| Author | Message | ||
| Cloudwatcher Registered user Username: Cloudwatcher Post Number: 298 Registered: 5-2009 |
It happens every few years, Christmas day lands on a Saturday...and because this is one of those years, I'm remembering the thoughts that used to come to my mind as an Adventist. Can we open gifts on Sabbath? Can the kids open gifts? And if they do, can they play with them? Which Christmas songs are appropriate for Sabbath? Will we go to church? It all seems so silly now...to be so obsessed with Sabbath keeping at the expense of celebrating, in every fun, traditional, extraordinary way, the birth of our Savior. Talk about upside-down priorities. | ||
| Michaelmiller Registered user Username: Michaelmiller Post Number: 199 Registered: 7-2010  |
According to the calendar it last happened in 2004 and before that 1999, but I really don't remember it to be honest. Michael | ||
| Rossbondreturns Registered user Username: Rossbondreturns Post Number: 71 Registered: 10-2009  |
As a P/K we after many years were allowed to open one gift on Christmas Eve...the rest had to wait until Sat. after sunset. Of course we went to church whether it was my father or someone else preaching I don't remember that ever being an issue. This year in Redlands they're having their first service in the new church sanctuary. So there's going to be a lot of hoopla. | ||
| Hec Registered user Username: Hec Post Number: 1550 Registered: 3-2009 |
Opening one Christmas present was OK. What made it not OK to open two? Then three?, etc.? Is that what SDA do with about everything? They dilute the letter of the law as to be able to say that they keep it? Hec | ||
| Karethamiller Registered user Username: Karethamiller Post Number: 135 Registered: 8-2010  |
I can't remember any particular restrictions besides the normal Sabbath routines of church and such. I think we opened gifts like any other Christmas Day. | ||
| Cloudwatcher Registered user Username: Cloudwatcher Post Number: 299 Registered: 5-2009 |
Hec, now that you mention it, I do remember the one gift compromise...ha! you can have a little fun, just so the sabbath won't be a burden, but save the rest of the fun for after sunset. | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 12091 Registered: 12-2003  |
I remember waiting until after sundown as a teenager...Christmases were pretty sparse many years; my folks grew less and less likely to decorate as the years went by. I remember that one year they decided not to have a tree at all. I might have been in college by then, or perhaps late high school; anyway, my sis and I decided a tree was mandatory. So we went into the "back 40" (my family lived on ten acres in Oregon, most of which was behind the house and inaccessible down a very steep canyon that was full of fir trees) to cut one down. We found a spindly sapling (about the only size we could manage!) which we cut an brought into the house; it was pretty pathetic! Somehow that spindly sapling with the old tinsel and faded pink string of beads merges in my mind with Christmas on Sabbath. I'm truly not sure they coincided, but somehow they've formed a rather depressing memory in my mind! Colleen | ||
| Bb Registered user Username: Bb Post Number: 856 Registered: 7-2004 |
Sounds like a Charlie Brown tree!! I know I've told this before, but the last time I remember Christmas on Saturday I was totally in the sda church. I don't remember about the gift opening for some reason, but what I do remember was the Christmas service that the sda church had. I ended up sitting very near the front which is unusual for me. The regular preacher must have been out of town and a deacon preached. His sermon was all about the investigative judgement and how our names could have already come up or could soon come up. It was horrific!! I left feeling so depressed and anxious!! What a Christmas message that was!!! | ||
| River Registered user Username: River Post Number: 6997 Registered: 9-2006  |
I am writing my biography at the start of my 14 day vacation, and this subject brought back the memory of the most miserable Christmas I can remember having. My Mom's appendix had just burst and she had had to be rushed to the hospital a few days before. The hospital took all the money we had, there was no money at all for gifts of any kind. But some how there was two or three very small gifts that we had wrapped to put under that tree. So we had home made stuff hanging on a especially thin cedar tree. Mom had nearly died and was bed ridden, I was a budding teen age'er and of course susceptible to the peer pressure of girls. I remember a group of local girls coming by to bring some food stuffs and I was ashamed of that pathetic tree, ashamed of receiving hand outs from those girls. It hurt more than helped me, but I guess it helped Mom, I didn't have the sense to see what was really going on. I guess Mom was the core of our family and Christmas was so hard that year. Looking back I suppose Mom made Christmas. River | ||
| Jdpascal Registered user Username: Jdpascal Post Number: 262 Registered: 10-2003 |
We attended the local SDA church on saturday Christmas day back in 2004 with the families of our - not - SDA - 3 children and our visiting sda inlaws. The summation sentence by the pastor - repeated throughout the sermon - was: 'thank God we have a prophet in Israel". | ||
| Angelcat Registered user Username: Angelcat Post Number: 281 Registered: 11-2008 |
I hated it when Christmas was either on Saturday, or Friday. Saturday was't as horrible, because some years we'd get together iwth fmaily after sundown, and we'd at least see people at church. If it was on Friday? No family dinner, presents, anything. Too busy getting ready for Sabbath. xmas can wait til Sunday. My parents still don't think they should celebrate xmas. Other than presents, we didn't do any of the more secular stuff, santa ..stockings...gifts from my parents were always (until I was a teenager) given weeks before xmas, and not wrapped. (same with birthdays). Thythought it would be better to nt clebrate, but felt they had to acknowledge it somehow. they would say it was wrong because it was pagan,they didn't like the word Christmas becasue it is pagan. originally it had nothing ot to with Jesus, etc. However, they were ok with xmas songs at church, as long as they were about Jesus, and didn't mention the word xmas in any form. This year, I am glad it's on Sabbath, as my parents won't be giving me a pity invitation to a meal of some kind of Loma Linda or Worthington plastic byproduct...so, it will just be Rachel and I having a peaceful, low-key xmas. we'll open presents, drink eggnog, (mine with rum, lol), dance to xmas music, and have a wonderful turkey dinner. My parents just have no xmas spirit...I do invite them over xmas eve, but my dad hates it. He watches TV and gets upset if we talk at all. If I don't let him watch TV, he pouts. If I go to their house, he wolfs down dinner, and then goes to listen to the radio/nap/play on the computer, and shuts the door and says he's too tired and to keep rachel out. So,Rachel and I have our own traditions now. | ||
| Flyinglady Registered user Username: Flyinglady Post Number: 8847 Registered: 3-2004  |
It has been so long since I have thought of Christmas as an sda. The last Christmas with my parents was very bad. My brothers were teenagers. Mom did not want a tree. My youngest brother ran, on Christmas eve, to the lot a block away, just before they closed and stole a tree for Christmas. I was home from college. It was not about Jesus Christ, it was about having a tree and presents. As I remember, there were no presents that year. Christmas on Saturdays, I just do not remember what we did. For my son and me, he opened his presents on Christmas morning and then we went to church. I am so very very thankful, we do not have to worry about, Ohh, is this okay to do on sabbath??? Thank you awesome God for taking each one of us out of that cult. Diana L | ||
| Philharris Registered user Username: Philharris Post Number: 2324 Registered: 5-2007  |
This thread reminded me of the first Christmas that I can remember. I was three years old. It was 1944 and Christmas fell on a Monday. Uncle Harry, the youngest of my uncles who was thirteen, played the part of Santa Claus with a traditional suit on, handed out the gifts. The event was held at my grandparent’s home which was at the St Helena Sanitarium. Their home was about a hundred yards from the hospital so my Aunt Betty, who was a nurse at the San, could walk to work. Years afterwards I wondered; what with everything Adventist teach about Christmas, why we had a tree and Santa Claus all without any reference to the real meaning of the season. A couple months later their home burnt to the ground and they all moved up to Angwin onto property that my Aunt Betty had and where we had many family gatherings in later years including 1951 when we had a white Christmas and we came down from Lake County. Our Motel A Ford broke down short of Pope Valley but we made it in time for Christmas and before the snow arrived. OK, these Christmases were not on Saturday, but they are what I remember. Fearless Phil | ||
| Indy4now Registered user Username: Indy4now Post Number: 960 Registered: 2-2008  |
I remember very clearly the one Christmas that landed on the Sabbath when I was a kid. We also opened only one gift on Friday night and had to wait until sundown on Saturday night to open the rest of them. IT WAS TORTURE!!!! I can't remember what we did on the on the other Christmases that landed on the sabbath. Colleen, I thought that your memories of that first Christmas program at that non-adventist church were really interesting (which you wrote about in Proclamation!). I don't ever remember the crucifixion and the resurrection being a part of any sda Christmas program. As an adventist, Christmas was the only big holiday to celebrate and Easter was like celebrating Valentine's day. Both Christmas and Easter have become more special to me since my exodus from "Egypt". ;) vivian | ||
| Dennis Registered user Username: Dennis Post Number: 2177 Registered: 4-2000  |
One of my non-vegetarian daughters insists that we have her mom's special meatless entree for our Christmas meal each year. My mother didn't believe in having a tree for Christmas inside the house, but she attractively lit three large evergreens in front of our farm home (smile). Oh well, legalism is never consistent. I still remember the night when Santa Claus arrived at our home in traditional attire--I was terrified of him (I hid behind a coal-burning stove). I also remember when neighbors arrived at our farm home around midnight on New Year's Eve and shot their guns into the air to awaken us and to wish us a very happy new year. Oh yes, to compensate for the lack of any Christmas event at our German SDA Church, we would visit a Lutheran church down the road so I could get a bag of goodies after their Christmas program. Overall, I was not deprived of having a nice Christmas while growing up Adventist. We had a traditional Christmas program at our one-room public school house each year as well. Dennis Fischer | ||
| Stevew Registered user Username: Stevew Post Number: 16 Registered: 2-2010 |
I am still in the 'transitioning' phase and saw something interesting last weekend. My parents-in-law (very conservative SDA's) were staying with us for a few days and on Saturday afternoon we were all together as an extended family. It was going to be the only opportunity for an xmas get-together while they were here. Currently the sun sets here at around 8:15 pm and our kids usually go to bed well before that. Anyway, in order for my in-laws to be comfortable with our kids opening a few presents before they went to bed, my mother-in-law suggested we close sabbath early! Quite amazing to be able to 'bend the rules' for that, I thought.... | ||
| River Registered user Username: River Post Number: 7004 Registered: 9-2006 |
Tell me...how in the world do you close a day early? If I can find that out it will be invaluable to me on my job. I could cut my hours down to four by closing the day early! Excellent idea! Well...of course I might only live half as long,,,bummer! Let me know what you find out, I am definitely interested.  River | ||
| Psalm107v2 Registered user Username: Psalm107v2 Post Number: 795 Registered: 10-2008  |
Oh wow "close the sabbath" I haven't heard or thought of that in eons!!! The legalism theme within the SDA church is so restricting---no wonder the cults have so many people in depression I don't remember Sabbath Christmases I think mainly because my family did not celebrate Christmas for many years. I have vague memories of a seminar that talked about "Tamus" and the whole pagan aspects of Christmas and Easter so my parents being good SDAs said no more Christmas. When I was about 6 they gave us our "final Christmas" with a bunch of toys and then that was it. When I was about 14 the rules were relaxed and we bought a fancy punch bowl so we could have it for Sabbath dinners (we entertained a lot) and I seem to remember my parents allowing us to accept gifts from friends and relatives. Our familiar believed in being "peculiar people" Enoch | ||
| Nowisee Registered user Username: Nowisee Post Number: 710 Registered: 5-2009 |
I think we had to wait to open presents after sundown also. I don't think Sabbath Christmases were very memorable at all. Wow, Bb, that sure was an Anti-Christmas sermon!! How awful. A sure-fire way to ruin Christmas! | ||
| Hec Registered user Username: Hec Post Number: 1553 Registered: 3-2009 |
Is there a phrase also to "open the Sabbath?" In Spanish, Friday's vespers is called "to receive the Sabbath" and Saturday's vespers is called "to say goodbye to the Sabbath." Hec | ||
| Stevew Registered user Username: Stevew Post Number: 17 Registered: 2-2010 |
Yep, my parents-in-law still "open Sabbath". I feel like I'm in a weird kind of transitioning limbo. Whilst still attending an SDA church now and then (much more to catch up with friends than anything else..) some of these phrases, and SDAisms still seem 'normal'. That is until I'm talking to non-SDA christians, or non-christians, and then whenever an SDAism comes up, like the prophetess, opening Sabbath (which I doubt I've ever even said to anyone other than other SDA's) I feel like a total alien! It really shouldn't be that embarrassing, should it?!?!? | ||
| Bb Registered user Username: Bb Post Number: 858 Registered: 7-2004 |
"to say goodbye to the Sabbath." Makes you really appreciate living in the Sabbath Rest 24/7. You don't have to say "goodbye" to the Sabbath any more! Nice |
