T-C's Rebeka said:
I am curious if BF members observe or celebrate Hanukkah in some manner and if so does your family celebrate Christmas in some manner also, especially if you have children in the home.
We do both in our family. I am not a big Christmas fan while my husband grew up with family traditions surrounding Christmas.
Some years the kids will get presents during Hanukkah only by us and Christmas gifts from extended family, then on other years there are only presents during Christmas. Regardless of how we handle each holiday we always try to emphasize Christ in the holiday.
I recommend you watch the unwrapping of Christmas on Pagan invasion by Jeremiah films. I tried to order it long ago (but it was sold out or my credit card would not work or something,) it got pulled off the air from VCY as far as I know, even though they play the other episodes of Pagan invasion...... I think VCY caved into the idol worshipers who professed to be Christians.
That being said, I grew up in a household where I heard about the black mass long ago before watching Pagan invasion T.V. series, one advantage of having anti-christs in your family is it gives you a head start in trying to avoid antichrist holidays.
1 Hear what the LORD says to you, people of Israel. 2 This is what the LORD says:
“Do not learn the ways of the nations
or be terrified by signs in the heavens,
though the nations are terrified by them.
3 For the practices of the peoples are worthless;
they cut a tree out of the forest,
and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel.
4 They adorn it with silver and gold;
they fasten it with hammer and nails
so it will not totter.
5 Like a scarecrow in a cucumber field,
their idols cannot speak;
they must be carried
because they cannot walk.
Do not fear them;
they can do no harm
nor can they do any good.”
Jeremiah 10:1-6 NIV
People used to wrap silver and gold "tinsel" around trees and nail them in place in the house. These were not necessarily the same as "Christmas trees," but the idea of tree idols is an age old tradition spanning generations and cultures, so I do not think it is a good idea to do something similar even if you do not directly bow down and worship it officially.
Saint Nicholas was a real person who died. It is forbidden to talk to the dead, but they pretend like this guy who died long ago puts presents under people's Christmas trees and has godlike properties.
The black mass mistaken as Christmas is full of pagan references
Now if you remove all the pagan stuff and just spend extra time thinking about how Jesus was born of a virgin it is ok. But if you keep the Pagan stuff it is bad.
Now about Chanukah
22 Then came the Festival of Dedication
at Jerusalem. It was winter, 23 and Jesus was in the temple courts walking in Solomon’s Colonnade. 24 The Jews who were there gathered around him, saying, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”
John 10:22-24 That is, Hanukkah
John 10:22-24 NIV
People try to justify Hannukkah based on John 10:22, but it did not say if Hannukah should be celebrated merely that that is the time
4And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.
Acts 12:4 King James
Here easter is mentioned but that does not mean it should be celebrated, they are simply using it to mark the time of other events in relation to a Pagan holiday
If you want to know about Hannukah read first Maccabees it is not in protestant Bibles. I very much like the reading, but I do not claim that it is inspired by God.
It is very ironic because every time around Hannukah secular Christians celebrate the Black Mass and blaspheme the name of Jesus Christ by calling it Christmas at the very time when the cleansing of the temple from paganism is celebrated as Hanukkah.
By the way if the religious Jews just suppressed the secular Jews their would have been a lot less blood shed, because the secular Jews incited Pagans to murder the religious Jews.