The Meaning of Christmas (cont.)

We described yesterday how the legend of Santa Claus began. Today we discuss the birth of Christ. The birth of Christ is recorded in Bible Books Matthew (1:18-25) and Luke (2:1-20). The story is simply told as the Virgin Mary was found with child conceived of the Holy Spirit.

No one knows precisely when Jesus was born; even his year of birth is only an educated guess. There is a good historical basis as to why the traditional date of December 25^th, accepted by the ancient Greek and Latin churches, may be a good approximate date. The date of the birth can be fixed with some precision, since Matthew 2:19 makes it clear that Jesus was born near the time of Herod the Great. Josephus mentions that Herod’s death occurred between an eclipse and Passover. The only eclipse recorded in this period in March 4 B.C., while Passover would have been in med-April. So Jesus was born at least a few months before spring 4 B.C., either the winter of 5 B.C. or the following spring. The fixing of the date of Christmas as December 25 dates to at least from the time of Constantine (A.D 306-337). The celebration became the church’s way to celebrate Jesus’ birth and have and alternative to a popular pagan feast.

Christmas literally means the Mass (celebration) of Christ. 

References:

*Nelson’s New Illustrated Bible Commentary, 1999 5^th ed., p. 1252

The Meaning of Christmas (cont.)

In the simplist terms, to me Christmsa means Christ's Birthday. It means celebrating his birth with gifts from the heart.

In researching and reading on this topic, it appears that many have the the same question.  What is the true meaning of Christmas?  Some will go back to when Santa Claus' origin others go to the bible and the birth of Christ.  I will try to discuss both over the next several weeks.  Please feel free to help me out and give me your input.

Santa Claus is actually based on a real person from Myra (modern-day Southern Turkey). He was a saint and Bishop of Myra, who was described as a devout Christian who used his whole inheritance to assist the needy, the sick, and the suffering*.  It was said that he wanted to give money to poor people without them knowing about it. One story is that he dropped a bag of gold down the chimney and it fell into a stocking hanging on the fireplace to dry.  Another says tells that bags of gold, tossed through an open window and are said to have landed in stockings or shoes left before the fire to dry. Either way, this is how the tradition of hanging stockings on the fireplace and placing gifts in them began.

References:
*http://www.stnicholascenter.org/Brix?pageID=38
*http://www.soon.org.uk/christmas.htm

The Meaning of Christmas.

Athough I started this blog "My Social Medica Marketing Education" to describe my thoughts and feelings as I learn about social media marketing, I feel that the meaning of Christmas needs to be discussed. The true meanig of Christmas seems to have gotton lost in the commercialism of Christmas. Over the next 24 days I will try to express to you what Christmas means to me. Please feel free to comment and correct any errors, as I am by no means perfect.

The Beginning of the Education

I was sort of thrown head first into this after my husband and I started an Internet retail company. We had read a little about how social media could help increase traffic to our Internet site, which would lead to an increase in sales.

What one doesn't realize is that it has to be done in a way that people do not think they are getting "junk mail/spam" sent to them in status updates.

The first few posts will reveal the process that brought me here. Then I will post on my ongoing search for knowledge.

And so my education began...