6 ms·

I'm Muslim, so all my Christmas's school and college days were kinda the same, 1980s. I would have a real small tree xmass decorated at home and no one would bl

I'm Muslim, so all my Christmas's school and college days were kinda the same, 1980s. I would have a real small tree xmass decorated at home and no one would blink about it, then wander over to my christian friends' neighborhood around noon to see what kind of cherry and wine they were serving. This is that neighborhood now https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1031546789002116&set=pcb.1031546879002107 https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1031546789002116&set=pcb...

assimpleaspossi 2y ago
A Jewish friend of mine would get a small tree and call it his "Moses bush".
abustamam 2y ago
I'm Muslim too and I always find it interesting to see how various non-Christian theists observe Christmas. Obviously we don't "celebrate" but I personally don't see anything wrong with partaking in the secular parts of Christmas (and let's be real, in the west, it's pretty much all secular). My parents felt otherwise when I was growing up, so my siblings and I weren't allowed to do anything Christmas related, but now my wife and I would do seasonal things like watch a live performance of Nutcracker or Pentatonix or TSO. And can't forget about watching the holiday classic movies like Elf and Die Hard!
- sgt 2y ago
  I spoke to a muslim who basically just "gave in" and started doing Christmas at home because the kids wanted it. With the tree and Xmas presents etc even.
  - abustamam 2y ago
    Yeah that's probably more common than you might expect. My mom is a teacher at an Islamic school and some of her 1st graders would often say stuff like "we have a Christmas tree at home but my mom told me not to tell anyone," which might give you an idea of how Muslims view Christmas. It's not something I personally want to do for my family, but I don't think any less of families that do that.
- almokhtar 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - footy 2y ago
    This is a weird and kind of rude thing to say to someone.
    - bloomingeek 2y ago
      Indeed, the site rules infer not to be too argumentative. It's also a simple rule of being compassionate.
  - ricardobeat 2y ago
    Why do you bother coming to a Christmas related thread just to spew radical religious beliefs? Happy holidays I guess.
- Aloha 2y ago
  I will argue that in the US Christmas is in part a secular holiday - given its sorta pagan origins that makes total sense to me. It's a solstice feast basically.
  - lolinder 2y ago
    The pagan origins thing is a myth, btw—all the various bits which people point to as evidence still date back to a Christian-era Europe and cannot be traced back further. Christianity has been around for a very very long time and has had a lot of time to evolve its own traditions. :) For example, Christmas trees date back no later than the middle ages: https://youtube.com/watch?v=m41KXS-LWsY https://youtube.com/watch?v=m41KXS-LWsY
    - sbuk 2y ago
      Nonsense. You're conflating tradition (tree in this case) with festivals and ancient religious rites. See: - Yule - Dísablót - Koliada - Lohri - Saturnalia - Yaldā Night - Nardoqan
      - lolinder 2y ago
        No, I'm not. All of these are, to the extent we know about them at all (which in some cases we don't know much), entirely unlike any Christmas traditions we have today which are claimed to be pagan in origin.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        satvikpendem 2y ago
        How do you know Christmas simply didn't align itself to those holidays themselves, because after all, a year end winter feast is nothing new in history? Or that the traditions we have today may have at once been part of such syncreticization but then died out until the modern day? In other words we don't necessarily have to see such traditions today per se for Christmas to have absorbed them over its time.
- rat87 2y ago
  The Soviet Union cancelled Christmas then later took the secular parts of Christmas (New Year's tree,a Santa like figure Ded Moroz/Grandfather Frost was original some sort of pagan slavic mystical figure before somehow being molded into a very Santa Claus character) and moved it to New Year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novy_God https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novy_God Soviet style New Year's is still celebrated in a number of post Soviet countries including I believe to some extent in some of the Muslim ones. It's also celebrated by post Soviet Jews in Israel and to some extent the US. Although the recent full scale invasion on Ukraine might effect popularity due to it's Soviet association.
jedberg 2y ago
My house looks like that photo now too. I love Christmas music too. In fact my friend's house is featured in the top link on HN right now. He's helped me with my own show. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42494512 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42494512

assimpleaspossi 2y ago

A Jewish friend of mine would get a small tree and call it his "Moses bush".

abustamam 2y ago

I'm Muslim too and I always find it interesting to see how various non-Christian theists observe Christmas. Obviously we don't "celebrate" but I personally don't see anything wrong with partaking in the secular parts of Christmas (and let's be real, in the west, it's pretty much all secular). My parents felt otherwise when I was growing up, so my siblings and I weren't allowed to do anything Christmas related, but now my wife and I would do seasonal things like watch a live performance of Nutcracker or Pentatonix or TSO. And can't forget about watching the holiday classic movies like Elf and Die Hard!

sgt 2y ago
I spoke to a muslim who basically just "gave in" and started doing Christmas at home because the kids wanted it. With the tree and Xmas presents etc even.
- abustamam 2y ago
  Yeah that's probably more common than you might expect. My mom is a teacher at an Islamic school and some of her 1st graders would often say stuff like "we have a Christmas tree at home but my mom told me not to tell anyone," which might give you an idea of how Muslims view Christmas. It's not something I personally want to do for my family, but I don't think any less of families that do that.
almokhtar 2y ago
[flagged]
- footy 2y ago
  This is a weird and kind of rude thing to say to someone.
  - bloomingeek 2y ago
    Indeed, the site rules infer not to be too argumentative. It's also a simple rule of being compassionate.
- ricardobeat 2y ago
  Why do you bother coming to a Christmas related thread just to spew radical religious beliefs? Happy holidays I guess.
Aloha 2y ago
I will argue that in the US Christmas is in part a secular holiday - given its sorta pagan origins that makes total sense to me. It's a solstice feast basically.
- lolinder 2y ago
  The pagan origins thing is a myth, btw—all the various bits which people point to as evidence still date back to a Christian-era Europe and cannot be traced back further. Christianity has been around for a very very long time and has had a lot of time to evolve its own traditions. :) For example, Christmas trees date back no later than the middle ages: https://youtube.com/watch?v=m41KXS-LWsY https://youtube.com/watch?v=m41KXS-LWsY
  - sbuk 2y ago
    Nonsense. You're conflating tradition (tree in this case) with festivals and ancient religious rites. See: - Yule - Dísablót - Koliada - Lohri - Saturnalia - Yaldā Night - Nardoqan
    - lolinder 2y ago
      No, I'm not. All of these are, to the extent we know about them at all (which in some cases we don't know much), entirely unlike any Christmas traditions we have today which are claimed to be pagan in origin.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - satvikpendem 2y ago
        How do you know Christmas simply didn't align itself to those holidays themselves, because after all, a year end winter feast is nothing new in history? Or that the traditions we have today may have at once been part of such syncreticization but then died out until the modern day? In other words we don't necessarily have to see such traditions today per se for Christmas to have absorbed them over its time.
rat87 2y ago
The Soviet Union cancelled Christmas then later took the secular parts of Christmas (New Year's tree,a Santa like figure Ded Moroz/Grandfather Frost was original some sort of pagan slavic mystical figure before somehow being molded into a very Santa Claus character) and moved it to New Year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novy_God https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novy_God Soviet style New Year's is still celebrated in a number of post Soviet countries including I believe to some extent in some of the Muslim ones. It's also celebrated by post Soviet Jews in Israel and to some extent the US. Although the recent full scale invasion on Ukraine might effect popularity due to it's Soviet association.

jedberg 2y ago

My house looks like that photo now too. I love Christmas music too. In fact my friend's house is featured in the top link on HN right now. He's helped me with my own show. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42494512 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42494512