The significance of Christmas.....

[vaio]

What does it mean to a christian and a non-christian..?

[Solachica]

I think we lost the reason for Christmas in commercialisation.
Am not a Christian so Christmas to me is a Holiday and time to get gifts and a lead up to the end of the year.
I know the reason for the season but thts abt it for me. My family was never into the partying and liming and stocking up on alcho etc tht I see people at grocery started doing.
We paint, change curtains etc for Diwali so by Christmas everything is still like new. :lol:

[sapodila]

Well I was not born in a Christian home, but I did attended Presbyterian school. I was in the school's choir and did perform at the nearby church. There were many concerts to mark the Christmas season and the birthday of Jesus Christ. My family practices complete and absolute abstinence from alcohol and partying like they do in Trinidad at Christmas and at all times. The house was already cleaned and "put away" :D for OUR religious holidays, so there was no need to redo the whole process. My Mom bake alcohol free fruit cake, home made bread, pastel, sorrel..... the full works. The day before Christmas the neighbourhood pastor use to conduct a Christmas play at his Mother's house. We were invited and did attend. On Christmas day, we would gather at our grand parents house, visit our relatives, friends and neighbours, even if to part take of a piece of fruit or drink some "sweet drink". Some folks would come paranging and caroling up and down the streets. That was always a welcome to us. It helped to make the season significant and festive. So I was raised to respect the holiness of the season............Oh! by the way.... it helped us to respect this day even more, because Jesus Christ is honored in our scriptures too.............MERRY CHRISTMAS!

[vaio]

Sapodila...like you i attended a Pres school so i have a lot of info on the celebration of christmas....i am a hindu but my hubby is catholic...so it now has a different meaning than just presents, drinks, eats, etc...it has a more spiritual mean .....an understanding of another person's beliefs....

[Solachica]

I went to a Presbyterian primary school to. Grant Memorial

[vaio]

^that's a really good school....

[brag]

I grew up in a Hindu family and we were very respecting of all religious practices in the village. We mostly had Seventh Day Adventists, Roman Catholics, Canadian Presbyterians, Muslims, Baptist Shouters and Ethopian Coptics in the village. Everyone attended the only school in the village which was Roman Catholic and from where we learned all the Christmas carols.

We usually had Bible story plays during the Christmas season in school. I was once selected to play the role of Joseph in a Christmas play and I enjoyed it, although I was painfully shy then and still now. We celebrated Christmas just like most Christians did, I think, and enjoyed the celebrations.

The biggest Christmas challenge for us, then as children, was helping our parents put things in place weeks in advance so that we had enough for all our visitors. Most of the visitors were Parang Singers, and my father was a "party kind of man" before he bacame ill and home bound. He never failed to join the serenaders.

My father always made sure we had enough rum, wine and and soft drinks to serve to all our parang guests. My mother made sure she had enough kurma and cake to share with all visitors before and after the Christmas day. The villagers started to practice their parang singing about a month before Christmas day.

We mostly received new clothes for Christmas and sometimes a few toys. Christmas was the most exciting event of the year for us.

For us, preparing for Christmas was biggger than preparing for Divali. Of course Divali was not then a holiday. The joys of Christmas involved giving the entire home, inside and outside, a good coat of "lepaying" or painting with blue dirt paint, as we had a tapia house. Since we lepayed the whole place for Divali, we did not have to do it again for Christmas.

Oh my word, cleaning all those chairs, staining them with mahagony stains and varnishing them once a year was the hardest work. Beating those eggs and the sugar and buter until smoothe to make the cakes was tedious work, but we looked forward to licking the bowls. We never had good ovens for baking, and that was always a problem for my mother.

My father went with my uncle a month before Christmas in search of a fat goat which was killed and shared between our families for the Christmas holiday meals. Most of the edible parts of the goat was eaten, guts and all. Very little of the goat was thrown away. I had the job of cleaning the guts for "pachownie." I did not like the goat brain.

My uncle and a few other neighbors would always invite us for dinner during the Christmas season, but we always had the Christmas lunch at our home. As we grew older, we stopped going to our grandparent's for the Christmas day celebrations as was customary, and we continued celebrating Christmas day at home instead.

The Christmas wine for children was always South African Ruby Port which we had once a year, and sometimes when my mother would share hers with us. Oh how we looked forward to that sweet Red Port. I think we got a buzz from it, I can't remember.

[SSDD]

for me christmas was getting to see everyone together at one place. during the year everyone's schedule is so hectic we rarely see everyone at one time. it's also when alot of those in the us etc come back home so it's an extra bonus.
i don't know i just don't get the "christmasy" feeling anymore i enjoy seeing my family but the extra buzz i used to get i just don't have anymore.

[Sumana]

presents.... :oops:

[Mivo]

I went to a Gov't school but went to sunday school every sunday, I went caroling in the neighborhood during christmas time, we would cob webb and then scrubb the house till the boards were white, my father use to say I would rot the house with all the water I used, but the house lasted a lifetime, we would hang new curtains and balloons christmas eve, on christmas day my brothers went by the junction to wait for the ice truck to buy ice to keep the sweet drinks, apples and grapes cold and the only gifts we got was new clothing on christmas day, my brothers got one cap gun to share between 4 of them. On boxing day my brothers went to see the martinee movie at the cinema, back then us girls never got to go ( I guess till this day I doh like English movies)
since we were poor we did not have furniture to polish and the house never got painted
I moved to the US as a teenager and have my own family we have set our own christmas tradition, my siblings always tell the younger ones of our christmas in Trini.

[dreamy]

well, not much significance to me
except something other people celebrate...
oh
and public holiday (but when you in school, and when you're a teacher...you on holidays anywayz)

[vaio]

so who cld explain the 12 days of christmas to me??

[sapodila]

Twelve Days of Christmas

A Partridge in a Pear Tree
Two turtle doves
Three French Hens
Four Calling Birds
The Five Gold Rings
Six Geese a-laying
Seven Swans a-swimming
Eight Maids a-milking
Nine Ladies dancing
Ten Lords a-leaping
Eleven pipers piping
Twelve drummers drumming

I will have to get back to this one vaio :)

[sapodila]

Religious Significance of the 12 Days of Christmas.

The feast of Epiphany begins on Christmas day and ends twelve nights later. Twelfth Night has long been thought to be the day the Magi of Three Wise Men arrived from the East with their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to attend the infant Jesus.

The new and old testaments of the Holy Bible are represented by the 2 turtle doves. The theological virtues of faith, hope and charity by the 3 French hens and the 4 gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John represented by 4 calling birds.

The five golden rings represent the Pentateuch which are the first 5 books of the old testament of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

The biblical story of the six days creation are represented by the 6 geese a laying and the seven swans a swimming are the seven sacraments, the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The 8 beatitudes are represented by the 8 maids a milking and the nine fruits of the holy Spirit are the 9 ladies dancing.

The most obvious aspect for many will be the ten commandments and the 10 Lords a leaping, with eleven faithful apostles of Jesus Christ as the 11 pipers who pipe out their call to the faithful. Finally the Apostle's Creed has 12 points of principle which are drummed by the 12 drummers.

[vaio]

saps...why do the spanish January 6th.....i askin you since you seem to know a lot... :D

[lexbarker]

Not crazy about it. Too much food, too much drinks, too much money for gifts. Too much work at mome making black cake, pastesl etc. All at my expence.
Christmas should be a time for peace and reflection.

[sapodila]

saps...why do the spanish January 6th.....i askin you since you seem to know a lot... :D
Oh yeah!..........."The Three Kings"......that's what Christmas is called to the folks in Spain. The significance of that is the arrival of the three kings coming to Bethlehem, bringing gifts to the Baby Jesus. They don't have Santa Claus like most of Europe or the West. On the 5th January, the three kings come in riding horses and bringing gifts just like Santa for the children.



..."knowing a lot?......Hardly! Life is too short to learn everything. ;)

[vaio]

is it the 5th or 6th.....?? :?

and see you can provide an answer.... ;)

[sapodila]

:D :D Well you see.......just like Santa comes on Christmas Eve in we world :) .... The Three Kings come on Christmas Eve too.... the 5th of January. Their Christmas is on January 6th.

[vaio]

oh....well my son's birthday is on 6th Jan......if we were spanish his birthday wld have been on christmas day.... :D

[sapodila]

Capricorn! another one ............great people! He's just as important any day of the year chick!

[vaio]

capricorns are the best.....are you one....i am one born on 2nd January... :D

[sapodila]

wolfie does remember mind every 1/13 :D

[vaio]

whoooo hoooooo