Welcome to Verity Podcast. I'm your host, Felicia Mason-Himer, and I am here to

teach you how to know what you believe, to live it boldly, and to communicate it

graciously to the world around you. I believe that women are ready to go deeper in

their faith than ever before, and they don't have to go to seminary to do it. I am

so glad you're here, and I hope you'll join me on this journey because every

woman is a theologian. Hello friends. A few years ago, as I was answering

theological questions close to the holidays, I received countless questions about the origins

of Christmas and our celebration of the holiday today. Since this is one of the high holidays

in Christianity, I knew it was important to research the actual history of this day,

how it got to where it is, and how to discern the celebration of it. If you listen to my

All Saints Day and Halloween episode, you know that this is the approach I try to take with

any and all Christian holidays. It's important to me that I teach those who are listening to me,

how to discern for themselves with the information that I present. I hope that this is a jumping

off point for you to do your own research, but that you will look directly at the church's

documents and the people within the church for their sources on these holidays. These holidays

are meant to point to the person of Jesus Christ and to exalt him. Our culture has adopted,

paganized, and materialized many of these holidays, but that does not mean that that is how they

began or how they need to stay. And so in this episode, I'm going to be reading to you from my

seasonal celebrations guide, which launched in the November shop. In the seasonal celebrations guide,

I have an entire section on the history of Advent and Christmas. And so in this episode,

I'm going to be reading what I have already written. So my tone will be a little bit different

than it may be in other episodes. You can grab the book in the shop if you go to FeliciaMasonHimer.com.

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