I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree on this. I don’t know of any non-religious folks who consider the holiday to be anything other than 12/24-25 - although depending on the day it falls on, a lot of people bundle the whole time from 12/24 through 1/1 an extended holiday. But then we’re well past religious observance and into love of a long break.
Although if retailer beliefs are a thing, then yes, the Xmas shopping season starting the day after Thanksgiving in the US could be considered a secular festival.
But then applying the various flavors of “merry xmas” to roughly a month is well past any rational association with a single holiday event, and we’re back to Happy Holidays being a more inclusive option.
But as I said, probably better to agree to disagree. Especially in light of @LSLGuy ‘s insightful point that where you are also informs the ways in which people are using the term. Here in Colorado Springs, home of Focus on the Freakin’ Family and crazed shooters, trust me in that there is probably a much higher-than-average usage of the term and it’s variants in pushing a militant POV.
East or West coast? I would bet that the OP’s original question, regarding “Merry Christmas to those who celebrate” is probably closer to an effort to ‘reclaim’ Xmas while the coda is an effort towards minimal political correctness and acknowledgement of other faiths.
Well, I thought your initial complaint was that you keep encountering people who treat it as a longer period.
The retail treatment of various seasons and festivals is, I think, a red herring. Retail Christmas starts at the end of summer now. That’s disappointing, but it’s not about any sort of festival, but about selling things. Not sure I even blame them for it.
I’m non-religious and for me the term “christmas” pretty much covers the whole of December. It is a season and not just a reference to a day or two. There is a reason advent calendars have 25 doors and decorations. As for a specific holiday it typically stretches well before and after the day itself.
Okay, combining several different issues I have over the course of the last two replies, so I’ll re-summarize.
Big disconnect between a ‘Christmas Season’ which some define as a whole freaking month, and the religious holiday. Also, in my experience, which I stated upthread, no one outside the Catholics I’ve dealt with ever considered the 12 days of Xmas or Advent as anything other than a song or a way to eat a daily candy. Obviously your experiences are different.
The fact that a non-religious person considers Christmas a whole month = unthinking cultural dominance. This is not an insult directed at @Novelty_Bobble - but an example of a nationwide entitlement to the default Christian society. And one that as I stated upthread sets me off - while there’s a substantial portion of Xmas music that isn’t explicitly tied to the religious elements, much of it is, and having to hear it everywhere for 4 weeks is part and parcel of the problem.
Which brings me back to @Mangetout’s rejoinder. YES, I find it irritating, for the reasons above and upthread that we have an unthinking assumption that the entire nation should spend a month preparing, proclaiming, and celebrating a -religious- holiday, when a huge portion of the same nation looks askance at Cinco De Mayo as ‘Unamerican’ and the difficulty I had as a child of getting time off for the Jewish High Holy Days.
This is the essence of my problem with “Merry Christmas” greetings. The fact that people are defending it as harmless, not intended to offend, no big deal etc. is the real problem, not the two stupid words themselves.
Mid-winter festivals have a long, long history in my country for obvious reasons. Ours just happens to have been co-opted by the dominant religion but it remains mostly secular with very little to do with the birth of Jesus for most people.
Here in the UK we’d be looking forward to and celebrating the end of the darker days regardless of religious co-option. It is just human nature.
I’m not sure why it bugs you so much. I’m as non-religious as it comes and think the concept of “holy days” to be idiotic but have no problem with certain countries or cultures making a bigger thing of some festival periods that others and if they happen to be religously motivated, so what? Live and let live.
I think I’ll concede that this might be one of those cultural things that’s rather different in the USA. Here in the UK, even the folks that go to church generally aren’t so desperately religious about their religion.
I reckon it might come from the reformation in the 16th century, where the idea of STFU about your own religion became a survival strategy.
Oh absolutely, I did try to make it clear as to how it is in the US, and that as LSLGuy mentioned, there are strong regional complications as well. Plus, the Religious Right has made fighting back against the imaginary “War on Christmas” a primary battle in the culture wars.
I cannot speak to how things work out in other nations, but am not surprised that the traditional aspects of the holiday, all the way back to pre-Christian cultural roots, to be more expressed.
I can’t remember who said it, it may have been Stephen Fry or Christopher Hitchens, but they made the very astute point that us northern European nations just love a mid-winter booze-up. Norse gods, pagan deities or new-fangled christianity are all the same to us. As long as there is a roasted animal and alcoholic oblivion we’ll happily sign up.
