Quote: coastie wrote in post #11

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It's his choice and as we say here "more power to his elbow"!

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Quite right Coastie! (and Mr Reaper come to think of it!)

Now then, 'scuse me posting this. It's me, Chirpy. Jimbo has let me 'borrow' his space just so I could clarify something Alec said... "I wouldn't say that - there are just some barriers he (Chirpy) is not allowed or better to say he doesn't dare (yet) to jump over ...."

Alec, please don't take this the wrong way, it's not meant to be a lecture but I was brought up as catholic, so I spent the first 27 years of my life enjoying Christmas. The last three years (when I was still working in a nightclub where I came to know 'Julie in Colchester') made me see the horrible side of it - but I still enjoyed celebrating it. Each Christmas Eve the club would do a lunchtime disco from midday till about 5 o'clock. Lots of people had just finished work for the holidays or finished their Christmas shopping and we wanted them to have a free party so we didn't charge anyone to come in. This was a members only club but on this one occasion each year we would open our doors to everyone old enough to come in. I was quite sheltered from what was going on around the bar because I used to sit in a little deejay booth away from it so all and I could see was everyone having fun and enjoying themselves on the dance-floor. However, at the end of the session I would come out of my box (yes, they let me out) and be confronted with the most awful scene. It was supposed to be a happy time but all I saw was many of the younger ones, drunk, broken glass (lots of it) all over the place, vomit all over the carpet (I usually ended up clearing it up) and crying teenage girls who had either had a row with their boyfriends or had had their handbags stolen with all their Christmas holiday money in it. We then had a couple of hours to clean up before opening up for the members in the evening.

That is not the reason I don't celebrate Christmas anymore - not everyone behaves like morons. (Not even Coastie! )

I will continue... As I said earlier, this is not intended to be a lecture, but it does go on a bit... A few years later I had a lady knock at my door. She said she was one of Jehovah's Witnesses so I stopped her in her tracks and said that my younger sister had become one a few years ago and the rest of my family had virtually ostracized her. She had always been my favourite sister (just a few years younger than me) and apart from the fact she wouldn't make a banana cake for my birthday anymore, I still loved her. Anyway, I told this lady that if I have any questions about the Bible, I always ask my sister. It was a blatant lie! I was just trying to end the conversation! I dare say she'd heard that one before so she just said something nice to me before leaving - I can't remember what - after all, it was about 34 years ago, but I said "Before you go, can I just ask you a question?" She opened up her Bible and showed me the answer - which prompted another question, to which she showed me another answer. Both made sense. I didn't tell her but I was very impressed; if ever I asked my priest or one of the nuns a question, all I ever got was, 1."It's a mystery". 2."We're not supposed to know". Or 3."We'll find out when we get to heaven". Come to think of it, I'd been a practicing Catholic all my life and had carried on attending church every week and yet I wouldn't even know where to find the ten commandments or the list of names for Jesus' apostles in my Bible! How come this sweet little old lady knew so much? Then I asked her a question she didn't know the answer to (fancy that!) She asked if she could go and do some research and come back with the answer in a few weeks? Reluctantly (I didn't tell her that), I agreed and one Saturday morning at the end of November she came back with a friend and... yes, the answer! Talk about bad timing though, I was just about to watch my favourite morning show, TISWAS! Anyway, they said they wouldn't stay long but one answered question led to another (I had LOADS more questions) and everything they said made sense and was backed up by the Bible (they asked me to double check in my Bible). So when they offered me a free home Bible Study I thought "what the hell, yeh, I've enjoyed it so far. okay". They came back the following week, it was the beginning of December 1980, the week before John Lennon was killed. The study was only supposed to last an hour but once more I had LOADS of questions which they were able to answer - I didn't know Adam and Eve had lots of children I'd only ever been taught about Cain and Abel! I kept them their for five hours! Yes, you heard me right, I kept them there! One of the things I asked them was "Why doesn't my sister want to celebrate her birthday or Christmas anymore?" "Are you sure you want to know?" they said. Then they proceeded to compare all the events that happened in the space of a few days with what the Bible actually says. They even had a little Ladybird book all about Christmas and its origins, most of which pre-date Jesus' birth by hundreds of years (many newspapers and magazines mention this every year and it's all written down in encyclopedias). It's usually at this point that a lot of people say, "okay, thank you, goodbye" and get back to what they were doing, but not me. Alec (are you still there?), this information made me decide it wasn't some thing I wanted to celebrate any more. In fact I gave up immediately of my own accord (which surprised them) and I decided I wanted to learn more and got baptised as a Jehovah's Witness the following October. There was no pressure from them, it was my decision. In fact I wanted to get baptised six months earlier but the elder who studied with me said, "David, wait a little longer, just in case you come across something you're not happy with and need time to think about". You see, it's up to us. We don't threaten anyone with "You're all going to die in hell" or "your baby's going to go to Limbo if you don't baptise it now". That's just what some priests tell you to scare you. It doesn't say that in the Bible and we don't believe in that tosh (sorry, I didn't mean to knock anyone's beliefs).

Oops, I have gone on a bit! Mind you, I blame my mate George who sent me a text at about 3:50am this morning saying "Happy Christmas, Yo, Ho, Ho!" It frightened the life out of me (my phone going off in the middle of the night) and I couldn't get back to sleep so I thought I'd take a look at this thread. You wait till I see George! He knows I don't celebrate Christmas anymore. Interestingly In one of our books about the history of Jehovah's Witnesses, there's a nice picture of a group of them at a Christmas party -taken many years ago before they'd researched the history of it.

Do I condemn anyone else for celebrating Christmas? Of course I don't. However, I do find it strange that people who celebrate it for religious reasons (not just for the food, drink and presents), celebrate Jesus' birth on 25th December. The Bible doesn't actually give the date of Jesus birth (the Jews of Bible times didn't celebrate birthdays),it just says that happened while shepherds were tending their flocks by night (they don't do that in December, it's far too cold) but we do know that he was 33½ when the Jews put him to death in March/April. Many historians and Bible scholars put his birth around about September/October, certainly not on 25th December... even the Catholic encyclopedia admits to that.

Here endeth the lesson. Merry... erm. Enjoy your holiday and if you want to reply (or even have a go at me), please use my email address: david@chirpy.net You know I don't like getting involved in forums.

Thank you Jimbo, you can have your thread back now.