Christmas is the most special time of the year, where we have permission to express our most noble feelings through details, caresses and kind words … A special time of approach and shared with friends and family to strengthen and nurture the bond of love and friendship.
Christmas is a time of celebration, gifts, children, joy, and family. Christmas is also a favorable time for a reunion with the divine love. It is also time to get carried away by feelings of solidarity, letting our affection, love and understanding flow freely with someone who needs a little of us.
Phrases that we have repeated over many years, can take on a new and profound meaning, by having a more open and positive attitude that leads us to live with Love! We should say and feel for others–
May this Christmas be the beginning of a new and wonderful stage in your life. Immerse yourself in the Christmas spirit and enjoy the thousand and one manifestations of its magic and the signs that denote its presence. Come on, move! Beat the apathy and start your imagination to fill your life and yours with feelings and thoughts joyful and positive.
May the good feelings of Christmas, stay with you and accompany you to live each day throughout the New Year. May it be a time for new beginnings, for the strengthening of your relationships through love, for your dreams to be fulfilled and for you to return to the reunion with yourself and with the presence of God.
History and origin of Christmas
According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, Christmas is not included in Irenaeus’ list of Christian festivals or in Tertullian’s list of the same subject, which is the oldest known lists. Origen even opposed to celebrating births:
“We do not see in the Scriptures that no one has kept a party or hold a big banquet on the day of his birth, only sinners (like Pharaoh and Herod) celebrated with great joy the day they were born in this world.”
The earliest evidence of concern for the Christmas date is found in Alexandria, circa 200 AD, when Clement of Alexandria indicates that certain “very curious” Egyptian theologians assign not only the year but also the actual day of birth of the Christ as 25 “Pachon” (May 20) in the twenty-eighth year of “Augustus”. From 221, in the Chronographiai work, Sixth African July popularized December 25 as the date of Jesus’ birth.
Pope Julius-I asked in 350 that the birth of Christ be celebrated on December 25, which was decreed by Pope Liberius in 354. The first mention of a Christmas banquet on such date in Constantinople, dates from 379, under Gregorio Nacianceno. The feast was introduced in Antioch around 380. In Jerusalem, Egeria, in the fourth century, witnessed the banquet of the presentation, forty days after January 6, which must have been the date of celebration of the birth. The December banquet reached Egypt in the 5th century.
Christmas is the most popular Christian holiday, despite the fact that the Church considers Easter to be more important. And for that reason it is the one that contains more traditions: The three basic figures of the traditional nativity scene form the so-called Christmas Mystery (from left to right, Saint Joseph the Worker, the Child Jesus and the Virgin Mary).
How People Celebrate Christmas, Today?
Despite the Christian origin of Christmas, this party has lost its religious character to become a simple celebration of family life, due largely to the marketing and the popularity of this celebration.
From the nineteenth century is when Christmas begins to become popular with the character it has today because in this century the custom of the exchange of gifts was popularized, Santa Claus was created and the custom of giving Christmas cards. Customs that over time marketing (especially American) would take advantage of to expand Christmas around the world giving it an almost different character to the religious, and with themes that have little or nothing to do with the true Christmas celebration, as happens with the polar bears and seals of Coca-Cola.
For this reason, Christmas is not always celebrated by Christians, because even non-Christian Japanese and some atheists celebrate Christmas.
Open the Doors of Your Heart So That You Have a Very Special Christmas
Christmas Is A Family Time.
Gather yours to share quality moments. Avoid confrontation, arguments and sad memories or complaints. Share with your children, events of the celebration of Christmas and participate with them.
Christmas Is Happiness.
Rescue some of the ceremonies that were part of the happy Christmas you remember the most. Magic Christmas is for all those who are children from the heart. The manger, the tree garlands, candles, dinner, nuts, decorations, desserts, Christmas music, etc. Listen to Christmas music; rescue the sounds and songs of Christmas.
Christmas Is Time Of Forgiveness And Reconciliation.
Make the courageous decision to forgive and fill yourself with love. Do not forget that it is life that releases the nudity that kept us tied to the past, when we forgive from the heart. Forgive yourself, for the mistakes and mistakes of the past and get up to start a new and renewed present.
Christmas Is Time To Give.
Open your heart and let yourself be carried away by the loving spirit of Christmas and share a toy, a plate of hot food, a visit, a smile, a loving and disinterested action aimed at softening its condition of limitation, loneliness, need or pain. If you have children, go with them, tell them about your initiative and invite them to participate.
Christmas Is Time Of Reflection.
Find a space for reflection. Do not judge yourself, or pressure. Just watch yourself, once you define the areas that you are going to improve, assume the commitment with yourself to change or transform that habit, that attitude or that belief that causes harm to you, or through you to others.
Christmas Is Time To Connect With Divinity.
Connect to the presence of the Sacred inside and outside of you. Do not forget that you are made of the Divine Spirit. Many times you have felt that the Lord God has moved away from you … when in reality what has happened is that you have separated from Him by some of the experiences lived with pain or confusion. Connect again to his presence and practice some moments of meditation, prayer, and reflection.
Christmas Is About To Thank You
Make a list of all those people who once did something special for you, even though you did not talk to them in a long time. Choose a couple of them and make a call to wish them a Merry Christmas.
Let go of the past, stop worrying about the future, live the present, life is wonderful and everything will be fine!!!
