“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder:

Do you know when was Jesus born? It was not on December 25th. Pope Julius I authorized that date to be celebrated as the birthday of Jesus in A.D. 353. Christ was born “when shepherds watched their flocks by night.” In other words, His advent was most likely in the spring-time. And no, He wasn't born in the year A.D. 1. The Bible tells us that Herod the Great ruled Palestine when Jesus was born, and Herod died in 4 B.C. - so Jesus had to have been born not long before that. Dionysiuys Exiguus, the sixth century monk, who came up with the idea of splitting history into A.D. and B.C. simply chose the wrong year.

Many Christian parents question whether they should allow their children to join in the secular celebrations of Christmas and Easter. Here are some interesting thoughts from Christian writer C.S. Lewis.

“There is a stage in a child's life at which it cannot separate the religious from the merely festal character of Christmas or Easter. I have been told of a very small and very devout boy who was heard murmuring to himself on Easter morning a poem of his own composition which began chocolate eggs and Jesus risen.' This seems to me, for his age, both admirable poetry and admirable piety. But of course the time will soon come when such a child can no longer effortlessly and spontaneously enjoy that unity. He will become able to distinguish the spiritual from the ritual and festal aspect of Easter; chocolate eggs will no longer seem sacramental. And once he has distinguished he must put one or the other first. If he puts the spiritual first he can still taste something of Easter in the chocolate eggs; if he puts the eggs first they will soon be no more than any other sweetmeat. They will have taken on an independent, and therefore a soon withering, life.”