What does Christmas really mean? Should we stop celebrating it?
With the economy being what it is, White unemployment is more than 10 percent and Black unemployment over 20 percent, should we just forsake this holiday?
It’s just a holiday in which we spend too much and end up in debt for the rest of the year, getting our kids stuff they don’t really need.
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Listening to many of the doom and gloom people of today would make most of us bypass Christmas.
But what is Christmas really about?
Why was Christmas so important to our ancestors even during 250-plus years of slavery, and 100-plus years of being second class citizens during the segregation era when the only jobs we could get were the ones the White man didn’t want. These are not the only hard times for Black people. As long as we have been in this country, the majority of us have seen hard times, yet we celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas more than other holidays.
Why? Because despite the hard times, Christmas is a time family and friends come together to share their love for each another. We understand we can’t get all the material things we would like to give or receive but we can give our love. Sure there are many of us who need serious money management around Christmas, but that’s really a year around problem for those individuals.
And even though 10 to 20 percent are unemployed or underemployed, 80 to 90 percent have been blessed with a job. As many complain about the cost of Christmas, remember that this is the time of year when more people are employed than any other time; this is the season when many people find seasonal jobs that turn out to be year around jobs. This is the season that people working for the companies that make and sell the many things we purchase are able to keep their jobs. Christmas is the one holiday that puts most retail businesses in the black. What would happen if we didn’t celebrate it? How many jobs would be lost?
For those of us who have a little age on us or have read our history, we remember when times were much harder financially during an era in which Blacks were being lynched, raped, killed and falsely imprisoned. Many of us were living in fear and poverty yet our parents somehow managed to get us some of the material things we wanted. But what really mattered was that we all were together.
Why? Because this is the love day.
With all the hardships we have faced and will have to face, with God’s help, we will overcome.
Christmas is for family and friends to show their love for each other through cards and gifts, but most of all by just being there for each other.
Christmas is the celebration of the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. For without the birth, there would be no teaching, no death, no resurrection for our salvation in him. God showed us his love for us by sending his son to earth to teach and die for us, thus we return that love with our celebration of Christmas which is when we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.
Christmas is not just about giving gifts, it’s about giving, (according to God), the most important thing in this world, love. For God is love and love is God.
So, as we go about celebrating another Christmas, remember that as long as we have love, and for those of us who have lost loved ones, or have had love, we are the richest people on earth. For Christmas is not about the gifts, but the love. So the greatest gift we can give is our love.
With that in mind the New Pittsburgh Courier family wishes you all a very Merry Christmas filled with love.
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