Many years ago I started thinking there was just too much worldliness and idolatry involved in the Christmas season and was bothered by some of the things professing Christians were engaging in like Santa, elf on the shelf, excessive spending, etc.

This caused me to do some (very little) research on the origins of Christmas, and it didn’t take me long to find some YouTube videos claiming Christmas was a pagan celebration and therefore not something Christians should engage in.

Then about 2 years ago I had a dear brother sit down and talk to me about it and as we debated back and forth I found many of his arguments compelling but there was one thing he said that hit me like a Chuck Norris roundhouse that I’ll never forget.

At one point he looked at me and said “why is it that the vast majority of the church on every continent for nearly two thousand years has said it is a good and right thing to celebrate the incarnation during this time of year?”

That forced me to question my presuppositions and it was all downhill from there.

Since then I’ve come to realize our God loves celebration and commanded his people to celebrate the great things he had done.

For example, we see Jesus in the temple during Hanukkah (a man made holiday if you will) and not rebuking anyone for celebrating it.

We see Christ at the wedding in cana making more wine when they had drank all they had showing us it is right and good to feast and rejoice on special occasions.

Why wouldn’t we celebrate that our God became incarnate in order to crush the head of the dragon and save his people from their sins?

It is worthy of celebration and feasting and rejoicing and worship and making much of our Christ.

We are slowly building family traditions (continuing some from my childhood) around the 2000 year old tradition of celebrating the birth of Christ!

I am not arguing that everyone must celebrate Christmas and whether you do or do not, be fully convinced in your own mind and be free in Christ. This is a matter of Christian liberty and we should be gracious to one another.

Romans 14:6
“The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord.
The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.”

While I no longer believe the origins of Christmas were pagan, I really don’t care.
If it started Christian, let us keep it focused on Christ.
If it started pagan, let us continue to take it for Christ!

There is also no scriptural reason for saying it’s wrong to give gifts, decorate, put up a tree or build family traditions but in fact there is much in scripture about feasting to the glory of God!

Most of the church has followed a version of the Christian calendar for 2000 years that has included Advent, Christmas, Easter, All Saints Day and more.

We set aside one day in seven to worship and rest and it is a good thing to set aside days and seasons to celebrate the good our God has done.

I was wrong.

Merry Christmas, from Anyeot