Changing the name to “Xmas” doesn’t solve the problem. How about being honest and call it “Greed Day” or even “Commercial Day”? And, of course, moving the date to June when the weather’s better for shopping.
The trick is that you’ve got to separate out all the religious connotation (name, creches, carols with religious themes, slogans like “Joy to the World,” angels, etc.) That ain’t gonna happen.
Hold on a second. What is with everyone wanting to move Xmas to June? My birthday is at the end of May and it will be a cold day in hell before I accept Christmas/birthday gifts.
I’ve never gotten this. I’m Jewish, and it would never occur to me to celebrate the secular parts of Christmas. If you were raised Christian I’m sure it seems mostly secular to you, but I almost had a fit when my upstairs neighbors hung candy cane lights on my front porch railing. There are no Christian symbolism to candy canes, but it bugs the piss out of me that they are displayed on my house, somehow indicating they I’m part of the season’s celebrations. I’m not, stop trying to include me!
Who are these people you speak of? T’ain’t me, that’s for sure.
I have no objection whatsoever to Christmas: it’s a Christian holiday to celebrate the birth of one of their major religious figures. Good for them. I hope they enjoy it. Why should I object? But it is a Christian holiday, and as a non-Christian, I don’t participate. In fact, as an atheist, it would be rather presumptuous of me to do so.
I nominate “Consume-a-rama.”
And “Holiday” comes from “Holy Day”.
Should we atheists insist on working all those Mondays? People are always calling Labor Day, MLK Day, and the like “holidays”, after all.
-Joe
East and west, it’s reckoned as the second-most important holy day, behind Easter, and has a period of four or six weeks’ (depending on rite) fasting and penance in preparation for it, and constitutes a distinct liturgical season. It’s far more than just an ordinary feast of the Church.
And its correspondence with the winter solstice is likely coincidence. It falls when it does because that’s 9 months after Annunciation, which falls on March 25, and Annunciation falls on March 25 because that’s what was traditionally considered the day Christ died, giving Him exactly 33 years on Earth. If Christians had wanted to co-opt the winter solstice, they would have actually picked the winter solstice to celebrate their holiday.
I had a dear friend (an atheist) who called the holiday “Giftmas.”
CK Dexter Haven - Bah bloody humbug to you too mate!
**Eve ** - We’re all entitled to our views and we can all sit out christmas if we like. That’s your right. But i agree with Shagnasty that the actual Christ part is largely ignored, perhaps even by most christians. I could be wrong but i don’t really believe that the celebration of the birth of jesus is what is foremost in most christians minds. More likely they are, like the majority of us, simply celebrating family, joy and a general feeling of happiness and goodwill that the season brings.
If there is some occasion that makes people smile, suddenly become happier, more tolerant and considerate and makes people forget their differences even if just for one day, then fuck it, i’m in whatever the reason.
I don’t know that the “two parts” are quite as separate as all that. Christmas is the celebration of Jesus’s birth, and to people who are infact celebrating that, giving gifts, putting up decorations, etc. are among the ways they do so…
(By the way, you’re being Pitted—and by Polycarp, no less.)
How’s this:
Hey all,
We’re having this big birthday party for Jesus, and y’all are invited to help us celebrate. You can come on over and join the party, whether or not you actually know Jesus. Maybe you’ll even run into him; we think you’d like the guy. But if you’re not a fan, that’s cool; you can still join the party. Just don’t be a buzz-kill and bad-mouth him to his friends or keep them from enjoying his company.
Warm wishes,
Christendom
[Bart Simpson] “Christmas is the one time of year when people of all religions come together to worship Jesus Christ!” [/Bart Simpson]
I think it sort of has happened. In my workplace, for example, there are some Christmas displays that are completely nonsectarian – as in, without any Christian iconography, except in the loosest sense of the term. Much of the “Christmas” music we hear is not terribly sectarian either. Even the overtly Christian stuff is sort of neutered by the fact that no one actually seems to know the lyrics: “Angels we have heard on high, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”
I had a Jewish colleague say something funny, and telling, the other day – “Christmas is only a religious holiday for the Jews.”
I agree with Telemark. It may not look like Christianity if you’ve been raised in a Christian or culturally Christian environment, but it is assuredly not Judaism, and it all screams out “Christmas” if you are in a religious minority.
Not to hijack, but has this been happening this year? I know the last couple of years rage had reached a critical mass, but this year it seems to be absent. Is it possible that all those schmoes have finally acquired brains, or am I just not looking very hard?
Personally, I don’t consider my Christmas tree, lights, or most of my other decorations to be religious in nature. They are festive, and my reason for wanting to be festive is partially because of the happy nature of the holiday from a religious perspective, and partially because winter is a great time of year to try to put a little festivity into life.
So, if someone who isn’t Christian wants to put up a tree and lights, I certainly don’t find that offensive. If, on the other hand, they don’t want to, I completely understand that, too. The only thing I would hate to see is Christmas overshadowing a legitimate holiday someone else would normally be celebrating. Of course, I would assume that if that holiday was important enough to someone, they wouldn’t be interested in putting up a tree, anyway.
I, on the other hand, see all of those as religious in nature. Having grown up Jewish they are a symbol of “the other” and in some small way a threat to me. I have no desire to partake of them. When people assume that there’s nothing religious about a Christmas tree, I assume they were raised Christian. To my eyes, there’s no way it can lose the symbolism it has in our culture.
How about no holiday? Hanukkah is a pretty minor holiday in the grand scheme of things, and I’m happy just eating Chinese food and seeing a movie, like I do most years. 
I’m not looking for a new holiday to add to my schedule.
I had noticed that Wal-Mart and Target have gone back to allowing the word “Christmas” back in their advertising … Target most notably in their television ads. I haven’t pored over other advertising with a fine-toothed comb and taken an accounting, but I’d say that Wal-Mart and Target’s stances are pretty accurate indicators of what’s going on. Seems the tide has turned back.
According to The Catholic Dictionary, “Natalis Invicti” is the pagan feast most likely supplanted by Christmas. (The full name is, of course, Dies Natalis Invicti Solis–Birthday of the Unconquerable Sun.)
No, the correspondence with the Winter Solstice is hardly a “coincidence.”
I get that totally. My point was more that, as a Christian, it doesn’t offend me if a non-Christian wants to put up a Christmas tree, because it has no religious meaning or symbolism. If, however, they put up a nativity scene, that would be weird to me, because it it doesn’t seem right to use a religious symbol if you don’t believe in the religion. It would be like me lighting Hanukkah candles because I thought they were pretty, but having no feelings for what they represent…to me, that is cheapening someone else’s religion, which is not right, IMO.
But this is my interpretation from my POV as a Christian. I can certainly understand why some people would not want their house decked out in Christmas decorations.
Well, sure…I know that Hanukkah is perhaps being celebrated as a more “major” holiday than it historically has been, due to its proximity to Christmas. I was just saying that it would be sad if Hanukkah was downplayed BECAUSE of Christmas, not because it is a minor holiday in the first place.
Do what you like. Celebrate what you like. Whose permission are you seeking?