Angels are in the OT and are part of Islam and Judaism also.
It has all the iconography associated with it because of history. That means it’s Christian in origin, not practice.
That’s one way. Another is for the symbols to remain but lose their active religious connection. Like the tree topper.
I disagree. That’s precisely what it means for them to be secularized: “convert from religious to secular possession or use.”, “dissociate or separate from religious or spiritual concerns.”
When the tree topper becomes just a decoration, it’s thoroughly and completely secularized. No “incomplete” about it.
I don’t agree. Or perhaps better put, I don’t agree there’s enough of a difference to matter. The degree of secularization is so great that “largely” vs “entirely” are not distinguishable for the majority of society.
And many other non-Christians don’t object, and dive completely into secular Christmas.
That some non-Christians think it’s still a religious holiday is very much a “them” problem, not a universal problem, to the same degree that some Christians decrying the secularization of the holiday are of no concern.
To a miniscule extent compared to the secular ones.
Then vote them out.
You think taking away one of the most popular holidays of the entire culture is going to sway people away from those idiots? What you should be doing is pushing for more secularization. Or even syncretism - get that dreidl into a Hallmark Christmas move!
If that’s not One Drop, what is?
Ironically, many of the early settlers to America from Europe were wanting to get away from Christmas because of the secular celebrations, which sound to me like there was a hell of a lot (so to speak) of fun. 
I agree with you here. While Christmas is still celebrated as a religious day by Christians, the holiday itself has long ago transcended its religious roots, becoming an iconic and non-secular holiday. I get that this annoys Christians, but it is what it is.
I think you mean “secular holiday” here
Of course Christmas is a religious holiday, and it’s absurd to pretend otherwise. In much of mainstream American society, it’s been secularized to the point that non-Christians commonly feel comfortable taking part. But that’s true only for “non-Christians” in the sense of “people with no particular religious beliefs”.
I think you will find that, almost unanimously, Americans who are strongly committed to a particular non-Christian religion (or to militant atheism) avoid participating in even highly secularized Christmas celebrations.
Certainly among American Jews, this attitude extends to many Jews who are by no stretch of the imagination “committed” to religious Judaism, and I imagine it is similar in other minority communities. (Of course, many American Jews are fine with celebrating Christmas, but those aren’t the seriously religious ones).
I haven’t read the whole thread carefully, but I’m puzzled as to who Dibble thinks is proposing to “abolish” Christmas, or even frowning on people who celebrate it, whether in Jesus- or Santa-oriented fashion. But several people, many citing their own lived experience, are trying to explain to him why some people might prefer to avoid participating.
lol, yes…that’s what it should have been.
This whole thing arose in the Columbus Day thread over whether Christmas should be a recognized US holiday due to its supposed religious nature. I have exactly zero issue with people avoiding participating in it.
Being a religious minority in America has its downsides, but at least nobody is trying to tell me that my religious holidays aren’t actually religious, but some sort of nonspecific seasonal-cheer events.
Ah, OK, that’s clear. My opinion is that since the vast majority of Americans celebrate Christmas, it’s only practical that everyone should get the day off, and it would be silly to make up some alternative “official” name for the holiday in the name of multiculturalism. I feel that this is just acknowledging social reality, rather than establishing religion.
Same thing for the school districts around here that close on Yom Kippur; they’re not telling anyone to be Jewish, they’re just acknowledging that most of the kids won’t show up that day anyway.
So, as someone who was raised Muslim, but am now Christian (after a decade long sojourn into Atheism), my experiences argue that Christmas is indeed more of a religious rather than a secular holiday on the whole. When growing up we NEVER celebrated Christmas, because it was a Christian holiday. My brother and sister-in-law (who are still Muslim) however do, under the rationale that Jesus was a very important Muslim prophet. We never had the same issues with Halloween and Thanksgiving, and celebrated them both with gusto (Thanksgiving remains my favorite holiday). I don’t think I even knew Halloween was connected to Christianity in its roots until I was in college.
Now, there are ways that Christmas can be celebrated ‘secularly’… but so can Easter.
I’m a little confused here - for the most part, participating in trick-or-treating is how Halloween is celebrated. Sure, people decorate their houses - but that’s usually also an indication that they are giving out treats. And aside from parents taking young children trick-or-treating ( or the equivalent) it’s really not a family holiday - the group that’s a little too old for trick or treating may have a party with costumes but it’s usually not a family party.
Actually, Easter is another example of this, though to a lesser degree. Indeed, Christmas is a religious day of observance for (most) Christian sects, but the way it’s celebrated in the US, today (and for a while now) is more as a secular holiday. I don’t think many people even realize that Santa Claus was (theoretically) a Christain saint (and many Christian sects don’t go for the whole saint thingy anyway).
IMHO, outside of hardcore Catholic types, Christmas is really a secular holiday with some Christian trappings. Easter is as well, though to a lesser degree, since it’s just not as popular a holiday.
That’s may be what Christmas is now for non-Christians who celebrate Christmas. It’s not what Christmas is all about for Christians. Nor for people of other religions who don’t celebrate it because they think of it as a Christian holiday.
It’s All Hollows Day and definitely is a day of religious observance for Catholics at least.
I think this may be another example of where you live.
We are hardly hardcore Catholics (it’d be hard to do so when one is Lutheran), but our Christmas is religious focused and our church tends to be packed on Christmas Eve (one of the few days that it is). Many churches are far more packed to the gills on Christmas Eve.
Easter even more so. The vast majority of my non-religious friends have no idea when it even is, so it seems to me to be almost exclusively a Christian celebration of the resurrection of Christ. There are a few who do bunnies and Easter eggs and that’s it, but I think when it became more socially acceptable to not give a damn about Easter, they just dropped all of that.
October 31 (Halloween) is not a day of religious observance for Catholics. All Hallow’s ( or All Saint’s ) day, November 1st is the date of the religious observance… Although the name Hallween does come from All Hallow’s Eve, there is no religious obligation for Catholics on Halloween- the closest thing is that they may fulfill their Mass attendance for November 1 on the evening of October 31, just as a Saturday evening Mass fulfills the Sunday obligation.
Ok, that’s true, I was thinking of November 1st and putting that as part of Halloween (All Hollows Eve as you said, verse All Saints Day). To me, it’s all part of the Dia de los Muertos, even though that starts on November 2nd. It all sort of mixes together in my mind, especially from my childhood when this stuff was important (these days I’m not even Catholic in name only…and we don’t celebrate even from a secular perspective any of these things, as the kids are all grown up, with even the youngest being 20).
It’s more a day of religious observance for Lutherans (Reformation Day) 
. We tend to celebrate it the last Sunday of October and then All Saints as the first Sunday of November.
I have not read the whole thread (who could?) but ISTM that Christians think it has become purely secular, while non-Christians think of it as religious. No one’s opinion will be changed by repeating the same points and I do not doubt that these are both quite reasonable positions.
I was raised as a secular Jew and we mostly ignored Christmas, perceiving it as a Christian celebration. We raised our kids the same way. Never had a tree and celebrated Hanukah. But I can certainly see that actual religious Christians see how secular it has become and I would not attempt to argue the point.
The majority celebrates an entirely secular Christmas? 
Religiosity of Christmas Since 2005
Thinking of the way you personally celebrate Christmas, is it a strongly religious holiday, somewhat religious or not too religious?
Strongly religious Somewhat religious Not too religious Do not celebrate % % % % 2019 Dec 2-15 35 32 26 7 2010 Dec 10-12 50 29 16 5 2005 Dec 16-18 47 30 19 4
Looks like a 35+32=67% majority still say the way they personally celebrate Christmas is at least somewhat religious.
But that’s Gallup. A Pew survey from 2017 left a thin margin,
Currently, 55% of U.S. adults say they celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday, including 46% who see it as more of a religious holiday than a cultural holiday and 9% who celebrate Christmas as both a religious and a cultural occasion. In 2013, 59% of Americans said they celebrated Christmas as a religious holiday, including 51% who saw it as more religious than cultural and 7% who marked the day as both a religious and a cultural holiday.
~Max