Reformed believers have never liked Christmas. The Regulative
Principle states that what God has not commanded in worship, is
forbidden; since there is no command to celebrate Christmas, many
Reformed folks think Christians shouldn’t either. The more historically
minded will cite the Puritans and Presbyterians who denounced Christmas
and banned it when they could. Some will even insist that Christmas is
really a Popish plot to seduce Protestants back into Romanism.
Furthermore, they often point out that most of our Christmas
traditions derive from pagan sources and surely, no right-thinking
Christian would want to participate in an essentially, idolatrous
celebration, would they?
Yet many other Christians, without a particular theological axe to
grind, are also very uncomfortable with celebrating Christmas. Every
year I get at least one email or letter from some concerned reader
quoting those verses in Jeremiah about the foolish idolater who cuts
down a tree and worships it. And I am not above criticism here; a number
of years ago I wrote an article for a national magazine explaining how
most of our Christmas traditions actually arose out of Roman and Celtic
nature worship.
When I first began my campaign to “expose” the “pagan origins” of
Christmas back in the seventies, I rather enjoyed debunking this most
sentimental of holidays to smug, self-satisfied Christians who never
thought about WHY they were doing, what they were doing. The Apostle
Paul warned about those who thought they knew something (
1 Cor 8:1)
because a little knowledge can make a man arrogant. And, to be honest,
there was more than a little arrogance on my part over the years when I
would sit down with someone and take an unholy delight in telling them
that all their holiday traditions were little more than demonic inspired
pagan rituals baptized with the thinnest veneer of “Popish”
Christianity.
However, as I have had a chance to read more, think more and
reconsider whether the dubious pleasures of being a cynical,
condescending, self-righteous jerk is worth the cost of God’s eternal
judgment (it isn’t): eventually I concluded that I needed to re-think
these issues from the bottom up. First, there IS a legitimate
theological question on whether or not it is ethically appropriate for
Christians to celebrate Christmas, since we have no explicit command to
do so. But as I am going to try and demonstrate in this essay, in
reality, MOST of the reasons given against Christmas are misinformed at
best; and sometimes are mere rationalizations to justify something a bit
unsavory in our characters. So if you think you already KNOW all about
“Christmas” and its “Pagan past” maybe I can help you to rethink some
things.
Historical Origins
When people debunk Christmas, usually they begin with calling the
date into question. It is often said that while no one is sure exactly
when the Lord Jesus was born, it probably wasn’t in December since
shepherds did not keep flocks outside during the winter therefore, being
no need to watch them. So how did we arrive at December 25 as
Christmas? The traditional debunker’s answer is that the early church
chose December twenty-fifth because it was part of the Roman holiday of
Saturnalia, a celebration of the birth of the unconquerable Sun god.
At this point, the reasonably astute scholar will cite sociological
or psychological factors demonstrating the widespread celebration of the
winter solstice in European pagan cultures. For example, in primitive
times, winter was always the low point of the year; the harvests were
all in, and no further sources of food would be available until the next
harvest. If the harvest was not sufficient, starvation was inevitable
Furthermore, modern research only now is beginning to understand the
serious physiological and psychological effects of the lack of sunlight.
The pagan presupposition of the prime nature of reality meant that
the gradual darkening of the days until the winter solstice was an
implicit threat that spring might never come. Supposedly, somewhere in
the dim, dark past when our ancestors squatted in caves and the height
of erudite conversation consisted of “Ug,” they feared that the spring
would never return. Often, human sacrifices were made to ensure that the
days would again lengthen and spring with its new life would return.
And sure enough, once the sacrifices were made, the days starting
getting longer again! Thus it is said that many pagan cultures over
time, developed the custom to celebrate some sort of midwinter festival;
a festival that came down to us as (dire music here) Christmas!
However, let’s think about this for a moment shall we? This approach
is based essentially on an evolutionary presupposition about the origins
and development of human culture. Winter solstice festivals, especially
in Northern Europe are assumed to evolve out of the recurring fear that
the world was headed into eternal winter and therefore, when the days
began to lengthen, and enough food was on hand to provide assurance of
surviving until spring, it became a time of celebration. Rome is assumed
to have had this same tradition and being a civilized and depraved
society, turned into a rowdy orgy. Gifts were freely exchanged, slaves
often exchanged places with their masters for the day, and drunkenness
and debauchery were common.
Most Christmas detractors cite the above as reason enough to regard
celebrating the nativity as just another example of the Church
compromising with paganism. However, new research is coming out that is
overturning this “traditional” view of the holiday’s origins. First,
some writers seem to jump between what may have been certain Celtic
traditions and Roman ones without really thinking about the differences.
The Mediterranean winter is considerably different than the ones
experienced in Northern Europe and it is unlikely that different
environmental factors would have resulted in similar social customs;
i.e., there is a big difference in surviving a frozen winter in Northern
Germany and a wet, but reasonably warm winter in Rome! Yet, debunkers
switch between the two traditions without really seeming to appreciate
the differences between the cultures.
Secondly, the assumption that Christians “baptized” a pagan holiday
appears to be the work of two scholars who each had an axe to grind.
Paul Ernst Jablonski, a German Protestant, wanted to show that the
celebration of Christ’s birth on December 25th was one of the many
“paganizations” of Christianity transforming “pure” apostolic
Christianity into Roman Catholicism. Since he was already predisposed to
hate Christmas (and Catholocism), he sought arguments why Christians
should not celebrate it; attributing its origins to paganism is an
effective way to poison the well. The second scholar was a Roman
Catholic, Dom Jean Hardouin, a Benedictine monk, who tried to show that
the Catholic Church adopted pagan festivals for Christian purposes
without paganizing the gospel.
However, there is now available from good evidence that rather than
Christians copying a pagan festival, that the Romans actually copied the
celebration of Christmas from Christians! The below quote is quite long
but well worth the read.
“But in fact, the date [December 25th] had no religious significance
in the Roman pagan festal calendar before Aurelian’s time, nor did the
cult of the sun play a prominent role in Rome before him. There were two
temples of the sun in Rome, one of which (maintained by the clan into
which Aurelian was born or adopted) celebrated its dedication festival
on August 9th, the other of which celebrated its dedication festival on
August 28th. But both of these cults fell into neglect in the second
century, when eastern cults of the sun, such as Mithraism, began to win a
following in Rome. And in any case, none of these cults, old or new,
had festivals associated with solstices or equinoxes.
As things actually happened, Aurelian, who ruled from 270 until his
assassination in 275, was hostile to Christianity and appears to have
promoted the establishment of the festival of the “Birth of the
Unconquered Sun” as a device to unify the various pagan cults of the
Roman Empire around a commemoration of the annual “rebirth” of the sun.
He led an empire that appeared to be collapsing in the face of internal
unrest, rebellions in the provinces, economic decay, and repeated
attacks from German tribes to the north and the Persian Empire to the
east.
In creating the new feast, he intended the beginning of the
lengthening of the daylight, and the arresting of the lengthening of
darkness, on December 25th to be a symbol of the hoped-for “rebirth,” or
perpetual rejuvenation, of the Roman Empire, resulting from the
maintenance of the worship of the gods whose tutelage (the Romans
thought) had brought Rome to greatness and world-rule. If it co-opted
the Christian celebration, so much the better.”
Thus rather than Christians co-opting some pagan festival, it looks
as if the pagans stole one from us! The old evolutionary assumption of
primitive, superstitious pagans creating a festival back in the dim dawn
of human history in response to misunderstood environmental forces must
give way to an advanced culture intentionally creating a religious
celebration for purely civil purposes. Therefore the widespread
assumption is that Christmas is just a baptized version of “Saturnalia”
is not historically maintainable.
The feast of the Nativity seems to have sprung full blown in the fourth
century (AD 336); yet a moment’s reflection shows that this assumption
is unwarranted. It implies a degree of centrality of power that the
Church would not have until many centuries later; the fourth century
church was NOT the monolithic institution it became in the late Middle
Ages; the “pope” at this point was simply the bishop of Rome. Therefore
to assume that a brand new feast could be created out of whole cloth and
imposed on the entire church is stretching things a bit.
Furthermore, if a festival appears suddenly with traditions and
customs, then it is highly unlikely that it is something new. Most
likely, the festival had been celebrated quietly for a long time BEFORE
it became publicly acceptable. Remember, the real reason why
Christianity was suppressed under the Roman Empire, was for civil, not
theological reasons. Rome required an annual sacrifice to the Emperor
recognizing him as “Lord;” the ultimate connection between heaven and
earth. Christians could not in conscience offer a pinch of incense to a
statue of the Emperor and call him “Lord” because Jesus, and Jesus alone
was Lord. Thus, Christianity was seen as a revolutionary movement and
its members as traitors to the Empire.
Celebrating the birthday of the King or Emperor was more than just a
social custom, but an important political reality; it demonstrated one’s
allegiance and submission to the civil order. Thus for Christians to
openly celebrate the birth of Christ would have been to invite intense
persecution BECAUSE the culture of the day would have seen it as a
treasonable act. Hence, the nativity was NOT openly celebrated for
several hundred years.
Yet, the church fathers in the fourth century, when Christianity
became legal, openly acknowledged that Christmas HAD BEEN recognized and
celebrated for a very long time-and that December 25 was widely held to
be the Lord’s birthday (and thanks to Valerie Jacobson for doing the
research on these).
Augustine (354-430) of Hippo, On the Psalms, Psalm 133 “For from
Christ comes the dew. No light is set on a high place, save Christ. How
is He set on high? First on the cross, afterwards in heaven. Set on high
on the cross when He was humbled; humbled, but His humiliation could
not but be high. The ministry of man grew less and less, as was
signified in John; the ministry of God in our Lord Jesus Christ
increased, as was shown at their birth. The former was born, as the
tradition of the Church shows, on the 24th of June, when the days begin
to shorten. The Lord was born on the 25th of December, when the days
begin to lengthen”
Augustine also specifically titled one of his points of Sermon 22, “The
Festival Has Nothing to Do with Sun-worship, as Some Maintain.” Thus in
the fourth century, Augustine both refuted that Christmas had its
origins in Saturnalia while also clearly attributing the Lord’s birth to
December 25th as the “tradition of the church.” Why December 25? Well,
the argument is too long and complex to go into here except to say that
it had to do with trying to reconcile Roman and Jewish calendars; a
headache for everyone involved.
Furthermore, Christians at the time had
certain theological presuppositions that governed how they actually
dated certain events; they assumed a relationship between the death of
the Lord Jesus and when He would have been born; and by carefully
calculating the dates of certain “known” events, they arrived at
December 25th as the day of His birth. Whether their calculations were
based on a sound basis is really immaterial; the point is that the
Lord’s birth was NOT celebrated just because it coincided with a Roman
pagan festival. Their calculations might have been wrong, but they were
not blindly being subverted by pagan influences or accommodation to
cultural norms.
Despite this, many debunkers insist that when the gospel penetrated
Northern Europe, many of THEIR winter solstice customs found their way
into Christmas celebrations, thus unwittingly introducing paganism into
the church. Again, this is not quite so easy to determine as some have
assumed. Granted, there was a tradition of a religious observance of
Christmas AND a cultural custom of feasting and merry making that had
long been a part of European culture, but how much of the actual customs
and traditions actually derived from pagan sources just cannot be
determined. Did the pagans influence Christians or did Christians
influence the pagans? Which came first?
For example, St. Boniface is usually credited with the idea of
“Christmas trees” as he cut down Druid groves and secured the decorated
trees in Christian homes to prevent pagans from worshipping them. So,
does the “custom” of having Christmas trees come from pagan, Druid tree
worship, or is it a Christian custom? Or is there even another
explanation altogether?
Most people assume that our current Christmas customs come down from
pagan history, passed down from generation to generation with their
origins being lost in the mist of times (until the debunkers write
articles exposing the pagan origins of Christmas). However, what few
Christians seem to appreciate is that almost ALL of our modern day
Christmas traditions only came into existence in the 19th century when
Queen Victoria brought her new German husband, Albert, to England.
Albert introduced Christmas trees to English and American homes. Germans
had a long history of Christmas trees that was unknown in Britain; in
fact Martin Luther is usually credited with putting the first lights on
trees to show his children the glory of God he witnessed one night by
glimpsing stars through the trees one dark night. Albert brought this
custom to England, and suddenly, everyone else wanted Christmas trees
to!
If you remember your Dickens, try to reconcile the “traditional”
Christmas celebration of today, with what happened in Ebenezer Scrooge’s
experience; despite the cultural differences between middle 19th
century England and modern America, is there ANYTHING in Dickens that
looks like our Christmas? Scrooge is vilified because he is a miser who
takes no joy in life, lives in a cold, unheated home, eats gruel and
only grudgingly gives his workers the day off. After his “conversion” he
buys Bob Cratchet a goose and eats dinner with his nephew (at least I
think that is what happened; I’ve seen too many movies to distinguish
between the book and film versions). The point is, there is no tree, no
presents, no mistletoe, holly, ivy, etc. There is no Santa Claus and the
holiday has NOTHING to do with children. The story is in reality about a
grumpy, nasty old man learning how to lighten up, become a bit more
cheerful and nice to others while enjoying a feast with his family.
However, when Victoria and Albert’s Christmas celebration was
popularized in a British magazine, within a decade, a whole new
tradition was created, almost out of whole cloth. Christmas became
popular and new customs were invented, literally overnight. There is
even evidence that some people self-consciously tried to create the
appearance that certain symbols were ancient ways to celebrate
Christmas, just to give the new holiday some sort of authenticity and
credibility. Thus mistletoe, holly, ivy, wreathes, etc., all within just
a decade or two, were deliberately chosen as Christmas “symbols” and
accepted by the public BECAUSE they gave people the feeling of
antiquity. In fact, an argument can be made that it was only later on
that some scholars made a connection between these symbols and how some
ancient pagans might have used them.
But the connection is tenuous at
best; it is simply inaccurate to say that somehow these customs
originated in ancient pagan religion and survived down into the present
time when in reality, they were NOT a common part of Christmas
celebrations UNTIL the late 19th century! Thus our modern celebration of
Christmas, in reality, has NO direct connection with ancient pagan
religion or their symbols because MOST of what defines a “traditional”
Christmas was in fact deliberately and self-consciously created by the
Victorians!
Even the much maligned Santa Claus (the English “Father Christmas”)
who began life as a Celtic version of Bacchus, the god of wine and
drunkenness is not quite what you think. In England, going back to
antiquity, traveling groups of actors made a bare living by putting on
various religious plays. One of the favorite recurring characters that
showed up around Christmas time was “Father Christmas” who was
universally considered a crude, drunken, lecherous individual. He was a
comic relief kind of character, and probably was in fact intended to be a
Christian ridicule of ancient pagan religion and excesses. He was never
taken seriously, never honored and he certainly was not the sort of
person you would want to dangle your children on his lap.
However, though there is some connection between “Father Christmas”
(as he is still called in England) and Santa Claus, the two are distinct
individuals. Santa is a creation of good old American ingenuity and is
an amalgamation of a number of different traditions, “Father Christmas”
being only one dim source for the legend. The Dutch who settled New York
had their traditions of “Saint Nicolas” which was far more influential
in creating the myth than “Father Christmas.” In fact, it is likely that
the British inflated the traditional “Father Christmas” as their own
version of the American “Santa Claus” (the Brits are very sensitive
about American cultural subversion).
But most of what constitutes the “Santa Claus tradition” was actually
the result of an invented, fictional character no more intended to be
considered “authentic” or as a tie to Christmas past than Superman! The
point being is that there was NO history of some jolly old elf who gave
toys to good little boys and girls UNTIL what’s his name wrote that
stupid poem “The night Before Christmas.” Identifying Santa Claus with
“Father Christmas” or “St. Nicholas” is revisionist history pure and
simple; an attempt to give some credibility and historicity to what was a
created character intended to be no more real than Winnie the Pooh!
And so for all the rest of the “traditional” customs that are so
often associated with paganism. So what if a Christmas wreaths looks
like the sign of Oromous: the snake that swallows its own tail (hence a
pagan symbol of eternity, i.e., a circle has no beginning or end) or
that Christmas colors are red and green, both of which had profound
magical meaning in ancient cultures. So what if the first “Christmas”
trees were originally literally living idols, or that holly and ivy had
some association with Druid worship, or that mistletoe, according to
ancient Nordic myths, was placed over marriage beds so that the couple
might be fruitful and bear many children. None of these “symbols” were
in fact highly regarded UNTIL the Victorians decided to invent a whole
new holiday and needed things that would make Christmas look
“traditional.”
A Christian Response
So if Christmas is so innocent, why were the Puritans and
Presbyterians in the 17th century so opposed to its celebration? We must
never forget that we are all subject to historical conditioning; that
the events we see around us can and do have a profound effect on our
perceptions and ideas. For the English Reformers, Christmas was not to
be celebrated PRIMARILY because they were trying to purify the worship
of God from all the man-made rules and regulations that had grown up
under the Roman church. Remember, the prime cause of division between
Protestants and Catholics was the issue of authority. Rome insisted that
authority was vested in the church and therefore could change doctrine
and bind men’s consciences at will. The Reformers insisted that final
authority rested in the Word of God.
Therefore in the 16th and 17th century, men literally fought and died
over this issue of authority. The Roman church had created all sorts of
feasts and festivals demanding that Christians celebrate them or suffer
temporal and eternal sanctions. The Reformers insisted that only God,
through His Word had proper authority. Christmas, Easter and other
feasts, fasts and festivals of the church calendar were infringements of
the doctrine of the liberty of conscience. Therefore, they denied that
Christmas SHOULD be celebrated because there was no specific Biblical
warrant for doing so.
However, there was also another reason for the Puritan hatred of
Christmas; Christmas as a feast, was well known for being a time of
drunkenness and debauchery, with the church often turning a blind eye.
Even in the 19th century, “Christmas Carolers” or the “Here we go a
wassailing gang” was not the innocent custom we have today. Gangs of
rowdy young men were known to go house to house singing songs and
demanding free drinks; sometimes roughing up those who refused to
“celebrate” the custom. Thus the Puritans and Presbyterians wanted to
stamp out an ungodly practice that was associated with the worst sorts
of behavior. It is just folly to look at our modern celebration of
Christmas and assume that THIS was what the English Reformers were so
concerned about. I doubt if there is an American evangelical alive today
whose conscience is bound that if he does not celebrate Christmas, God
will be displeased with him and he might lose his salvation. And the
last time Christmas carolers came to my door, hardly any of them
threatened to burn my house down if I refused to give them free booze!
Thanks to the sentimentality of the Victorians, Christmas was made
into a family-oriented holiday, focusing on children. Because they were a
religious people (and revivalism had deeply stamped all evangelical
Christianity with a strong emotive cast by the end of the century) the
Victorians made a clear connection between the birth of Christ and the
strong emotional bonds towards their own families. Christmas thus was no
longer an adult festival, but a family one.
Frankly, if I had lived in the 17th century I would have had no
problem preaching against Christmas because at that time, it WAS a
hindrance to sanctification. But that is NOT the case today; history has
moved on and so should we. Granted, there is much today to criticize in
the way that even Christians celebrate Christmas; for example, going
into credit card debt to buy unneeded presents is pretty dumb.
Materialism is of course a prevalent sin today and we often equate
happiness with possessions. Christmas celebrations COULD become sinful
if people spent money they did not have, or become absorbed with giving
and receiving presents. Some people might find that they tend to get
drunk at Christmas parties, or kiss other men’s wives under mistletoe;
but then the problem, quite frankly is NOT Christmas, but of a lack of
basic Christian character.
But what about the worship issue; where do we get the right to
celebrate Christmas since we have no Biblical command to celebrate the
birth of Christ as a religious ordinance? Seriously though, who in this
day, outside of the Roman church IS celebrating Christmas as a divine
command? How can it be sin, to celebrate an historical event? Can
Christians lawfully celebrate Memorial Day, Thanksgiving, Reformation
Day, or Mothers’ Day? Why or why not?
A few years ago, after publishing a piece on Christmas, I received a
letter from a “truly reformed” sort who was anti-Christmas and took
exception to my writing that it was OK to recognize the Savior’s birth.
He even included with his letter a copy of his church’s bulletin to show
me what a “really” Reformed worship service looked like. In the
announcement section was a blurb for their annual upcoming “Reformation
Day” celebration with a special speaker in the morning, and a costume
party for the kids after the evening service. Now just hold on a moment;
where in Scripture did this truly Reformed brother receive a command to
celebrate the Reformation? What divine mandate makes it acceptable to
dress our kids up in costumes and have special games? Did you see what
he has done? Celebrating the birth of Christ is somehow bad and evil;
but it is OK to celebrate the Reformation! “Mr. Pot, Mr. Kettle on line
two” If we can lawfully celebrate ANY event in history, such as the
Reformation, or the American War of Independence, then we can also
lawfully celebrate the birth of Christ.
No, December 25th is NOT a “religious” holiday in that God has
commanded us to do certain things on that day and if we do not do those
things, we incur His wrath. A “Christmas” worship service is bound just
like any other worship service to be conducted in certain ways; i.e., we
sing, pray, read the Word, preach the Word and administer the
sacraments. Sure, Christians ought to be careful not to introduce
elements into the worship service such as advent candles and plays that
replace the preaching of the Word-all things that would be unlawful in
ANY worship service. Christmas trees and Santa Claus are just as
inappropriate in worship services just as idol worship or temple
prostitution (and yes, I am referring to YOU; roller-blading down the
sanctuary dressed as Santa Claus-what were you thinking!).
We are NOT free to create new elements of worship just because we
think they might be nice or aesthetically pleasing. Worship is our
religious duty to give back to God that which He has demanded of us; and
if He hasn’t commanded it, we have no right to offer it; sorry, the
theology of the Little Drummer boy is saccharine sweet but heretical.
There is a recurring problem of sinful men wanting to create worship
services that please us rather than God-but really, that’s a whole
different issue. But come on people, why is it that I can preach
messages about mothers on Mother’s Day, sermons on patriotism on
Veteran’s Day, sermons emphasizing the Reformation on Reformation day,
but I cannot preach on the incarnation in December! Give me a break!
Furthermore, there are many things we may lawfully do outside of
worship that are forbidden IN worship. For example, do you celebrate
birthdays? Can you give your wife or children birthday presents, sing a
special song to them, have a special cake with candles that can be blown
out after they make a wish? If so, what is your Biblical mandate for
doing so? What, God has not bound your conscience regarding celebrating
birthdays and leaves it up to your personal choice? I agree; God is
neither pleased nor displeased with you celebrating someone’s birthday
other than whether the general provisions of His law are obeyed.
However, if we can celebrate OUR birthdays lawfully, why can we not
celebrate the birthday of the Lord Jesus just as long as we do not bind
men’s consciences OR break God’s law in worship?
But what about all the parties and gifts and special meals; surely
all this consumption is unholy and displeasing to God. However, is it?
God gave the ancient Israelites many different feasts and festivals; in
fact they had to even set aside a third of a tithe so that every third
year they could hold a big party! God certainly does NOT object to
feasts and festivals, to enjoying the good things he provides, to
remembering the weak and downtrodden, to giving gifts in memorial to His
gracious gift to us.
And that is really the unspoken problem that a lot of Christians have
with Christmas despite their theological or historical
rationalizations. They don’t like feasts and festivals; somehow being
happy and joyous seems unspiritual to them. They may well have
unconsciously adopted a Greek mindset that sees the body as inherently
inferior, therefore making physical pleasures innately sinful. They
conclude that there must be something wrong with people laughing and
feasting, giving and receiving presents and having a good time! I am
dead serious here; over the years when I talk to many, many Christians,
it appears that the real reason why they hate Christmas is because they
think that it is wrong to have fun. There really are a lot more people
like Scrooge, and the Grinch than we think.
The twenty-fifth of December as just another day, and is of no
religious significance. There is nothing “holy” about it, and it despite
the efforts of the Fathers to calculate the right date, probably was
not the day Jesus was actually born. However If the angels of heaven
could publicly proclaim His birth, what possible problem can there be
for us to likewise commemorate that wondrous event? How can it be wrong
to sing those wonderful, postmillennial hymns which celebrate the birth
of Christ during the month of December? And since the incarnation is so
central to human history, then where is the problem with preaching a
special series of sermons exploring the implications of the advent of
the Lord Jesus?
And though most of what we think of as “traditional” Christmas
customs are less than 100 years old, how is anyone violating God’s law
by putting up a Christmas tree or giving kids some special presents on
December 25th?” Where does Scripture say that God is offended if wives
make some special foods for dinner that day? Where does He forbid us to
invite friends, neighbors or members of the church over to laugh and
joke and play silly games and rejoice in all the blessings that He gave
this past year?
So folks, lighten up, rejoice in your liberty of conscience in
Christ. If you choose not to celebrate Christmas, then Lord bless
you-take advantage of having the day off and read a good book or
something. But grant your brother the same liberty of conscience-and
literally, for God’s sake, do not create a law where He Himself has not
done so. But as for me and my house, we intend to feast and celebrate
and rejoice that the Lord has come into the world with a cheerful heart
and a good conscience.
