Munck sisters defend their Christmas Tree

[fundiefun]

I'm glad she's from the Maxwell's you have more freedom living in jail then you do with the Maxwells. Hopefully this will be a wake up call to her parents since they were given a taste of what fundie life is like. I know it's wishful thinking but I hope that since they are new to fundie life that will eventually snap out of it.

[Closed Womb]

The Maxwells are the first people I have ever heard of who thought a Christmas tree was bad.

Sadly, I have known quite a few in-real-life fundie lite folks who eschew the Christmas tree (actually, they dislike Christmas entirely.) It is basically an "I'm a better Christian" issue. "I am denying myself something fun, in the most self righteous manner possible, so I am a better level of Christian than others" is the basic thought pattern.

I file it under the "never happy" folder. A bunch of people who say that we take Jesus out of everything, but the one frekin time of year that Jesus is everywhere, they want nothing to do with it. :roll:

[Bbfamteam]

Elizabeth just iced the cake and solidified my best of 2012. God I hope she marries into a polar opposite Maxwell lifestyle. She just seems like with the right freedom she could really go places. I'd love to take her to a bar and get the low down on what the final straw actually was and her thoughts on her narrow escape from Maxhell.

[Sola]

As much as I don't like their fundiness, I do love this. That's a giant fuck you to Steve-o. I hope Liz finds a nice fundie-lite guy, had a defraudind wedding, wears pants, celebrates Christmas and brings her future daughters up to be what they want to be.

[uber frau]

Sadly, I have known quite a few in-real-life fundie lite folks who eschew the Christmas tree (actually, they dislike Christmas entirely.) It is basically an "I'm a better Christian" issue. "I am denying myself something fun, in the most self righteous manner possible, so I am a better level of Christian than others" is the basic thought pattern.

I file it under the "never happy" folder. A bunch of people who say that we take Jesus out of everything, but the one frekin time of year that Jesus is everywhere, they want nothing to do with it. :roll:

I grew up in a fundy community where having a tree was a huge "no". (My rebel of a mother had one every year, and still does. Now days, she even gives presents to her grandkids. :lol: I often wonder what my mother would have been if she'd married someone different, but anyway...sigh)

Christmas was a complete non-event other than a mandatory church service in the morning and a day off work-most ppl went down to the beach and had a BBQ unless it was Sunday. (Not in the land of white Christmases here;)) Then they just hung about at home until the church service in the afternoon. Yawn.

Our lot was ever-so-slightly more liberal than the super fundy mob my sister joined for a while. THey didn't celebrate Christmas at all. Their argument went something along the lines of it just being a co-opted pagan holiday that had no biblical precident or mandate. They were ever so slightly more liberal than a mob down the road from them: at least they allowed members of their church to celebrate Christmas privately. The Super, duper fundy mob didn't even allow that.

[SisiL78]

Are there any fundies that celebrate Christmas on a more "accurate" date (which would be late fall probably)?

[patsymae]

"Are there any fundies that celebrate Christmas on a more "accurate" date (which would be late fall probably)?"

The very few fundies I know and a Mormon friend say that Jesus was probably born around the spring (something to do with lambs?) but they celebrate Christmas on Dec. 25 anyway because, well, it's when most of the people in the world who celebrate Christmas do so. Also some Eastern Orthodox friends whose churches still celebrate religious Christmas on Jan. 7 celebrate "secular" Christmas on Dec. 25 because...

I had a Solstice party on Saturday night but everybody who came in--Jewish, agnostic, whatever--came in saying Merry Christmas and enjoyed the tree and wanted me to put on Christmas music. The HUGE South Asian population in my area that is mostly Hindu and Muslim (although there are of course Desi Christians) mostly makes a holiday out of Christmas. If they aren't celebrating with neighbors, they go out to dinner, walk around, look at the lights, and, as one man said, "like to also enjoy this Christmas."

What fundies seem to miss is that traditions only have the meanings that people impart to them. It's all just a human construct and nothing about anything in modern life has come down unchanged from 6,000 years ago when God created people and dinosaurs on the same day and told them what kinds of celebrations to have.

I lived for years in a community that was mostly dominated by fundies of the monotheistic persuasion (excluding Muslims). It showed up every Halloween. The fundie Jews wouldn't participate because it was Christian. The fundie Christians wouldn't participate because it was pagan. The immigrant Israelis downstairs from me asked me to explain Halloween (their English wasn't great and I was into Celtic paganism at the time) and after my feeble explanation said, "It's like Purim!" and had a ball giving out candy to dressed-up kids.

The modern Santa Claus was the invention of a newspaper guy. "Merry Christmas" didn't appear in the English-language lexicon until Charles Dickens' "The Christmas Carol" was published, which even fundies have to agree was later than when Jesus was hanging out with the dinosaurs.

So it's all invented, but so what? It's a time to be happy and enjoy life. It's a time to think of others (yes, problems with why just NOW and not forever, but at least it's happening NOW).

Have a tree! Have a drink (or three)! Invite your neighbors over for cider. Have your kids make an amateurish-looking present for the old lady across the street--it could make her day. Play secret Santa to the struggling family you know about or just put up with your own when normally you'd rather have your fingernails ripped out than spend a day with racist Uncle Joe.

It's not that hard. Christmas is a day that is commonly accepted by many people as a day to step away from the grind, get excited about giving and receiving, maybe take some spiritual stock, and yes--HAVE FUN!

So Merry Christmas to everyone. And a Happy New (as my little ones sing) EAR?

[Sprocket]

I always heard it was probably the spring as well. But I haven't done any research into the matter.

[jenny_islander]

Probably at lambing time, yes, when the shepherds would have been out with the flocks all night instead of asking them to waddle their about-to-pop selves all the way back to the sheepfold. But what does it matter? If we tried to celebrate all of the events of Jesus' life noted in the Gospels on their "real" dates, it would be wall-to-wall festivals for a couple of months of the year and basically nothing for the rest of the year!

[nokidsmom]

Read the post and yeah, it's definitely an message to Steve. It does seem to me that all of them had second thoughts about the wedding. I am sure Elizabeth had her own warning signs, she had to have bumped into all the rules and regs for living in Maxhell such as no Christmas tree, no makeup, no internet, etc. etc. but wonder if the parents when they got wind of this stuff, urged her to call it off as well.

[xReems]

Her family seem pretty new in the fundie world so my guess is that they didn't realize just how psychotic Steve Maxwell is until Elizabeth became engaged. I'm sure they were taken by surprise after hearing all the rules and regulations she would have to follow. Hell, if my boyfriend's family did that to me, I would make a run to the door in a heartbeat. I think Elizabeth might have had her doubts afterwards but her parents probably stepped in and said something done, which caused the engagement to be broken off.

As for the blog post, kudos to Elizabeth and her sisters for giving Steve Maxwell the finger!

[AVENues]

The last time I mentioned how much I respected her for standing up for herself and blowing off the Maxhellion, and how much balls and ovaries her families had shown by supporting her and calling off a wedding, all I heard was that it does not mean anything and they were a bunch of assholes and who cares. Doublethink? Not the worst of course, the massive slut shaming (that bitch, that twat, etc) is bothering me more. But now suddenly they are just so cool? For a Christmas tree? Saving a girl from a tyrant was nothing and no sign of courage, support and bravery, a badly written Christmas tree article is so funky. Saving the girl from a horrid life wasn't. Interesting.

[Hane]

So it's all invented, but so what? It's a time to be happy and enjoy life. It's a time to think of others (yes, problems with why just NOW and not forever, but at least it's happening NOW).

Have a tree! Have a drink (or three)! Invite your neighbors over for cider. Have your kids make an amateurish-looking present for the old lady across the street--it could make her day. Play secret Santa to the struggling family you know about or just put up with your own when normally you'd rather have your fingernails ripped out than spend a day with racist Uncle Joe.

It's not that hard. Christmas is a day that is commonly accepted by many people as a day to step away from the grind, get excited about giving and receiving, maybe take some spiritual stock, and yes--HAVE FUN!

So Merry Christmas to everyone. And a Happy New (as my little ones sing) EAR?

patsymae, thanks for the best possible ecumenical Christmas message. Sending you a cyber gingerbread cookie!