Why I Do Not Keep Christmas

Nineteen seventy was a watershed year for me. After completing my sophomore year at Clemson, I got a summer job at the Utica plant of J. P. Stevens in Seneca. After several weeks of working in a cotton mill so filled with the haze of lint that you could not see clearly from one end of the room to the other, I aggravated a back condition and joined the ranks of the unemployed. It seems I had nothing else to do that summer but read. What I read that summer and on into the fall convinced me that I should no longer keep Christmas. But why not? Everyone else in my family kept it. Weren’t there good things about Christmas? The lights were pretty; the cedar trees always filled the house with a wonderful fragrance; there were special meals with dishes we did not often get to eat; there was time with family and just good times in general.

What had I read that changed my life? Was it Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol? Had I decided that Scrooge was my role model and that I wanted to be a grouch and go around saying “Bah Humbug”? Was I somehow looking for an excuse to not buy gifts for others? Hardly. I had read a booklet entitled The Plain Truth About Christmas by Herbert W. Armstrong. That booklet convinced me that I should stop keeping Christmas immediately.

What were the Biblical principles that I found in 1970 to totally change how I lived? What were the reasons that convinced me that I should no longer observe Christmas?

It Is Not in the Bible

Adherents to Christianity in varying degrees use the Bible to support their practices and beliefs. Yet when we start investigating what the Bible has to say about Christmas, the first thing we notice is that the day is nowhere mentioned in the Bible. The word does not appear anywhere – from Genesis to Revelation. In the accounts of Christ’s birth in Matthew and Luke, the day is not called Christmas. Further, in those same accounts, the date is not identified – not the month, not the day, not the year. We find no evidence that Christ ever celebrated His own birthday. There is no mention of His directing the apostles to go prepare the upper room, cut down a cedar from Lebanon, and bring lots of gifts to celebrate the occasion. The apostles did not later decide, on their own, to add the date of His birth to the list of holy days to be observed. They did not claim to have received a vision or divine revelation to add the observance. There is no Biblical authorization for the Christmas celebration.

What the Bible does indicate is that Christ was born in the fall – in September or early October. Bible scholars acknowledge that fact. The normal pattern for observing past events is to celebrate on the exact day. Most wives are not impressed by husbands remembering their wedding anniversary one day late, much less months later. How can we legitimately reason that we honor Christ on a day that is not even near His birthday and with an observance He nowhere authorized? When I discovered that Christmas is not in the Bible and has no Biblical basis, I was convicted that I needed to change.

We Are Not to Add to or Take Away from the Words of the Bible

The Bible indicates we are not to add to or take away from scripture.

Deuteronomy 12:32

³² "Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it.

The Bible records God’s instruction of a particular way to worship Him. In Acts, the system of belief the disciples followed is called “the Way” several times (Acts 19:9, 23; 24:14, 22). In Deuteronomy, Moses was inspired to teach the Israelites a foundational principle: those who choose to follow God’s instructions must be careful to observe exactly what He says. There are to be no additions and no deletions. The apostle John recorded a similar admonition at the end of the book of Revelation (Revelation 22:18-19). If we are to “rightly divide the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15) and we are not to add to or take away from what is said in the Bible, then the strong indication is that Christmas observance is not part of the Way and should not be kept by Christians. When I understood that it was not up to me (or any other human being) to determine how God should be worshipped, I knew I had to conform my behavior to what was revealed in the Word of God.

We Are Not to Worship God in the Way the Pagans Worship Their gods.

God inspired Moses to tell the Israelites not to adopt pagan religious practices and customs.

Deuteronomy 12:29-32

²⁹ "When the Lord your God cuts off from before you the nations which you go to dispossess, and you displace them and dwell in their land, ³⁰ take heed to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, 'How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise.' ³¹ You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way; for every abomination to the Lord which He hates they have done to their gods; for they burn even their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods.

The prophet Jeremiah recorded a similar admonition.

Jeremiah 10:2-3

… Do not learn the way of the Gentiles [KJV: heathen; RSV, etc.: nations)…

³ For the customs of the peoples are futile [ESV: vanity; KJV: vain; RSV: false].

The New English Translation Bible puts it this way.

Jeremiah 10:2-3

² The Lord says,

"Do not start following pagan religious practices.^c …

³ For the religion^e of these people is worthless.

The traditions, customs, and beliefs of nations and religions that have rejected the true God completely or in part are false, vain, and worthless. The Biblical evaluation of false religions is clear and severe. Historical references prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the customs associated with Christmas are all pagan in origin. Just check out basic reference works such as encyclopedias for some general information on the origin of the holiday and the customs associated with it. Every year you see newspaper articles telling where this custom or that custom comes from. They will tell you that the date is derived from the observance of the Saturnalia and the Brumalia in pagan Rome; that exchanging gifts was a custom associated with that holiday period (and is nowhere mentioned as a Biblical custom). The Christmas tree hails from Egyptian religious practices honoring the god Osiris. The use of mistletoe, holly berries, wreaths, yule logs, candles and lights are all customs adopted from non-Christian (or pagan) religions.

Christ reiterated this principle in the book of Mark (see also Matthew 15:9).

Mark 7:7-9

⁷ And in vain they worship Me,

Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. (Isaiah 29:13)

⁸ For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men …

⁹ He said to them, "All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition…

Christ here points out a basic weakness of mankind – the tendency to lay aside and reject God’s Way and commandments and to replace them with human traditions and concepts. Christmas is a human tradition. It is a vain attempt to worship God based on rejecting God’s clear commandments and adopting man’s traditions. When I understood that Christians should not take pagan customs and “transform” them into Christian observances, I realized that keeping Christmas was no longer an option for me.

No Lie Is of the Truth

At the end of the apostolic era, the apostle John took time to emphasize fundamentals of Christian belief in his three letters. In I John, he wrote over and over about the importance of truth. He made this brief statement in I John 2:21:

1 John 2:21

… no lie is of the truth.

If something is based on a lie or contains a lie it is not the truth. Why is truth important?

John 4:24

²⁴ God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."

God requires that we worship Him in truth. His right way of worship is based on truth and is not a mixture and hodgepodge of practices from all sorts of religious traditions. There is no truth in Christmas. Santa Claus does not exist; a fat man does not climb in and out of chimneys bringing gifts; reindeer cannot fly; and on and on it goes. The entire holiday is make believe, pure fantasy, based on lie after lie after lie. You cannot take something, rename it, repackage it, and make it into something other than what it is inherently. A lie is a lie is a lie. When I became fully aware that the Christmas observance was founded on untruths, falsehoods, and just plain out lies, there was no way I could continue doing what I had done all my life regardless of how much I enjoyed the smell of cedar trees, the gift giving, the food, and the fun times.

The four principles I discovered in 1970 can be used to evaluate any practice, custom, or belief. To discover the truth, we can put ideas to the test by asking these basic questions:

§ Is it in the Bible?

§ Does it add to or take away from scripture?

§ Is it based on false religious practices?

§ Does it contain lies?

In 1970, I came to understand these principles as they relate to Christmas observance. I was deeply convicted to change my way of life and not keep the holiday again. In the Church of God, we rejoice in keeping holy days based on the truth and that focus on God’s real message for mankind. In this season we are in, it is good to be remember the truth and to know that “the truth will make us free” (John 8:32).