Merry Christmas!

[Acarr]

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!

[Xenon]

So, what did you all get from Santa?

[Matyuv]

Merry Christmas!

[Jman]

Celebrating Christmas Day on Christmas Eve. Now that's new to me.

Got quite a haul today though, including Wario Land on the Wii, a new digital camera and some Mario and SpongeBob things.

Joyeux Noël!!

A lot of families where I live do that, but we personally wait till the next morning.

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

[Raytype]

From me "MERRY CHRISTMAS!" , too
I hope you all got what you wanted.

[Serza5]

Merry Christmas!

So, what did you all get from Santa?

I got a lot of make-up bags, 2 plush cats, 2 glow in the dark rubber ducks, 2 selection boxes, Super Mario Galaxy, a wii remote and nunchuck, a Mario Kart candy dispenser, a pokemon keyring, a geisha doll, a pair of Snoopy pj's, slippers with matching bath robe and 3 candles.

[Limely]

I got a camera, a damn lot of body lotion, and a new scanner. I haven't seen this scanner except for on a picture on a folded paper I found inside a little box, but it's flat and probably takes up a lot less space than my other scanner, which is a multi-scanner with printing and copying functions. I'm guessing this one only scans, which is good since I never ever used that other one to print anything anyway. : 3 This new one probably has Mac-compatible drivers too, something the old one didn't have, and it will probably be useable when I want it to and hopefully it won't shut itself on in the middle of the night for no reason in the middle of the night, when I don't need it.

[Shawn]

Merry Mega Christmas, my fellow friends.

[Tobbe]

Here's a question that's always asked by conservative Christian priests here in Norway this time of the year: Should non-Christians be allowed to celebrate Christmas?

[Shawn]

Yes. They should. Everyone deserves to celebrate Christmas. But most non-Christians focus mainly on the commercialism of Christmas, or think it's only about spending time with family and giving. Yes, it is about those things, but it's also about celebrating the birth of Jesus.

[Xenon]

Another argument for this is because Christians wouldn't be able to celebrate Christmas to its full state when the festivities can only be enjoyed by Christians. And as previously stated, Christmas is a time for charity and good will, giving and most of all enjoyment.

[Shawn]

And Jesus' birth.

[Xenon]

Yeah, but only Christians celebrate this day for its true meaning.

[Tobbe]

It's very unlikely that Jesus was born on Christmas Day. Most evidence suggests that he was born in September. The true meaning of Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Jesus, but it has been intentionally misplaced on the calendar by the Vatican because newly "converted" Christians back in the Middle Ages were unwilling to stop the "heathen" celebration of winter solstice; Yule, which was a very materialistic celebration. Up until relatively recently, it was illegal for Norwegian farmers to not brew beer for this occasion. The Vatican simply merged Yule with the birth of Christ to make everybody happy. You could turn the question upside down and ask if Christians should be allowed to push Jesus into our old "heathen" traditions (I'm don't, btw. I don't really care as long as I get to eat, drink and give/get presents).

[Xenon]

All true I guess, but the day's supposed to signify the birth of Christ, whether this was actually the birth date or not is a very different matter. Christians still celebrate it for that reason.

But out of my interest, if the likelihood of the birth date being in September is higher than late December, why was the date set today and not several months ago?

[Tobbe]

Didn't I already explain that? The Vatican wanted to merge the birth of Christ (which they obviously wanted to be a big celebration) with the old "heathen" tradition Yule (turning of the Sun), which was celebrated in late December. Nobody stopped celebrating Yule even though they had been converted to Christianity, so the Vatican decided to "move" the birth of Christ to the evening of December 24th in order to merge Christmas with the old traditional celebration.

[Shawn]

Yeah, I knew about that.

I've heard he was born probably around the summer time. What a paradox.

[MrBadGuy]

I thought I'd just pop by to say merry christmas everyone!

[Xenon]

Hey BadGuy, haven't seen you in a while. ^^ How have things been?

[MrBadGuy]

Pretty hectic really, I've got exams coming up and school is worse than ever, they've even blocked every website that could ease some of the pain of GCSEs... but apart from school stuff, everything's going quite smoothly actually, what with christmas dinner and all