What's the deal with Christmas anyway?

Last year I needed to get some work done on my car and it just so happened that I picked it up on Christmas Eve during the day (December 24th) .

While I was waiting for my car to be brought around, 2 Omani men were talking to each other in Arabic and then they turned to me and one asked "is it a holy day for you today?"

It occured to me that like I don't really get Ramadan or Eid, they probably don't really get Christmas.

I said, "well kind of but really tomorrow is the big day."

The man asked, "what is it?"

Since I figure this is the case for a lot of Muslims (maybe, maybe not) because most Muslims are, well you know, pretty dedicated and most will not (I think) consider other religions or whatever, so I thought I'd break it down for you.

I'm not spreading Jesus propaganda or trying to convert anyone here, I'm just letting whoever wants to know what the deal with Christmas is and why there is a Christmas tree in almost every busy "Western" friendly frequented shopping place.

Here I go, keep in mind that I haven't studied the Bible (or even looked at one) since I was about 16 and this is my unresearched and unclarified version of events how I remember them, mostly through wearing sheeps costumes and standing at the back of the nativity scenes in grade school.

The story all begins with a nice young lady by the name of Mary. Mary got pregnant while still a virgin by God. (I don't think it was a sex thing.) God let her know that she was to be the mother of Christ and that a man, a carpenter in fact, called Joseph would hook her up with a wedding ring and take responsibility for her and the baby and thus save her for being stoned to death when her bump started to show.

Then Mary went to Joseph and told her what God had said and that they needed to get married. I think Joseph didn't really know what to make of the situation because he didn't know Mary, but he took her word for it, or maybe he had faith in the situation, or maybe he was just a kind man who wanted to help this lady out, or maybe he just liked Mary's style.

I think they did get married, but I couldn't say what sort of celebration they had. I wonder if they had wedding themes back then...

When it was time to have the baby they headed off to Bethlehem which is where Joseph was from because back then you had to have your baby in the fathers home town (Cush said it's because there was a census or something). For now we're saying Joseph was the father even though we all know that God is the real baby daddy.

They might have been heading to Jerusalem or somewhere interesting but maybe Mary got caught short and went into labour.

So it was on Christmas Eve, that Joseph and Mary stopped at an inn in Bethlehem and asked for a room. But there was no room at the inn. That's an important detail.

So Mary and Joseph went into the barn and made themselves comfortable and waited for the baby to come.

Meanwhile....there was a very, very bright and special star in the sky over Bethlehem that night and the 3 wise men knew that someone special was being born and so they went and followed the star and each of them brought a gift with them for the baby (Cush said they followed the star for months).

One gift was gold, another was myrrh and the last was frankenscense. These gifts would have been the equivelent to an i-phone, an x-box and a car these days, like really fantastic, amazing gifts.

So sometime on the 25th, Mary gives birth and named the baby Jesus (God might have told her to name him that). Since they're in a barn they put the baby in a manger which is what I think people used to put hay in for the animals, it's a sort of troph or something.

Why is it so important that there was no room at the inn and they put Jesus in an animal food troph? Well it shows that Christ came from a humble beginning.

So, every year we give each other gifts to celebrate Jesus' birthday and we also usually have a bit of a feast, turkey (or ham or both) usually, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, and some veggies are typically on the menu.

Why do we decorate a pine tree? I don't know, because it's fun or because it's pretty (because it gives our cats something to destroy!?)? It's tradition either way, I think it's best not to question it actually.

Who is this Santa Claus guy? Well, I know this much, he's the guy who brings the presents. He lives at the North Pole (which I always took to mean he's Canadian) with Mrs. Claus (also Canadian) and his team of reindeer (Canadian obviously) who can fly. These flying reindeer are lead by Rudolph who has a red nose.

I'm not shitting you. This is seriously what the deal is.

So Santa and the reindeer fly all over the world and go down peoples chimneys and leave presents under the tree for the good children, but not the bad children, Santa always knows who's good and who's bad, in fact he makes a list about it. If there's no chimney then Santa jimmies the door or window open and gets in that way.

In return, families leave out cookies and milk for Santa to eat and drink and some carrots for the reindeer to eat.

We also tend to give to those less fortunate this time of year either through donating money to the Salvation Army, toys for children and food to the food banks so that everyone has the chance to have a good Christmas.

So that's Christmas. A lot of really doesn't have much to do with Jesus anymore for a lot of people but alternatively a lot of people do pick this as the time of year to go to church. And I do have to say that while I dislike organized religion (mostly because I think it brings out a lot of bad in people, sexism, judging and whatnot) I do like Catholic churches at Christmas.

There is usually a nativity scene (which looks like what the barn in Bethlehem would have looked like on the night Jesus was born only Mary never looks like she just had a baby, she looks very beautiful and glamerous and usually like a white woman although she obviously would not have been white, Jesus is laying in the troph all pink and glowing, the wise men are there hanging around in the background and Joseph looks dottingly down onto Jesus like a proud papa), and 4 candles that stand in a wreath called an advent wreath I think and one candle is lit for every week during December (I think), usually there are some poinsettias (red Christmas flowers, very poisonous to cats)...

Obviously when I picked up my car from the shop last year I just said something like, our guy Jesus, like your guy Mohammed was born and that's why we celebrate.

They nodded like, yeah, and I paid and went about my day.

Questions? Comments? Corrections? (Cush already told me I was wrong about a few things)

Merry Christmas everyone!