 |
| Arun Kuchibhotla |
Did you know I write a monthly article for my email subscribers?
This month I explored the supposed pagan origin of Christmas trees. Are these claims valid or not? If so, how should we, as Christians, respond?
Here's how the article begins:
If your family is like mine, you probably have some unique Christmas traditions.
The Saturday after Thanksgiving, my family breaks out our Christmas decorations in accordance with the traditions we’ve developed over the years. First I head to the garage and unfurl the creaky wooden ladder leading to the attic. Once I test a few steps to ensure they’ll hold up another year, I climb up and then start heaving the boxes labeled ‘Christmas’ in Sharpie scrawl down from the upper room.
As we decorate, we enjoy classic Christmas ballads from Aaron Neville and Sarah McLaughlin. Once all the paraphernalia is in place and the fake fir is erected, we open the ornament box and marvel at the mix of homemade and gifted ornaments, each a repository of memories.
With the tree trimmed we order a couple of pizzas and prepare one of our favorite indulgences while we wait: Chex Muddy Buddies. There’s something magical about the mix of cereal, chocolate, and peanut butter laden with powdered sugar. The batch usually doesn’t last but a few days.
When the pies arrive, all six of us pack out the couch and watch the Jon Favreau cult Christmas film Elf. Though we’ve all seen it ten times each, we still laugh till we hack and wheeze from the leftover autumnal colds we’re still getting over.
With that, the Christmas season has officially begun in the Gilmore household.
Yet there are some who say having a tree in the house at all is an un-Christian thing to do. They say the practice is pagan in origin and therefore has no place in Christmas festivities.
Are they right? Am I sinning by erecting a fake fir tree and decorating it in observance of Christmas?
A Brief History of the Christmas Tree
There are a few divergent issues we must address, so I’ll try to be brief as possible in order to get to the heart of the matter.
The first is to determine if the claim that Christmas trees are pagan in origin is a valid one.
Want to read the rest? Just enter your email address below to read it. (Already a subscriber? Check your inbox.)
If you're reading this via an RSS feed, you can use this link to sign up. See you next month!
