Arkansas State Red Wolves 68 Ventures Bowl beats Falcons Champions shirt

Arkansas State Red Wolves 68 Ventures Bowl beats Falcons Champions shirt

For us, it is Christmas Eve. There are just two of Arkansas State Red Wolves 68 Ventures Bowl beats Falcons Champions shirt, as we have no children. When we were first married, we always went to my parents’ house on Christmas Day. All of us (my parents, me, my husband, brothers, SIL, nieces, nephew) would open our gifts and then have a Christmas dinner. My husband and I started a tradition of having a Christmas Eve dinner together, just the two of us, and exchanging our gifts to each other after dinner. After a couple of years, we switched from a Baptist church to a Methodist church that has a Christmas Eve service (the Baptist church never had a service on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day unless one of those days happened to be Sunday). The pattern for Christmas Eve then became church, dinner, gifts (and, for some years, a second late evening church service). Meanwhile, my mother finally had to admit pulling off a Christmas dinner was too much, and we went to finger foods or sandwiches. Then she decided that getting everything wrapped and ready by the 25th was too hard, and my brother and his family kept arriving later and later every year because they would spend the afternoon at her mother’s house 120 miles away, so the family Christmas get-together got moved to the Saturday after Christmas, then to the Saturday after New Year’s, then to the second Saturday in January. Christmas Day itself became a non-event. We still keep our tradition of having our dinner and gift exchange on Christmas Eve, and of course, the church service is still that evening as well. Christmas Day is now just a nice day off from work to relax.

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Arkansas State Red Wolves 68 Ventures Bowl beats Falcons Champions shirt hoodie, tank top, sweater and long sleeve t-shirt

I adore the world of Christmas traditions, which vary from Arkansas State Red Wolves 68 Ventures Bowl beats Falcons Champions shirt to country … I also enjoy the ancient pre-Christian traditions behind most Christmas customs. Diwali is a lovely tradition that coincides with autumn and shares a lot of imagery (IMO) with Hanukkah, the tradition of my own ancestors. (We made a bigger deal of Christmas at home.) I am all for the human impulse to fill the winter months with light and celebration. I’ve always considered them “the holidays,” and I have no personal desire to put Christ in Christmas. I also don’t want my government to do so. I’ll gladly wish you “Merry Christmas” if I know it’s your tradition. But it’s not mine. That’s not persecution, and it’s only traditionalism if it’s your tradition. Christmas presents have nothing to do with Christianity. Neither do almost all of the Christmas customs of hanging holly and mistletoe, decorating trees, drinking egg nog, Santa Claus, jingling sleigh bells. etc. In the religiously strict Massachusetts Bay Colony celebrating Christmas was illegal, as their leaders recognized that almost all of the festivities were continuations of pagan practices. Merchandisers have gotten rich by popularizing the giving of gifts at Christmas and they spend heavily every year to promote this secular mania. So feel free to give Christmas presents to any of your friends and relations regardless of race, religion age or sexual orientation.

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