Is Christmas Real?

I am not going to do a bah humbug type of post here.  After all I am a grown adult who believes in Santa.  I recently read something that my pastor wrote about Christmas. 

History of Christmas - by Tim White

I was completely surprised to find out that some Christians don't celebrate Christmas.  I met a guy at a customer of mine.  He was a very devoutly spiritual person and we were talking about all kind of issues and this came up.  No Christmas?  Are you serious?  Now I had learned already about some of these historical roots of Christmas.  In fact my pastor growing up (Ken George in Albuquerque, NM) told us in his sermons that most likely this date December 25 was not the actual day Jesus Christ was born.  It's true.  As the link above explains most likely this is just a Christian replacement for a pagan celebration.  You can look up the whole thing in many places.  I have read some articles online that act as if it is all some Christian cover-up. 

All to often we want to believe there is a big conspiracy.  Was the early church really trying to cover-up this whole pagan celebration with a more Holy-day and make up the Christmas thing?  I doubt it.  After all they had the political leaders help of the time to make this Holiday come into being.  There weren't tons of books all over the place it would have probably been pretty easy to eliminate any or most of the evidence of previous celebrations if they wanted to.  I don't think they wanted to.  They were just trying to provide an alternative that was focused on the values they wanted people to celebrate.  This alternative by the way has become pretty popular. 

The link above talks about a priest called Nicholas in Turkey who we celebrate as Santa Claus.  There are many traditions that come into the Santa story we have today.  Saint Nicholas the priest died many years ago but Santa Claus lives as far as I am concerned.  I have seen him accomplish way too much.  I have seen him light up the eyes of too many children.  I have seen him make old people grin.  I have seen him hand presents to people and it was exactly what they wanted.

Christmas Time is magical.  It is utterly amazing.  Kindness happens during this time.  The whole world lights up and yes with real lights.  Christmas makes people do strange, bizarre and wonderful things for each other and for themselves.  Christmas is more important to most kids than their own birthday.  Christmas is also a time when relationships and differences heal.  Battlefield soldiers, cold and tired have set down their weapons and come together to celebrate Christmas.  Families that split over nasty disagreements have become whole during this season. 

Like everything else in life it comes down to a choice.  You can choose to see the cover-up or you can choose to see the revelation.  You can believe people had a sinister motive or you can accept that people are trying their best but sometimes make mistakes.  Christmas is a choice.  You can decide if it means anything to you or if it is meaningless. 

For me because of my experiences Santa is at work today and Christmas is real.