HOME: How Should We Celebrate Holidays? — Abrahams Wallet

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HOME: How Should We Celebrate Holidays?

*Abrahams Wallet — Abrahams Wallet *

Mark Parrett and Steven Manuel discuss the celebration of holidays (22:30): Biblical (25:00), patriotic (31:30), Christian-ish (36:00) (think Christmas and Easter), and totally UNChristian American holidays (1:01:45). There is a way to navigate each types for the good of your family. They also go into tangents about the moral implications of buying Nike sneakers (1:30), Steven’s newest credit card fetish (7:00), a USA Today article about Americans with no savings (12:00). What we know is that 1. God love...

Transcript:

We are dealing with Christians that are a mix of Gentiles coming from one tradition and Jews coming from strict observance of holidays. So you can imagine that they got into arguments about you need to be observing every day that we do. So it's the kind of argument you are hoping that we get into.

The kind of argument I am hoping we get into. What's up Boss? This is Abrahams Wallet. We span the gap between the austerity of obedience to God and the prosperity rising from faithfulness.

Run your home and your dough like a Biblical boss. Okay, hi Mark. You're just telling me something's happening with your sneakers? What's happening? Oh, it was a big shoot drop today.

Four pairs released via the sneakers app. And I am ready to get none of them. It's been a hot minute since I have copped a set of sneakers on that app.

Now, I think the golden years might be over. Let's talk real. We're among friends here.

What do you do with the ethical dilemma of supporting the Nike machine which hates God and etc. Oh man. I think it's a world dilemma that we live in.

That's true. How do you avoid brands? Yeah, that would be an interesting conversation for, I mean, we think about that even in investing. Yes.

Some people just want their money spread out everywhere and some people want their money to be specifically not put in certain places. Yeah. And we have as a financial management firm, we have strong opinions on how to approach that.

I was listening to Joe Rogan talk about if you own a bone right now, it's probably the number one thing you do to support child slavery basically. Oh wow. There's minerals in those chips that can only be pulled out with small human hands in certain parts of Africa and that's how they are.

Good grief. Done. He keeps saying, I think it would be interesting, like he keeps saying, I would pay $2,500 for a phone if I knew it was clean.

It was clean. But right now there's no such thing because it's like way, way, way back in the supply chain before Apple ever gets their hands on the stuff. It's the raw materials.

So what you're telling me is that you punt on Nike responsibility and just move it. Yeah, do you want to correct me on that? No, I'm just just calling it out for fun. But I mean, do you think I should switch to Adidas and go with the Yeezys support Kanye? It's a different kind of, that's a different kind of immorality.

Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I'm just sitting here looking around my desk and going, what's the story behind this Samsung monitor I'm looking at? I have no idea. I just know that Nike is unlike whoever makes the teeny, tiny molecular size components in my phone because they're so outspoken that they hate men.

They hate patriarchy. They hate heterosexuality, etc. That's all.

It becomes a little onerous to deal with the company like that. Anyways, I mean, I agree that there is some similarly required cognitive dissonance that one has to engage in if you want to ever look at the Nike stiggers app. You just have to go.

I mean, I was just talking to a friend this week about what is your, how do you get TV content? And how could you possibly hope that that's a pure, you know, you're getting something pure? I don't care what you use. I stomped my feet and got rid of Netflix, I don't know, a year or two ago. Yeah, we did that too.

But you know what? Very similar programming is now on Amazon Prime. And you think, well, okay, I don't know what to do about that. Anyhow, when it comes to TV, I'm currently paying for cable.

Oh, you are because as much as this frustrates the stink out of me, it legitimately is cheaper at my house to have cable and Internet than to have just entered at the same speed. So that gets me access to some of the things. The only subscription service we pay for is Discovery Plus because my wife enjoys the home renovation shows.

But I'll tell you, even the HGTV hates us. So you can't get away from it if you want to watch the modern day version. HGTV isn't on your basic cable package.

That's surprising. Yeah, it is, I think. But Discovery Plus bunches everything into, it's actually kind of a cool assortment of, you know, Amelia being a surgeon likes to watch the really weird surgery stuff, which is weird to me because I don't.

I don't. I don't watch TV shows about financial planners to unwind at the end of a hard day of financial planning. But whatever.

Okay, that's what you were making unethical choices right before we got on. I was also on my phone made with child slave hands. I'm sorry.

But here's what I was doing. This is something I was going to hype anyways to the people. People are aware of my, well, if you're a long time listener, you're aware of.

We did an episode on credit card hacks one time. And people know about my love of the Starbucks credit card, which by the way, just this morning, I have a birthday coming up. Just this morning, I got an email from them.

Hey, because you're a Starbucks card holder. You're getting, get anything you want on your birthday. Just come on in.

Just get whatever you want. That was nice. But here's my, here's this year's credit card recommendation from me.

Okay, and it's not even really a credit card. It's a debit card. Have I talked to you about fold? No.

Okay. Get ready. I would like this to see if I can find a drum roll.

The sound effect is sticking here. Okay. I apologize as a friend.

We haven't had maybe just enough time together for me to tell you about the fold app. Okay. I want everyone to get the fold app.

So here's how the fold app works. Used. It's like a little, I don't know what it is.

It's a receptacle repository for cash. So you go get some cash. You connect it to your bank account.

You throw, say, $200 into your fold account. With your fold account, you go buy. You can do a couple of things.

You can buy gift cards. So you could buy gift cards to Chipotle or to Amazon or to Bed Bath and Beyond or to the Gap. And every time you spend fold money, what? Oh, I just have a Chipotle gift card in my hand right now.

That's, that's a providential. What are the chances that among the major leading brands in our nation, you might have one on your desk? Okay. You buy those things.

When you, I know that all you're doing is just another step for your money. Instead of going straight from your bank account to Chipotle, it's going into the fold app and into Chipotle. But when you spend this money, you get something like 2 to 5% of that money gets piled up in satts.

Fold gives you free satts for just using it. And it starts piling up a big pile. Let's remind the non-inducted what a sat is.

A sat is a teeny teeny teeny weenie teensy, teensy, teensy, teensy, teensy particle of a Bitcoin. It's a Tashi. Yeah, short, the short is satts.

If you're really, yup, you say satts. Okay. And so they will pile up satts for you for using their stuff.

And then once you have passed over 50,000 satts, then you can pull a big magic invisible lever and then, "Kush!" It will send these satts into your crypto wallet if you have one of those. You should get one of those. That's what I think.

So this morning, I just happened to have sent 52,779 satts, which in US dollars is 32 bucks. It's $32 of free Bitcoin kind of style of money that I've gathered just by using that and then you send it out. If you're real into this, like I am and you feel like these people are just wanting to encourage this practice, there's a sort of step two.

Oh, by the way, if you get the little app, spending money through their little portal isn't the only way to get satts. Every day, every 24 hours, you get to a little spin, a little digital wheel. You spin the magic wheel and you see what comes up and it's everything from 5 satts to, yes, they do give away entire Bitcoins.

But you might win 1,000 satts. You might win 10,000 satts. Every day, you can spin this wheel.

And if you want to go to step 2, they can issue you a fold card. So that's why I put this in the credit card category because I actually have a black fold card. You load it up just like a debit card and you can spend it anywhere.

It's on the Visa platform. You can spend it absolutely anywhere. Not only do you automatically get satts for spending it anywhere, but every time you use it, it doesn't matter if it's $2 for a stick-a-gum at the CVS.

You get to spin that wheel again and get yourself tons of juicy satts. Have you done the math to figure out if you're getting better returns than say a 2% cash back card would give you that you could then turn into? No. No.

So you just like the gamification? Well, I like that it's translating directly into Bitcoin. That's the fun. So that's it, the fold card.

I wanted to throw that out. Good tell then. I have a little article I found that I'd like to get your reaction to.

Okay. It's in the USA Today brand God Hating periodical that happens in America every day. A newspaper I used to really enjoy.

We were a part of that culture recently. The God Hater's. Thankfully we were saved, but let's keep that in mind.

Okay. Given how much we're talking about the God Hater's. Well, yeah, sure, sure.

Only by grace. Am I not actively part of the God Hating culture right now? You used to really love this newspaper because it was a 30,000 foot screen through America. You have to read too long or too hard to get a grasp of what's going on.

You're not getting cutting analysis. No, no, no, no, no, no. From USA Today.

That's now it's basically long headlines is what you're getting. So here's a little here's a little article. It won't be it won't be shocking to you.

But we're bringing the news to the people here it is. The headline is too many Americans financially vulnerable. Are you shocked yet? I've never even contemplated that Americans might not be prepared for, you know, all manner of financial disasters, but go ahead.

Okay. Even before the pandemic hurt the US economy. About one third of American families didn't have enough money to set aside to cope with quote a mid sized financial shock.

According to a Stanford and George Washington University study. George Washington University, your old stomping grounds. Yes, unfortunately.

Ultimately, a huge population. I'm skipping around. Ultimately, a huge population of America's diverse population is financially insecure.

And the uncertainty and turmoil of the COVID-19 pandemic have only made financial resiliency even more crucial moving forward. And I'm going to start with the study found. Here's a couple of data points of theirs.

If an unexpected need arose 27% of households in 2020 and 31% in 2018 said they would not be able to come up with $2,000 to cope with the problem. And I'm reading another bullet point in this article. Nearly half of households said they didn't have an emergency or rainy day fund that would cover expenses for three months in case of sickness, job loss, economic downturn or other emergencies.

What do you think? Well, we've talked about this many, many times on the Abrahams. I know that. I feel like what are we doing here just rehashing the things that our listeners know really well.

Hopefully are either completely not a part of or are still ahead of one because they're working to not be a part of. No, number one, are people don't swim in these waters every day like you and I do? Yep. So a little reminder is never, never amiss.

Okay. So, even if there's an old truth that makes a new headline, I think that's noteworthy for us. Somebody decided somebody in the editorial board decided this was newsworthy.

So this might be an aha for somebody and not leastly, we'll have a bunch of new listeners that have never heard us opine on this on this concept. So I'm throwing it out. We are growing like a weed.

Well, if you want me to react in a new way. Yes, I want you to react. You can react in an old way.

Let me just give you some some worldly versus Abrahamic thinking. The world would say you need to have your credit cards like, yeah, you shouldn't run those up too high if you can help it and make sure you have enough money coming in every month to cover your bills, including maybe your debt payments. We would say you should figure out exactly how much it costs to run your household for a month.

And you should have six months of that on hand. So very big difference there. And my hunch is if you, you know, we're coming upon low dove and not that long.

Three and a half months from now. Yeah. If you get it when it gets colder, you know that low dove isn't far away.

Yeah. If you, hey, check this out. Sneakers.

Success. You got some. Oh, that's so exciting.

Yeah. Now you're actually participating in the God dismantling economy. Yeah, that's true.

If you get really good at the low dove thing, you can probably stretch that six months of emergency funding to a year if you had to. Yeah. And that's a long time, a year to live with zero income.

I mean, if anybody wants to know what that's like, you can talk to someone that's a part of the Abraham's Law podcast who runs an event planning business. 2020 wasn't a great year for event planning. Turns out, yeah, true.

When the government tells you you can't have an event. Yep. But I think so there's a personal implication.

There's also something we have been just. It's been really awesome. The last six to nine months is just keep in mind that the people around you cannot weather a small emergency financially and occasionally jump in and weather the financial emergency for them.

So it's been like just a delightful giving practice that we have put our antenna up for. Is there is there something that is going to put someone else into a bad spot financially that we it wouldn't be that big of a deal for us to jump in and help with. And, you know, at my wife's work, she's run across people who are doing their best but are in this category and, you know, saying, Hey, can we do X, Y or Z for you.

You've got this need that would break your bank. And it's really not a big deal for us. That's really fun.

And it also opens all sorts of doors for relationships for the gospel. I don't think I don't think I'm saying by people's faith, but I do think we've talked so much about using money to win friends. And if somebody has a financial emergency and needs a plane ticket and cannot afford it.

And you buy them a plane ticket. They are going to be interested in why did you do this for me. You're my boss.

Why did you do this for me. And that's a fun conversation to have so personal implications and out giving community implications to this knowledge that most people are walking around broke as a joke. Yeah.

Were you hoping for some sort of more precise and cutting analysis about article for me? I feel like I've disappointed you. No, any reaction was going to be approved. Let's get into our argument for today.

Okay. You're convinced we're going to be arguing, huh? Well, you can describe how this topic came up in your mind because we're going to be agreeing on lots of things and potentially arguing about one or two. So those are the best.

Okay. When Mark and Stephen just sit here and rub each other's bellies, then it's not really very exciting for the people. Really? You think what people want after all they've been watching is the horror in the news.

They want to hear some conflict. Yeah. All they watch for entertainment is just the most disheartening, dehumanizing crowd.

There's a show that I won't even name. But I heard two people mention this show. And one of them was country music superstar and singing sensation, Lyle Lovett, who I'm an old fan of.

He mentioned this show on a podcast I heard recently. I thought, okay, I'll give you a shot. I did not make it 90 seconds through that show.

It was so foul and profane. And I think why would people watch this for fun? And you look at the kind of violent, horrible kind of fear stuff that comes up around Halloween time, which we're about to talk about. And people seem to, they choose to make this part of their mental, emotional diet.

It's crazy to me. Anyhow. Well, yeah, let's get into it because I saw a billboard yesterday as I was driving around Salt Lake City that said, we have this haunted house that's right off the freeway.

It's kind of, I think it's an old grain elevator or something and there's a bridge between the two towers. And all year long, there's a human body hanging from a noose between those two towers. And it's like, this is awful if this was in horrible.

I mean, this is what like, it happens in Mexico and people say that the city is falling to the cartels. Yeah, yeah. And we do it as a joke, I guess, but there was a billboard up for this haunted house that said, it is one of the three rated by whoever as one of the three most traumatizing haunted houses in America.

Hey, that's amazing. I couldn't imagine a less. And the exit off the turnpike was just crowded.

People are going like traumatizing. I'm in. Yeah, it's just going to bring my children.

So maybe maybe we'll get into that with Halloween. But and how many and how many dumb, dumb 20 something will also take their children with them. Because they think in their mind this, this falls into a holiday fun somehow.

Okay, so the topic is holidays. And what do we do about holidays in general? It just it came from several conversations I've had over the years and it was provoked recently by an email that was sent to me. And I kind of, you know, as you do cramming through emails, I just came up with whatever was on the top of my head, sent it off.

I see seed you on it and said, maybe something we need to cover. I haven't touched on this before. And I presume because of that email must be what you thought.

I'm not totally in agreement with all that. So, do you want to do you want to start or shall I? Well, let's start because I think we're in alignment on the main thrust. So go through what you got and then I'll respond in a couple of spots.

Okay, this is how I think it through. Okay. Number one, so when we think of, well, how do we, now I'm just kind of coaching people how to think when you when you are confronted with something that is a cultural norm or a cultural value or an idea that comes across your monitor.

What you first do is mentally retreat into God's word and you think to yourself, what does God say about this or what is the precedent that has been set through scriptures. Now, I'll just take a little detour here and just say, we don't believe in a concept called progressive Christianity, which is that Christianity is evolving as as time goes by. And it is changing to accommodate the modern man and it's moving to a more futuristic kind of space.

We don't believe that. The scriptures say that God never changes that he's the same yesterday, today and forever, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of God stands forever. So, Jeremiah 616 says, stand at the crossroads and look, ask for the ancient paths.

So we go back, back, back in our mind and go, what does God say about this? So when, when, when we're asked what, what, what do we make of holidays? Well, the first thing that comes to mind is that God actually commanded holidays for Jews. There were seven feasts and they were littered throughout the annual calendar and they were commanded of God's people. You will take these holidays.

You will stop working. Some, some of them, he said, you will celebrate during this time. Some of them, he said, you will repent and you will tear your garments.

So the point is, in the annual calendar, there were holidays that God commanded. Now, we believe on this side of the cross that all of those feasts found their fulfillment in Christ. That's a very important point.

So Colossians 2 16 and 17 tells us, do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink or with regard to a religious festival. That is the seventh east, a new moon celebration. Those were monthly observances where you dedicate the month to God.

That seems like a great idea. But what if you don't participate in a new moon celebration? Listen to this, for a Sabbath day, there, these are a shadow of the things that were to come. The reality, however, is found in Christ.

So all of these things find their fulfillment in Christ, those seven festivals. So, from where we sit as we read back at Leviticus, for instance, and we're just Jewish festivals are described to us, you have an option. You can use those to teach and train your own heart, your children, your family.

They're just sitting there and they can be exploited easily since they kind of have God DNA baked into them. You're free to do that. So, that's how we see biblical feasts.

That's how we see biblical holidays. Okay, so I'll start there. You're also free not to do them.

Yeah, I think that said that. Okay. You want to say anything else about that part? Are we going to get to Romans 14? No, I feel like that's the key passage.

Oh, it's the key. I think so, because it's Paul talking about holidays. The Roman Christians were arguing evidently about holiday observance.

And he said, all right, you know, starting in verse five, he says, one person, a steam's one day is better than another. While another, a steam's all days alike. Just pause.

We're dealing with Christians that are a mix of Gentiles coming from one tradition and Jews coming from strict observance of holidays. So you can imagine that they got into arguments about, well, you need to be observing every day that we do. So it's the kind of arguments you're hoping that we kind of argue it's I'm hoping we get into.

No. Okay. The one who observes, or it says each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.

I don't think we've put it up yet, but we did a whole episode on matters of conscience. And I think that this is Paul kind of pointing back to actually, is important and you, I'm not going to tell you go, go A or B, but you need to. You need to be convinced and then you need to actually hold to that.

It says the one who observes the day observes it in honor of the Lord, the one who eats. This is comes right after Paul talks about meat sacrifice to idols. So the one who eats eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains abstains in honor of the Lord.

For none of us lives to himself and none of us dies to himself. The whole chapter is really good. So go read Romans 14, but Paul really clearly in that in my mind, he's telling us you have options here.

But don't judge your brother if they have a different view on this. He'll go on later in the chapter to talk about not causing other people to stumble. So don't put a yoke on somebody that says, you know, you have to, like, oh, you're kind of a B team because you do Sabbath on Sundays, like kind of an old, timey Christian, but we've got the cool new Christian Saturday.

Like, don't do that. It's sin. Paul says it's sin.

And you're not letting a brother or sister kind of act in conscience there. But I think it's very relevant to this discussion. Okay.

Continue. Fine. You thought Romans 14 was the key passage on this whole subject.

On how we take the thick body of Old Testament holiday instruction and handle it in the New Covenant, I think it's a pretty key passage. But go ahead. If you clearly think it's boring and probably shouldn't.

No, I just wanted to make fun of the scripture. I just wanted to make fun of you saying that it was the key passage. Okay.

Okay. Stephen says it's just self- opinion. Okay.

Yeah. And we should all, hey, it's not like Paul is Jesus. You didn't know what things were going to be like in 2021.

Yeah, right. Okay. That's how we deal with so there's a biblical pattern.

There are holidays. I had there's a friend in my life who believes that, you know, what God told us to work. I don't ever telling.

I don't see him telling us to go on vacation. He has this big hard stance on this, which I just go, well, it is a precedent. I mean, he didn't tell that to Israel.

So, and we have freedom. So now let's talk about our relationship to our country because now we get into a different thing. Okay.

We're taking that principle for the Bible. We're trying to bring it into present day and go, how do I filter what happens around me? So, this is a little opportunity to talk about our relationship to our country. So I'm taking it.

Ready? Acts 1726 says, from one man, he made every nation of men that they should inhabit the whole earth and he determined the time set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. My point there is that God chose that you would live in this country.

Wherever you're listening to this from, he chose you to live in that country. Okay. Jeremiah 29 seven says, seek the peace of the city where I have exiled you.

Now, I know that there's a specific historical context for that. I think that supplies to everybody everywhere. Seek the peace of the city where I have exiled you.

Pray to the Lord for that city. So think of these are Israeli. Well, he's talking to those who will listen to the voice of God.

So they're God fearing Hebrews. They're exiled into foreign countries that serve foreign gods. And it says, pray to the Lord for that city, because when it has peace and prosperity, you will have peace and prosperity.

God, the end story of a world view and a society that's based on God's word is peace and prosperity. It's Shalom. And God says, seek that wherever you are.

So I feel like I have to establish that 25 years ago, but I have to establish that today because there's something people have in their minds that we have an ejector button. And we can completely divorce ourselves from the country in which we live. And there's this straw man of Christian nationalism that has messed up our relationship to our country.

The fact is, if you live in America, you are in America to be a blessing to America. You should be a good citizen of that country. And that means that you're vying for God's kingdom to come in your country.

So you live in this place. We are Americans. We take that identity seriously.

It's our home. If he had born me in Canada, I would be an enthusiastic fan of Canada praying for God's peace in Canada. But I'm not there.

I'm here. And so I believe that national holidays that are about citizenship, like July 4th and President's Day, I say do that with gusto. Now, if they ever said, you need to bow down and pray to the American flag and ask Uncle Sam to come into your heart, that's different.

That would be asking us to do something godless. But if it's just, hey, let's celebrate the country that we're in. It's good history and the good things that have happened here.

I say, yeah, do that with gusto. Of course, what we said previously still applies. You're free to refrain.

Right. So that's one kind of holiday. Comments on that? No, I agree.

I think I've gone back and forth in my days on very staunch objection to anything that seemed American-y and I think that was folly. I don't think it was wise to kind of have that posture. And, you know, we could go down the rabbit hole of now everything that even sort of doesn't hate America as being called nationalism.

But I don't think that's the case. I also think there is a real ditch over there. It's just not where culture seems to be at the moment.

So it'll make you're in too much danger of falling into the nationalism. I don't know anybody in that ditch, actually. So, yeah, I agree with you.

We could go on at length talking about a Christian's relationship to government, something I'm very interested in, but I'll move on. Next, the next kind of holiday that comes to mind for me, American holidays, is that some holidays are so easily compatible with our faith that I think it would be a miss to not use them like you would use Jewish festivals. So Mark and I, this year we both observed Sukkot.

So this is a biblical holiday. We built a little shelter behind our houses. Pretty big shelter, to be honest.

Mine was luxurious. It was really manly. Yes.

And we use that as an opportunity to teach. Okay. Similarly, something like Thanksgiving would fall under this same heading for me.

Thanksgiving. That's a very biblical concept. In my house, this will air just before Thanksgiving.

So I'll just take a little call to sack here and just describe a little bit of what Thanksgiving looks like. This is great. You're Thanksgiving to my family.

They made our Thanksgiving better last year. So I'm excited. Oh.

Okay. Well, I hope I remember what I said to you. Okay.

Gosh, I hope I hope maybe you can add to whatever I say here. I like teaching the children and reviewing for a family the story of the pilgrims. I like, I like that, that it's sort of like your family history.

You know, we believe in sharing family stories with our kids. Not because we worship grandpa. But because there's a picture in grandpa's life of what God did for him that flows directly to the children.

And they need to see there has been a flow of grace that has come through the generations that I'm a beneficiary of. I want them to understand that story. I want them to understand that their great grandfather was a great grandfather.

Yeah, great grandfather. Moved. You can listen if you want to to my father telling these stories on podcast, but that a great grandfather moved from North Carolina to Texas with no money because he hoped that he might could get a job at a filling station.

And God used that, that crazy circumstance in an era before, before, certainly before the internet, before everybody had a phone to get them where they are now. So we're all on the receiving end of grace. I feel like there are national stories that do the same thing.

I'm on the receiving end of grace. When on July 4th, we read the Declaration of Independence in our home. It's not the Bible.

I'm not reading the Bible. We don't pray to the Constitution. But we read the Declaration of Independence and go like, wow, how blessed are we to live in a place that believes some of these things, you know, and review those.

And men who made these hard stands, men of courage, etc. So we do that pilgrim thing because we're grateful. We tell the story of people of courage and faith.

They why know they weren't all people of faith, but there were definitely God fearing pilgrims. Okay. Then at Thanksgiving time, we kind of make Thanksgiving a sort of mini Passover in this way that we want everybody to participate.

And we also want to honor the scriptures. So my favorite passages that we read every year at Thanksgiving are Deuteronomy 8 is the best. And if you're jotting this down, I read Deuteronomy 8, 2 through 18.

And basically what it says is, everything that's come our way in the last year has come because of God's grace. And we acknowledge that. And even there are a couple of specific verses from that chapter say, you know, your tendency will be when you have made houses for yourselves and you're comfortable in them.

You will forget God. And I always think of what did their houses look like when Israel, the first generation of Israel set up camp in Canaan. Think of those little rudimentary houses that they had.

And God told them, now hold on, that's going to be so luxurious and comfortable for you that you might forget me. Fast forward to me in my climate controlled home, where I'd swiffer the floors if I see two dust balls on the floor. The China that's going to be laid out on the table for Thanksgiving or whatever and think, gee, is there any danger of us not being thankful to God? I'd say that they're very present dangers of us not being so comfortable that we forget to God, forget God.

And even says the money that you're able to earn, I gave you the ability to earn that money. So thank me for all of it. So, so I like to read Deuteronomy 8.

I also, this has just become tradition to read Psalm 36. It's the one, your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the sky. It's just a praise of how good he's been to us.

And then we give thanks to God and we go around and everyone has to share things they're thankful for. What else did I tell you that's better than that? I feel like I'm probably missing something. No, I think you got it.

I think that going back and talking through the actual story of the migration to the United States by pilgrims who, interestingly, not fans of Christmas, that was something that we did last year. Last thing, last thing for Thanksgiving. Last thing.

When you're considering how much you have to be thankful for, your kids are going to go, "My family!" And then one's going to go, "Food!" But you can get a little bit better stuff out of them if you'll walk through five capitals. You say, "What do we have to be thankful for spiritually? What do we have to be thankful for relationally?" Then they're going to name their best friends. They're going to name grandparents.

And then what do we have to be thankful for intellectually? So you can stir up a lot better stuff if you'll just trot out those subjects as you're being thankful. That's great. And I'm kind of offended.

I've been at Thanksgiving's before when it's kind of... Being thankful is kind of like a little mascot for the day. And it's like, "Well, that was cute.

We did that. Now, where's the candy corn?" No. Make the event about gratitude.

And then actually stop and give thanks to the Lord. And maybe sing a song of gratitude to the Lord. Like, actually do it.

That's what I have to say about that. Okay. Now, some people don't celebrate any holidays because of their questionable origins like Christmas, for instance.

Christmas started out super pagan origins. It got Jesus slapped onto it. That's true.

I don't buy that. I don't buy that story. Oh, okay.

Wait, go ahead. Do you want me to keep talking or what? Well, this is where we get into the cage together. Oh, okay.

You want me to keep going? Yeah. Okay. Whether you do that or you don't do that, it's fine with me.

I... The pagan stuff? No. Whether you make a stand and you go...

It's very similar actually to the... We don't buy Nestle products because of their social stances. Okay.

I mean, how far down the food chain do you want to go about? What about the suppliers and the vendors that everybody uses, etc. How far do you want to go down the rabbit hole of where the history of every holiday and whether it was all used purely or not? You can do that if you want to. I tend to just take things more on face value personally.

We don't do... We have never done Santa. My parents didn't really either.

That's more about just not wanting to lie to our children than the guy that the idea of Santa was based on was a great guy. I think that was a Polish guy. Is that right? Hang on, I've got it right here.

St. Nicholas of Myra, also known as Nicholas of Berry, or as we call him in the parent house, just Berry, was an early Christian bishop of Greek descent from the maritime city of Myra in Asia Minor, modern day Turkey during the time of the Roman Empire. He did many miracles that were attributed to his intercession, so he was a prayer.

And he is the patron saint of sailors, merchants, archers, repentant thieves, prostitutes, children, brewers, pawnbrokers, unmarried people, and students in various cities and countries across Europe. Not the patron saint of SEC schools. No, it's funny.

Yeah, so, you know, if you're... We don't really have a holiday for the patron saint of pawnbrokers, necessarily. We do.

It's called "More Like Christmas." Oh, I get it. But patron saint of prostitutes, but not repentant, just prostitutes, repentant thieves, but all prostitutes. Yeah, well, you got to be specific.

They've got a lot of saints. Anyhow, so Christmas has a very mixed background. I know that I know it's not when Jesus was born.

There's no chance in the world that Jesus was born on December 25th. I know that. And yet, here it is, it's a cultural opportunity, so we take it, and we celebrate Jesus being born, and we sing angels we have heard on high, and we sing these songs that glorify God for Jesus coming.

You can avoid that if you want, but it might be good to celebrate Jesus coming sometime, maybe you're in Sukkot. Can I make an argument that is extra biblical for why you should celebrate this and other explicitly Christian holidays? Will you accept it? Yeah, give it a shot. You might be more successful in getting a rise out of me if you apply the argument you're about to make to Easter, which I'm less happy about than Christmas.

Well, I can do that. Christmas is named the Christ Mass. That's what the Catholics named it.

Easter is the pagan Babylonian god Ishtar. So it's named for a false God. So I'm not crazy about Easter.

Yeah, Ishtar was one of like 20 names that I found as I researched origin of Easter. There's no agreement that it was named after Ishtar, but there's a lot of other words that's what it was named after. I'll just say that is in deep academic dispute, whether that's the case.

Oh, okay. Oh gosh. Well, if experts, if experts question it, well, then let me back off my point here.

Just to like to extend an olive branch before we go into a time of disagreement. I think it's important to tell you and the listener that just now, as we were recording this, my wife texted me and said, I just drove by Mitt Romney. And he was in his car and wearing a mask by himself.

He does live in our little town. So kind of interesting. Oh, that's great.

So that's great. If I just zoom out, I'm not going to actually, we can talk about the specific customs and things like that. I only have one follow up question about Mitt.

Okay. So do you think based on the little that you know, you don't know everything about politics and not everything about virology or MIT, do you think, do you think that MIT in his luxury car wearing his mask? Do you feel that he is safe? I do. Okay.

Mostly due to the steel beams in the Mercedes that protect him against side impact crashes. I don't attribute that safety to his mask or his impeccably placed hairs on his head, probably, but no, no, no, no. Anyways, I think my 30,000 foot opinion on all this stuff is that there is a, I would say, foolish quickness to discard church history and the opinions of those who have gone before us when it comes to some of these holidays.

So, for example, my guys grou...

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