I, for one, could use a lot less Christmas, and wish we WERE downplaying it.
People are already saying “happy holidays”, which means they’re including Thanksgiving in the mix. Also, don’t forget that the orthodox christian arms celebrate in January, per the Gregorian calendar. What the hell difference does it make what someone says, as long as there is good will behind it, and not some mindless adherence to some arcane beliefs?
You couldn’t have waited until at least after Thanksgiving to start this thread?
New Years day is a standard holiday - government offices and most businesses close on January 1, and most cities do something for the countdown to 12:00 on New Years Eve. It’s on par with July 4th for amount of celebration that goes on IMO - not as super-hyped as Christmas or a multi-day thing like Thanksgiving, but definitely not almost ignorable like President’s day (which usually has a few sales).
Exactly! There’s always Festivus for the rest of us!
Just because one culture has been dominant doesn’t mean that its correct, or should continue to happen. I fully believe that it is more offensive, patronizing, whatever you want to call it for Christmas to dominant this season. It never should have gotten this far and now that there is enough non-Christians to push back, the balance is being restored. That’s not an attack on Christians, that’s pulling back the unfair advantage Christians have been getting.
FWIW, Diwali falls in roughly the same period - the last two weeks of October or the first week of November, depending on the year.
I loved him on Gunsmoke.
Diwali was last week.
Who exactly are the non-Christians who take offense at all things Christmassy? I haven’t heard of any significant movement among Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Wiccans or others taking any particular offense at seeing or hearing “Merry Christmas” all over the place. (At least, not much in America, as far as I know.)
As far as I’ve been able to tell, it’s the atheists – or at least the more vocal ones – who tend to get offended at being reminded that Lots Of Other People Might, Y’Know, Have Religion. Aren’t these the same folks that get all up in arms over crosses in public parks and on hilltops (sometimes even privately owned hilltops) overlooking major public highways, and such?
It started simple: People (mainly atheists, as far as know) objected to Nativity and similar displays in public parks because, at the very least, they were lit up, using electricity, and running up electric bills at public expense. This then expanded to campaigns to give equal time and space to Menorahs and Buddhas and whatever displays Muslims might prefer. (What kind of holiday displays would Muslims prefer anyway, since they don’t encourage any kinds of representational art? Images of the Prophet are right out!) This further led to demands to expunge the Ten Commandments from all public spaces.
Like I said, as far as I know, there hasn’t really been any great objection to all these displays among people of other religions or other traditions. It seems to be the atheists, mostly, who are ardently protecting All Of Us from All Of That.
Am I reading this about right?
They’ve already started playing the music and it’s not even Thanksgiving yet. I count as a good Christmas one where I avoid hearing “Snoopy and the Red Baron Christmas”.
Persephone is the reason for the season!
You’re conflating two separate movements.
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Atheists who want to maintain separation of church and state objecting to government sponsored or supported religious displays, such as nativities in front of public buildings or crosses in public parks (I’m not aware of objections to crosses on privately owned land with no government sanction).
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Conservative Christians objecting to large, visible organizations, primarily retailers, but also including governments and others, using inclusive holiday language and symbolism instead of strictly Christian-specific ones.
The two movements have entirely different goals and supporters. The atheists want to prevent any indication that government might be imposing any religion (but mostly Christianity) on them, while the conservative Christians want to make everyone acknowledge the importance of their religion and its central place in American society.
As a non-Christian, I am entirely in agreement with the first movement, but opposed to the second movement, as I believe that everyone, from individuals to large retailers, should be able to choose if and how they observe and don’t observe the holidays. I’m not going to object to those who want to use Christian symbolism, but I am going to appreciate and probably be more likely to patronize those who are inclusive (thank you to the retailer where I purchased my Chanukah T-shirt yesterday – I’ll be back!)
Here’s last year’s bulletin from your favorite Concerned Women for America; some of the people who invented The War On Christmas:
Check out the site to learn what else you ought to think.
Adherents to other religions than Christianity probably avoid complaining because they don’t want crosses burnt on their front yards.
I’m current religion-free but remember being Roman Catholic in the Bible Belt; listening to the yammering of My Jr Senator reinforces my opinion that mixing religion & government is profoundly un-American.
By the way, Houston’s Second Baptist has a big Christmas shindig every year; it is loud & splashy & generally devoid of any traditionally religious imagery. (Too Catholic?) Most churches that still have live Nativity displays generally have them outside–and free. Second Baptist’s jamboree ain’t free…
In my mind and cultural worldview, Happy Holidays encompasses the entirety of the season between (and a little before) Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. It would be cumbersome to say HappyThanksgivingYuleSolsticeChristmasNewYear. 
Even though I am a Pagan, the rest of my family and a number of my friends are not so it’s no big deal to me. It seems that even faiths that do not celebrate a particular holy day in that period of time enjoy the goodwill and such that falls around the end of the Western year. If I lived in another culture I would also enjoy being part of faith-based festivals that spread love and goodwill to all. It is strange to me to think that someone would be offended to be included such an event, although I know it happens all the time.
Says the guy who didn’t wait until after Thanksgiving to make this rhetorical question.
Are they thinking that ifthey put on a big enough show, they’ll get promoted to First Baptist?
The US Postal Service has been releasing both “Christmas” stamps (with a painting of the Madonna and Child) and “Season’s Greetings” stamps (with generic winter scenes, although I think occasionally things you associate with Christmas (albeit “secular” Christmas), like candy canes, appear as well) for as long as I can remember.
As for “downplaying Chanukah” (which is how I spell it - like Angelica on Rugrats says, 'Not Hanukkah, Chanukah - you have to ghch when you say it"), isn’t it one of Judaism’s “minor” holidays, and its attention comes from its proximity to Christmas? Isn’t it roughly equivalent to somebody announcing, “From now on, the holidays will be Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, Pesach (Passover), Purim, and Assumption Day (August 15 - the day the Catholic Church says that the Virgin Mary was “assumed, body and soul, directly into heaven”)”?
Is there ANYTHING that doesn’t piss you off?
Why, because the US is something like 71% Christian, and 65% white? That seems pretty dominant, population-wise.
That’s why we get an overwhelming profusion of Western European Christmas imagery and the like. It’s because 2/3 of the population identifies with it, not some kind of “unfair advantage”.
Calling it “The Holidays” doesn’t cause any harm though; it’s merely a more inclusive term than “Christmas”. It allows for the other winter holidays to be celebrated or none at all in the case of atheists, and also is a more broad term for the period from about Dec 20-Jan 3, when kids are off school, which was always the “Christmas Holidays”
when I was a kid, and just eventually got shorted to “the Holidays”.
There seems to be a vocal, yet idiotic segment of the militantly Christian crowd that seems to think that the US is a “Christian nation” in a sense far beyond being a nation where 71% of the population professes that belief. Their idea is that not only are we a majority Christian nation, but that everything in the nation has to reflect that belief- laws, public and commercial iconography, everything. The rank stupidity of it is that the US has NEVER really been that way. If that was the de-facto case somewhere like say… rural Texas, it was more because 99.99% of the population was Christian, not because that’s the way the country was organized or intended to be.
These folks seem to have the misguided idea that it’s a “with us or against us” kind of thing- because they’re used to that de-facto total Christianization that they may have seen in their youth, now any deviation from that is seen as a concerted attack on their faith and a deliberate effort to de-Christianize society. Where they’re not getting it right is that it’s neither of those things- it’s just a resetting of things to where they should be, with the law being indifferent to any one religion’s beliefs, and civil society reflecting the views of the society as a whole, not just one, albeit large, segment.
Well the hell are you from? New Year’s Eve is the biggest party night of the year. If you watch TV you see New Years fireworks and celebrations all around the world. New Years is to booze makers what Christmas is to retailers. And the Christmas ads have started already.
I’m fine with Merry Christmas, but I can also see a devout Christian objecting to my claim of celebrating Christmas with no church, no religious symbols, and no mention of Jesus. My Christmas is purely pagan. And I suspect half the people I see in the stores buying Christmas presents are as Christian as I am - I live in a quite diverse area.
Not tagging our commercial pagan winter celebration as Christmas should be a good thing for them.
I quite like the greeting “Happy holidays.” To me it is shorthand for “Enjoy this season in whatever way you happen to celebrate.” If you don’t celebrate anything, I guess you might be excluded from such a greeting, but at least the intentions are good. Anyone who belongs to a minority religion in the US is well aware of the cultural importance of Christmas. Most people, regardless of religion, have some time off work at this time of year, and many non-Christians use that opportunity to get together with family or plan vacations when the kids are out of school or whatever. Equally, you would be hard-pressed to find any resident of the US who didn’t know that Christmas is a religious holiday for some (though an entirely secular celebration for others). I don’t find it at all patronizing for people to be sensitive to the notion that Christmas may or may not be something I celebrate.
The Soviet government was rather canny in the way it handled the issue. After the Revolution, overt displays of religious worship were banned or severely limited. Christmas celebrations were included in the ban. But everyone missed the secular elements of Christmas (the tree, giving presents, the Santa Claus figure of Grandfather Frost, etc.) so the government simply transferred those aspects of the celebration to New Year’s. To this day, New Year’s is still the main winter holiday in Russia, and only Christian believers celebrate Christmas. Since New Year’s remains an entirely secular holiday, people of every faith and no faith join in the celebrations.