Why I Can Cheerfully Say To You, "Merry Christmas"

Seems that every year, I hear the same diatribes. "Christmas is pagan", "God never commanded us to celebrate the birth of Christ". On and on.

It's frustrating because you really want to give these people the benefit of the doubt that they simply want to honor God. Maybe some of it is done out of a pride trip. Don't know. Not my business to judge motive.

Furthermore, I'm not one to get involved in debates. I used to but hung that tendency up a number of years ago when I discovered that such discussions rarely get anywhere.

So, in the interest of helping some of you who might a) appreciate some information on the various arguments and why they fail, or, b) wish to use such information to persuade someone, I provide the following excerpt and link to a good article I recently found:

"Let me be clear. I'm not angry with people who don't celebrate Christmas. Individuals and churches have the liberty to celebrate or not. What is troubling is to hear those of us within the Reformed church that do commemorate the incarnation of the Son of God at Christmas labeled as compromisers, crypto-Romanists, idolaters, second-commandment breakers, and worse. Beyond that, the anti-Christmas rhetoric is inflammatory, but the reasons offered are pitiful..."

And, oh... Merry Christmas, and Praise God for sending our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.