Why We Don't Celebrate Holidays

[Music] everybody from country homestead and today we wanted to talk to you about holidays and why we really don't as a general note to celebrate them and it could be a controversial topic for those out there Christian and non-christian alike and if you're not a Christian bear with us because that's just who we are and we're sharing you with our life so we don't really hide a whole lot this is who we are and this isn't all just about religion no no it is it's just there's there's two main facets to this topic one is religious and the second one is the commercialized version of it and we can talk about that part first so those you don't like us cramming Christianity on your throat you can sign off at earlier time or whatever you want to do but um we encourage everybody and anybody to come in and then view our content and glean from it whatever they choose to glean from it and so anyway so let's talk about the commercialized version or reason why we don't celebrate celebrate in general the holidays the one main reason is we want to break away part of part of our channel is to break away from the norm break away from the system become individuals and self-sufficient self-reliant and get to the point where we're not let around by the nose ring by society by your television set by government agencies cetera et cetera now some of this stuff you have more control over than obviously but all the days is one of those things where you can you can take the reins on that and do with it what you want growing up both of us we have been we participated in Christmas and Easter and Halloween and all of these things and Valentine's Day even growing up as a child I always wondered about hald the Halloween thing and wondered about the Christmas thing and wondered about any of this stuff that actually forced us or guilted you into participating in these different holidays and as we got older you know younger parents and different things you're still let around by guilt and the obligation to by everybody in the family gifts and so on and so forth and we try to maintain a Christian aspect of celebrating Jesus's birth and being grateful and setting our setting our minds aside some time to reflect on what Jesus did on being born into this earth and being resurrected and Easter and all that good fun stuff we got we got tired of being manipulated into oh gosh we have to we have to get so and so something and we have to get this person over here something oh we got invited over this place so we have to get gifts for everybody to fit in and feel like we needed to you know do the right do the right thing and yes if we don't get them something that we're gonna feel guilty or feel like we're heals or whatever the case may be they're gonna feel guilty because tightwads or they're gonna feel bad because they got us something and we didn't get them something so on and so about guilt and we were you know we were put a lot of stuff on a credit card and you know we would go into to debt in order to make the holidays work we're talking mainly about Christmas there's the Easter thing where you got to have Easter baskets and all this other stuff and the new dress for church or whatever it is your thing is I don't know that we wanted to break away from all of that and so a commercialized version of Christmas as we just sat down and said you know what and we started doing this a little bit when the kids were still in the house but we really didn't hit it heavy until after they write and so we wish we would applied this a little bit more in their earlier years but we started to separate ourselves from the whole on the bandwagon and run it out doing everything the way Society dictated they exactly so after you know because you you know let's focus on Christmas for a minute realistically you know you're surrounded by the wreaths and the Christmas tree and all those things which actually didn't originate keep going back to Christ you know the religious aspect Christianity that has nothing to do with Christianity it has everything to do with starting out in pagan traditions but anyway everybody is focused on gosh this this day we have to do that this day we have to do this so if you know if a Christmas pageant even if you're in church you know you got all these different things extra things you have to do you have to do during Christmas and you have to buy during Christmas and you have to prepare for during Christmas do you really is it are you really focusing on what Christmas is about and that is the heart or the spirit of giving right yeah that's a whole era to Christmas on ya and that's enough that's another subject and we can go into that a little bit more further along and Heidi is itching to get on a soapbox so I'm trying to stay quiet letting him talk first if you notice their videos I'm usually one opens and she's usually one that kind of finishes out because she's a little bit more wordy than I am and it's not a not an insult but it's kind of the way we work together and we tease each other all the time and maybe some y'all don't know how to take that but that's just who we are we've been married for 29 years nine years and together for 31 something like that yeah so we've learned each other we tease each other all the time and that that's what makes our relationship great and I don't mind being called a blister that's just since the term of endearment in fact if he called me darling instead of Oh wonder what happened yeah anyway back on the subject let's get back on the tracks here and so we wanted to separate ourselves from the commercialized you have to do this you're expected to do that and you know if you want to during a winter solstice think about Jesus Christ or think about giving or think about working up the food bank or whatever your thing is that's all fine and good but we're not gonna go into debt you know it came to the point where we had so many different people that we were actually getting gifts for it was actually just trash it was just junk you know little trinkets oh because we had a we had a pretty big base of folks that we actually gave to and we got to the points like you know this isn't worth it you know it takes you three months to pay off your credit cards after you get done buying all this trash for people that's like you know what yeah you know this is get together and everybody you know something to eat let's just spend time together I'm sure we get talked about I'm sure people look at the side of their eyes and whisper in the corner and all this other stuff but we got to the point where we just don't we're not we're not playing that game anymore we're not being you know the the merchants out there or the people who sell stuff online or whatever the case may be for a major profit during the holidays or just rubbing their hands together and they're counting your money we just we're we're so practical it's terrible so anyway I'm gonna hand the reins over to my lovely wife and let her get her box so really Patrick said pretty much most of it right there you covered quite a bit of it I'm just gonna go into a little bit more detail now why we were still celebrating Christmas with the kids you know our way of trying to separate it from the rest of the world was to obviously to make it more about Christ and more about our faith and less about whatever the world you know definitely not Santa Claus nothing like that though we did take a time or we you know I was looking at a st. Nicholas Day which is December 6 then you know we would do that that's where the whole gift-giving thing actually came into play was this you know celebrating Saint Nicholas and we actually did that for a little while until I got to looking further into that and decided you know this isn't very cool either but that's how Santa st. Nicholas got involved in Christmas as they kind of got conglomerated into one big holiday and you know I'll talk more about the religious aspects of it later you know just kind of hear us keep touching on it because it is a big thing there and why you know Christmas not really had never ever in its beginnings had anything to do with Christ so yeah a lot of people mentioned commercialism as a standard word but it was more than that it's about like what he said you know that you know we are being forced by society to celebrate different holidays so let's go on to some others like what about what about Mother's Day and what about time's day Valentine's Day has pretty deep dark roots that aren't good even Saint Patrick's Day a lot of us have learned the story of war Saint Patrick came don't touch st. Patrick's Day but what is it be even if any of that is true what is it now become Easter Easter is not at all Christian did you know yes there's Passover yes there's a resurrection you know we Christ rising from the dead and that's all great but Easter isn't about Christ Easter itself what's it about it's about I mean and looking at it from the commercial standpoint it's about society especially big corporations take an advantage of people and and guilting them into doing things especially like Valentine's Day if you don't get your sweetheart chocolates or do something special and fancy or take them out to dinner or take your mom out to dinner or your wife out to dinner on Mother's Day then you are a poor child or you know a bad husband and you know that just really started to irritate me more and more and more and I tell my kids you know what you don't have to do anything for me for Mother's Day I don't expect anything sometimes they still do they know how I feel but it's like even Mother's Day has roots in paganism but again side issue I hate the fact of I hate being guilted into doing something and then what happens at Christmas when it comes to the gift-giving typically because we're so strapped for cash trying to get good gifts for everyone that were we feel obligated to buy for some people yes we do enjoy buying things for but typically those are they're gonna be the people that we know the most and we really know what they want and they need but everyone else in the family or friends we're like okay I gotta get him something I don't even know what they want or need I don't know what they can use other than something that's way out of my price range and so what do you end up getting you end up getting up some garbage that they don't need it or it's just gonna sit around and need to be dusted and what a waste wouldn't it just make more sense to set aside a little money for yourself and say I'm gonna go buy myself something I want or need and you know okay well what's the fun in that are you taking away the gift you what if everybody set away you know sat aside the the whole commercialized version of the holidays or just just got rid of all the holidays and you might set aside you know a little bit of money every month and when you found somebody in need in the family or each other what's wrong with getting them some sort of meaningful gift or give them some cash you know it's it's funny you know people buy all kinds of stuff and wouldn't it make more here's the practical side of me again would it make much more sense to say that person can really use a hundred bucks right now except you said it set that money aside a little bit more-- every month and set that money aside and say you know what you going through a hard time and here's $100 and that's gonna have a lot more impact than saying gosh you know here you spend $20 25 30 bucks on a Forman grill because I don't think they got one and the end of I can something and send it to him and and you set down and everybody's throwing paper and all kinds of stuff during some sort of setting together like pre Christmas or whatever and he'll thank you very much thank you much you know anyway just a thought and that should be that should be what we do it doesn't have to be on a birthday I don't have to be at Christmas I don't have to be anytime of the year just when a when something arises and gosh that thousand two thousand dollars that you end up spending at Christmastime or whatever gosh I could that could really benefit somebody somewhere somehow a lot better than a whole bunch of watered-down trinkets that you yeah like she said do you have to sit around and dust and and fill or given away yeah you know I don't know how many grandmas and give it to somebody else yeah and over overcome the guilt doing that you know but how many different garage sales have you guys gone to and socks all kinds of these different trinkets and gadgets have been on unpretty know for sale for 50 cents for a buck or whatever all that was Christmas gifts and all right so brand-new and and it's all something that somebody had spent you know good money trying to spend their hard-earned time harder and money going into a mental breakdown just to try to figure out what to get for somebody you know anyway here's your so yeah that's what you think what the most thoughtful gift is the one that is the one that you need the most when you need it so oh I'm sorry your car broke down it's still two months before Christmas so you're gonna have to go without until Christmas or your birthday or whatever you know I'm not saying you're nursing him by a person brand new car unless you can afford it but you know maybe you could help them you know get it fixed so that they can have it or you know or even something more simple let's say you you know the the woman that uses her mixer a lot she uses it every day you know all of a sudden it breaks down oh well you still got two months before your birthday or Mother's Day so um you're gonna have to wait to make anything dear until then it's gonna mean a lot more us like I need this right now you run out buy it for that person instead here I'm doing this for you because I love you and I know how much this means to you that's so much more meaningful and you know that's gonna be remembered far more than that little trinket that you opened up on Christmas Day or your birthday or Mother's Day or Valentine's Day that has no purpose and so that's the kind of thing that we're talking about and you know the more we look at this stuff and the more that we pulled away lit you know we started small okay we didn't just like suddenly just go cold turkey you know started by not doing a Christmas tree anymore because we learned what the Christmas tree stood for and let's get where the Christmas tree then we stopped to doing other things and then we just kind of started downsizing more and more and more and now we do still get together with our kids on the evening of Christmas Day December 25th simply because our son invites us over for dinner it's a great family time there's no gift exchanging going on we don't do any of that Christmas stuff here we just it's a great time for us to get together with family we're invited we go we enjoy ourselves that's what it is you know we might play some games and just have fun now here's if you're wondering well what do you do what else do you do I mean if we were to stop going over to our kids for Christmas you know that would actually not be so bad because now the thing that we're doing is we're making up the difference by creating our own holidays and our own family days when we just had our first one last month and it was just loads of fun and we kept it small because we're just kind of getting this thing off the ground you know and it was just a basically it was us and our kids we played games we good food we had a wonderful time and now we're doing another one probably you're by the time this video comes out it's either gonna be this day this the other night but this video comes out or very somewhere around there and it's going to be bigger we're inviting a lot more family and we're just gonna let it grow from there and see how many of these we can do per year because we believe that getting together with family is incredibly important we need to keep those bonds especially if you're more prepper minded or whatever you want to keep strong bonds and like-mindedness with those that you love even if they still celebrate the holidays you can still find other ways to to really grow those relationships where there's nothing involved that requires them to have to run out and buy you a gift they can just bring their favorite dish if they were gonna cook dinner anyway well just bring it over we can add a potluck meal and I'll make something you make something everybody gets to benefit from it and then you can take home what doesn't get and get eaten and and it can be your dinner the next night no big deal and in your doing fun things that are that are causing you to think and to and to get closer together you're not just giving gifts and throwing paper everywhere and there's just nothing but chaos you're actually focusing more on the time not the gifts are not what you are told the holiday is supposed to be about and not being guilted into it another thing I want to talk about is is birthdays for instance now we still acknowledge people on their birthdays a little bit here and there but one of the reasons I pulled away from that is not necessarily because I think birthday celebrations are pagan I haven't looked deeply into it but I've seen some things change in modern society when it comes to birthdays so with the advent of Facebook and Facebook calendars now suddenly nobody remembers your birthday family and friends that used to always remember your birthday now never remember it see unless you have your birthday public on Facebook which I do not I purposely took it on main reason I took it off there it's because it began to be about a whole bunch of people coming in to say no I'll happy birthday out because why cuz they felt obligated because Facebook told them to say happy birthday to you I really hated that I wanted people to tell me happy birthday because they're remembered and they actually cared not because they were told to do it and but then what happened was I found that fewer and fewer people even the people that are met used to remember my birthday every year actually remember my birthday anymore it's like in fact the one person that I know I can that remembers every single year which just blows me away it's actually one of my old dance students of all people and you know I'm Patrick and I just don't make a big deal about each other's birthday and so it's just it doesn't matter and it doesn't help that my birthday and our anniversary are two days apart and my son's birthday is right in between I get my pretty good because our anniversary and her birthday well as far as as far as me having to give her gifts cuz I always got buy a pretty cheap you know I can buy her a five-dollar trinket for anniversary but usually it's he brings me buckets and buckets a horse manure that's my anniversary birthday gift all one and you know I had to go up by the backhoe and maintain it we're 50 cents an hour and I usually try to remember to make him some raspberry turnovers or pie or something like that on his birthday oh quit but it's it's just not something we make a big deal of but yeah I mean it's just this kind of trend and that that just bothers me you know why should we say so happy birthday to someone just because Facebook told us to do it yeah you know I appreciate the fact that this one dance student of mine and Kaylee you know I'm talking about you if you just happen to be watching this video she doesn't have to be told she has no Facebook reminders but she remembers and she sends me a private message or puts it on Facebook and I appreciate that yeah and it's very cool but honestly I mean just in case anybody else is watching this I don't want them to fit don't feel guilty if you forgot really it's not a big deal I got to where I don't remember a lot of birthdays anymore either because as we get to be older they they're first of all birthdays just aren't that important to us and you know if our own birthdays aren't important to us and it's kind of hard for us to think about other people's birthdays being important and we get busy so that's understandable I'm not trying to say that you know anything bad about that but it's but again it just comes back to the whole idea that we're being told we have to do this for people's birthdays for Valentine's Day for all these different things when the reality is why why are we allowing society to tell us what we should do we should create our own if we want special things special times with family and friends create it yourself make it be different put it on a different day have your own special traditions that you come up with that you're not going to enforce on anyone else it's just between you and your family and friends and I think that's really important because it plays although it plays across every other aspect of our life about our frugality just think how much money you can save when you're not spending on a bunch of junk for people that you maybe don't even like or care about and you're actually putting it into good necessary things that either you or your family and friends need at the time that they need it now just to touch real quickly I just don't want this video to be about this I'm gonna go ahead and go into the religious aspect of it and I only I'm gonna say this because for those who are Christians and think why would a Christian not celebrate Christ's birth or Easter for instance well I'm gonna say it again you probably hear it too much but every single one of those holidays is rooted in paganism and you know and in satanic Luciferian traditions and they really should be looked at more seriously and consider we need to worship God in spirit and truth we are told not to learn the ways of the heathens and then try to apply them to Christianity and that's what Christmas and Easter are Easter that seems like a harder one to separate because we know we know that we actually know when the time you know Passover and when Christ rose again well we don't know when Jesus was born we certainly know it was not December 25th which is the birthday of other gods and so everything about Christmas everything that you think is even Christian about Christmas right down to the celebration of a messiah a saviors birthday it's was never initially about Christ and there's a lot there's a lot of you know there's a lot of thought on when it actually was and to me it doesn't really matter because it's getting consequence here's the other thing we're in Scripture are we told to celebrate Christ's birth right we're not once and then that reminds me this we know when Christ rose again not the actual date but the time either time period right you know at least around there how come we the Bible never told us when Jesus was born the all day there was a reason for that I believe the reason for that is because we're in it we were never supposed to worship that day and should we remember what Christ did for us yes in his birth in his life and in his death and resurrection these are important we are told by Jesus himself in Scripture that whenever you take this bread remember me right that's what we're told that had nothing to do with Christmas that didn't have anything to do with Easter okay you'd have to know the difference between Passover and Easter and resurrection oh these are all different even good Friday is off-base you can look into these things yourself because it can get really in-depth Valentine's Day is very very dark the the you know Easter as far as Easter eggs and things like that also very dark there's and none of that belongs in the life of a Christian now I'm not trying to sound judgmental or whatever I'm just saying you got to look into it for yourself and decide and decide for you and your family what's gonna work for you yeah I'm just explaining these things to you because this is why we don't participate yeah we don't look at our nose you're right think bad about anybody it's just you know you have wasted all the Easter egg hunts with the kids and and you know and we even used to celebrate Halloween Halloween was the first thing we got rid of when I just started feeling wrong about it I pulled out an old old encyclopedia looked up the part about Halloween that was about that long you read it to the kids and they were three and six at the time or maybe a little bit older than that but somewhere close to there and my oldest son said if that's what Halloween is about we should not be celebrating it and we quit got a mouth of babes right and and then things kind of progressed from there you know and the more I looked into the stuff different things the more I thought you know what and then it just came down to you know even Thanksgiving there's things there we still do that that's the one holiday we still do because again it's a good time for us to be able to get all of our family to come here and enjoy a good meal together but there's even things about that there aren't necessarily pagan but some kind of dark roots there that are like what are we really celebrating here you've got a kind of question but I still I'm going to hang on to that one for now because it is a great family time for us and so I say that as an example as you got it you got to decide a lot of times sometimes it is hard to set separate from certain holiday big ones like Christmas Thanksgiving because these are days that everybody has off because of that everybody in America well not everybody but most people have that day off so it's also the easiest time for everyone to get together which again is why we go to our sons house for dinner because it's like yay this is one of those times we all don't have to schedule they have the day off we just have it off and so that works whereas for our little family get-togethers we have to try to plan around a day that we know that people can get off and and make plans ahead and even if it's a day they may have to work because there's always somebody working you know like our youngest son works every Saturday and Sunday and you know and so it's you know we're trying to schedule around that stuff is a little trickier but you know what it's worth it it's worth it because it's family that we love and it's important to us so anyway I think that's that's pretty much it and as far as the holiday thing in the religious aspect if you're curious just take the time to really research it yourself and don't just trust like I say on everything if you just go to webpages don't trust just one webpage because there are some things out there that you're like oh this is really bad some things like like the whole thing about the Easter eggs being dyed with blood I don't think that's true I think that's I think that's not actually true but you got it so you know so don't necessarily buy everything you read cross-reference everything look and do it pray about it and make those decisions for yourself and your family and don't let anyone up don't let us tell you you should are sure and sell that's the whole idea of this of this you can't believe anyone else tell you what you should do with you and your family and that's why we are making our choices cause we're not gonna let society dictate to us how why and what we should celebrate right so and that's it that's really it in a nutshell well before she gets another breath here we'll go ahead and cut off with that then huh yeah and we appreciate you stopping by again if you celebrate these holidays you're you know that's we don't we don't think anything bad about you guys nothing it's just fine and dandy I think we've had people come in and wish us a Merry Christmas and all that stuff I know you have and we're not offended and we are we have yeah I know you have good well wishes and that's just what we do at Christmastime people send us Christmas cards and stuff like that we appreciate that and we appreciate you guys showing up and checking out the video and oh thanks for watching take care [Music]

Channel: Rain Country

Views: 21,315

Rating: 4.8853803 out of 5

Keywords: traditional, old-ways, Health, Garden, Frugal, Homesteading, Self-Sustainability, Cooking, DIY, Homemade, natural-living, herbs, holidays, dictates, society, social norms, breaking free, make your own holidays, pagan traditions

Id: angr-GB0Ow4

Length: 32min 19sec (1939 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 06 2019