem isn't December 25th. The real problem is that American Christmas has almost nothing to do with Jesus at all and the church just goes along with it because we're scared to be countercultural. So we put a nativity scene in the corner of the living room next to a $400 pile of toys and call it worship. That's the actual embarrassment.

  156Reply
• ET

  Elena T.3w ago

  Three churches I've been a part of. One didn't acknowledge Christmas at all — very theological, very cold. One turned it into an outreach spectacle — laser lights, no manger. One lit candles on Christmas Eve, read the whole nativity account slowly, then sat in silence. I wept at the third one. That's not paganism. That's worship.

  148Reply
• CB

  Casey B.4w ago

  my grandmother used to say 'every time you give a gift at Christmas you're honoring the gifts of the magi whether you know it or not.' she didn't have a seminary degree but i think she was right and i think about her every December 25th when i watch my kids open presents

  143Reply
• Q

  Quinn3w ago

  My neighbor is a Jehovah's Witness and doesn't celebrate Christmas. His kids are lovely and he's a genuinely kind man. I celebrate Christmas and love Jesus deeply. We've had the most meaningful conversations about faith because the holiday gives us an opening. The conversation itself is worth more than winning the debate.

  134Reply
• LS

  Liam S.3w ago

  Unpopular opinion: Christians who make a big show of NOT doing Christmas are often more self-righteous about it than the people they're criticizing. I've seen more pharisaical pride in the 'we don't celebrate pagan holidays' crowd than almost anywhere else. Just... check your spirit.

  121Reply
• LL

  Liam L.3w ago

  I'm just going to say it: a lot of the men loudly announcing their family won't do Christmas are using 'theology' to make their wives feel guilty for enjoying something beautiful. I've seen it too many times. Sometimes the issue is spiritual pride, not historical accuracy.

  118Reply
• P

  Priya3w ago

  Colossians 2:16. 'Let no one judge you in regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.' That verse settles it for me. Celebrate or don't. Stop making it a salvation issue either way.

  112Reply
• M

  Morgan3w ago

  The incarnation is the most world-altering event in human history. God became flesh. And Christians are arguing about whether to acknowledge it on a specific date? C'mon. Celebrate every day if you want. But don't tell me it's somehow holier to actively IGNORE the birth of Christ.

  109Reply
• L

  Liam3w ago

  Grew up in a liturgical tradition. Christmas wasn't a question — it was a season, twelve days, with depth and weight and real spiritual formation. Then I married into an evangelical family where Christmas is two hours of chaos with extended family and one prayer before the ham. I miss the reverence. The problem isn't the holiday. It's what we've done to it.

  107Reply
• YB

  Yuki B.3w ago

  We do Christmas but we've stripped out most of the commercial stuff. No Elf on the Shelf, very modest gifts, we read Luke 2 on Christmas Eve, we sing actual hymns, and we fast in Advent. It feels different from what I grew up with and honestly more meaningful. You can celebrate it Christianly if you're intentional.

  101Reply
• F

  Feli3w ago

  Honest question: do you worship the sun on Sunday? Because that's literally what the word means. Do you worship the moon on Monday? At some point the etymological and historical 'contamination' argument proves too much. The church has always inhabited culture and transformed it from within. That's mission, not compromise.

  99Reply
• A9

  Alex 923w ago

  sir scripture also doesnt authorize church buildings, microphones, or the particular order of your sunday morning service. sola scriptura does not mean 'only things explicitly mentioned are allowed.' that's the regulative principle and most protestants don't even hold to it consistently

  97Reply
• DB

  Diego B.3w ago

  okay but the same people who scream 'PAGAN ROOTS' about Christmas are completely silent about Thanksgiving which has its own complicated history or about Valentine's Day which some scholars trace to a Roman fertility festival. why is Christmas the hill? it feels personal not theological

  94Reply
• R

  Riley3w ago

  Look, I'm a church historian. The 'Christmas is Saturnalia' argument is significantly overstated in popular discourse. The earliest explicit reference to December 25th as Christ's birth appears in the Chronograph of 354, and there's solid historical evidence Christians were calculating the date independently of pagan festivals. The popular claim is basically internet-level history at this point.

  93Reply
• D9

  Drew 923w ago

  ok i need someone to explain to me how putting a dead tree in your house and telling children a magic man brings gifts if they're good enough is supposed to honor the King of Kings. i love Jesus. i cannot make these two things fit together no matter how hard i try

  89Reply
• S

  Sam3w ago

  Even if the date came from Sol Invictus (and that's actually disputed by historians — look up the 'calculation hypothesis'), who cares? The Roman festival is dead. Nobody is worshipping the Unconquered Sun on December 25. We are celebrating the incarnation of God. Context matters enormously here.

  88Reply
• D

  Diego3w ago

  If you disagree with celebrating Christmas, explain why you're okay with your congregation singing 'Joy to the World' in December but then clutching pearls at putting up a wreath. The selective application of the 'pagan origins' argument is what gets me. Pick a lane.

  86Reply
• Q

  Quinn3w ago

  What I find fascinating is that the 'Christmas is pagan' argument was made most loudly by the Puritans in 17th century England and colonial America, and they literally banned it. So this isn't some new insight — it's been tried. And almost every denomination eventually came back to celebrating it. Maybe that tells us something.

  82Reply
• T

  Taylor3w ago

  We left a mainstream church a few years ago and now we don't do Christmas at all. At first the kids were devastated. Now they actually know why Jesus came, when he was probably born (hint: not December), and what the Bible actually says about him. The decorations and the consumerism were just drowning everything out. No regrets.

  78Reply
• MB

  Maya B.3w ago

  The date being December 25 literally does not matter. Christians have a long tradition of sanctifying time — that is what the liturgical calendar IS. We mark Pentecost, we mark Easter, we mark the Ascension. Marking the Incarnation is completely consistent with how Christians have always operated in time.

  76Reply
• N

  Nina3w ago

  I grew up in a strict household that didn't do Christmas and let me tell you it was ISOLATING. every kid at school talking about presents and family and you just... couldn't participate. i'm not saying my parents were wrong exactly but i am saying the social cost was real and nobody warned them about that

  73Reply
• DM

  Drew M.3w ago

  The Incarnation happened. That is the fact that matters. December 25 is a container. God is not in the container. He's in the truth the container points to. I will happily use any container that gets my family, my neighbors, and my kids to look at Jesus. That's what Christmas does for us.

  71Reply
• RT

  Ravi T.3w ago

  Romans 14 is the whole conversation right there. One person esteems one day above another, another esteems every day alike. Let each be convinced in his own mind. Why is this hard? Paul literally wrote the answer.

  67Reply
• TS

  Theo S.3w ago

  I think a lot of the anti-Christmas Christians would be surprised how much the church fathers — Origen, John Chrysostom, even some earlier writers — disagreed with each other on whether Christ's birth should be celebrated and how. This is not a new dispute. The early church was not unified on this either. A little epistemic humility from all sides would be nice.

  64Reply
• J

  Jamie3w ago

  Nobody in the first three centuries celebrated Christmas. Nobody. The apostles didn't celebrate it. The early church didn't celebrate it. The NT doesn't hint at it. At what point do we stop adding traditions and pretend they're ancient when they're not

  61Reply
• A

  Avery3w ago

  the fact that Jesus was most likely born in spring or fall based on the shepherds-in-the-field detail from Luke is something most Christmas-celebrating churches just quietly ignore. we know the date is almost certainly wrong and we celebrate it anyway. that should at least make us a little humble about how much weight we're putting on December 25

  58Reply
• Z

  Zara3w ago

  Here's my genuine question for the 'celebrate it' camp: if Christmas has no biblical mandate and its popular form actively promotes materialism and Santa mythology over Jesus — what exactly are you defending? The principle? The tradition? Be honest with yourself.

  55Reply
• JT

  Jamie T.3w ago

  The argument that 'we filled it with Christ so it's fine' could justify literally anything. I could take literally any pagan ritual, slap a Bible verse on it, and call it redeemed. There has to be a standard. The standard is Scripture. Scripture does not authorize Christmas.

  44Reply
• I

  Iris3w ago

  @ the comment above — would love to see your sources because everything I've read says the overlap with Sol Invictus was not a coincidence. Not arguing, genuinely asking.

  29Reply

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