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Show I Comment Have fun holiday, but don't forget... each of us. It tells us that giving can be as rewarding as getting that the inner glow that comes from selflessly sharing is a reward greater than material possessions. While the other activities which surround this traditional holiday make Christmas fun, it becomes an empty tradition without the "meaning" given the holiday by the babe whose birth it is we are remembering. So include Him in your celebration and have a Merry Christmas. Winter solstice has been one of the focal points of civilization i for thousands of years. Even before Christ, the Romans had focused on December as the time for their Saturnalia, the annual celebration of the god Saturn. It was not a solemn occassion, but instead was one last fling before winter set in for good. Worshippers of the sun saw the season as the time of the sun's rebirth the end of continually shorter days and the start of the lengthening process that would carry their world through the bleakness of winter into the fertile renewal of spring. Hundreds of year after Christ, Christianity, struggling for acceptance in a society largely domininated by sun wor-- wor-- shippers, probably found the time of Winter Solstice the perfect i time for it's biggest celebration, Christmas. In the word's of one scholar of Roman history, "They wanted to show everyone that the Christians could have as good a time as anyone else." So if we see something of the pagan rituals in our traditional holiday, it's no wonder. That's the way Christmas has always been even before it was Christmas. ! The Yule season has become a time to gather, eat, get things, earn money, party, and all the other things we see during this i season. It even has it's own pagan god that fat fellow in the j! red suit. We don't criticize any of the above activities. Each has it's place. But Christianity has added a new dimension to Christmas, we call it "the true meaning" of the holiday. And we continually talk about not forgetting it. And that meaning reaches out past the commercialism, the binge eating, the greediness, and touches that which is noble in |