I think all of us would agree that green shirt guy's family tradition is not a very good idea. The heart behind what they are doing isn't bad, it's what the implications due to the background of that action that make it not a good idea. The same can go for traditions that we hold dear.

I've mentioned in previous comics in this series about a few major holidays, but didn't really say much about them. There are three major holiday/family traditions I want to speak on: Halloween, Christmas, and Easter.

Halloween in my family was no big deal. We were church goers and we even had several people in our church that would speak out against the evils of Halloween. However, we didn't see a problem in it and still celebrated it. This continued on into when I had children as well. I was all the more excited for my children because my workplace had a trick-or-treat setup so we didn't have to go to stranger's house to stranger's house, we could just go by co-workers' desks.

It wasn't until someone from our church had made a post about not wanting to hear about Halloween from fellow Christians that any further research was done into it. My wife had found a lot of information. The dressing up came from an ancient Celtic festival called Samhain, where people would wear costumes to ward off ghosts. The black and orange colors come from the same festival. Bobbing for apples came from a Roman festival celebrating one of their goddesses. Outside of this, there is a lot of very evil things surrounding the day as well. Things I do not want to go into here. Even without that, and just what I have shown should be enough to know this isn't something a Christian should be taking part in. Even if it is masked as a "Trunk or Treat" at your local church.

Deut. 12:30 - be careful not to be ensnared by their ways after they have been destroyed before you. Do not inquire about their gods, asking, "How do these nations serve their gods? I will do likewise."

I knew early on that Christmas had several pagan ties to it. I can't remember when I learned about all this, but because Halloween wasn't a big deal, neither was Christmas. Christmas was my favorite holiday. A good portion of myself was dedicated to it. Music, decorations, my costume, movies... you name it. If it was Christmas, I wanted to be part of it.

This all changed when we went looking into Halloween. Why? Because when that church friend made the comment on FB about the evils of Halloween, I laughed and told Angelina "Christmas is no different". I then told her about the different things like the Yule logs, wreaths, mistletoe, and so on and even pulled up sources to show I wasn't just making it up. Just like Halloween is almost a copy-paste with a minor edits here and there of Samhain. Christmas is linked very much with Saturnalia and Winter Solstice festivals. Merry making, gift exchanges, turtledoves, and more all came from Saturnalia. Which was a festival to worship the god of Saturn.

Deut. 12:30 - be careful not to be ensnared by their ways after they have been destroyed before you. Do not inquire about their gods, asking, "How do these nations serve their gods? I will do likewise."

While Christmas may be hard for some to come to terms with, I've been surprised at the amount of people that hold onto Easter. The traditions of it, even when I was a child, center around bunnies, baskets being left on the front porch, pastel colors, and finding eggs. Do these have an ancient festival around the same time of year that this is mimicking? Yes: the spring fertility festival dedicated to the goddess Eostre, or in Old English: Eastre (Easter).

Deut. 12:30 - be careful not to be ensnared by their ways after they have been destroyed before you. Do not inquire about their gods, asking, "How do these nations serve their gods? I will do likewise."

Don't just take my word for it, go and research. Look at both sides of the issue. I know there are a lot of Christian-written articles/videos that defend these celebrations. There are also a lot of non-Christian-written articles/videos that explain what I am bringing up above.

And please note, I am not speaking out against celebrating our Savior's birth, death, and resurrection. Those are wonderful things that have happened and all happened on God's Holy Days. Why would we need to create anything new to remember them when God Himself gave us something to remember by?

https://thestraightandnarrow.cfw.me/comics/692

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