So who the fuck is offended by Santa Claus?

The BBQ Pit
81

I’ve noticed a divide between people who grew up Christian, culturally Christian, or secular but without a specific religious-ethnic identity (which is to say, they identified mostly with the dominant white Anglo-Protestant culture without necessarily being conscious of it), and people who grew up Jewish, whether practicing or secular.

Christians IME draw a fairly sharp mental divide between the secular and religious aspects of Christmas, even if they don’t think about it much. There might be some overlap–maybe Santa shows up at church after the service to entertain the kids, or an atheist might enjoy a religious song or two, but even those are seen as something of an exception, a sop to the other side or a willingness to embrace both sides, but for most people inside the “majority” (not for long!) American culture (British too, I think), it really is, as some people said, two separate but simultaneous holidays, and we all know more or less what things are part of one or the other holiday. Atheists who grew up in that culture are fine celebrating secular Christmas, and may get offended (I do) when told that their celebration doesn’t exist or is “really” Christian.

Jewish people, however (and I would expect the same goes for members of other minority religions and cultures that don’t celebrate Christmas) see Christmas from the outside, and don’t make those distinctions. They see it as a single huge cultural meme practiced by the dominant Christian culture and distinct from and alternative to their own cultural and holiday traditions.

As an atheist and former Christian who grew up without any particularly strong Jewish identity (though my father is Jewish) I have no problem picking out the secular aspects of Christmas and celebrating them in a way that neither I nor any Christian would mistake for a religious celebration. But while it is possible to have a purely secular Christmas, it probably ISN’T possible to have a religiously neutral Christmas that doesn’t feel like an imposition on Jews (and, as I said, probably Hindus and Muslims, though I won’t speak for them).

In fact, Judaism can be interpreted as forbidding Christmas celebrations for practicing Jews just as the Jehovah’s Witness faith prohibits it for its members. In that context, whether the celebration is secular or not doesn’t really matter. It’s not universal.

82

You’ll need to remind the hundreds of kids at my kids’ former school and all their parents that they were supposed to be offended that the school celebrated Christmas, because they forgot. Not to mention a few million other kids and parents here in one of the most diverse and multicultural cities in the world. They all forgot to be offended, too.

And here are some Christmas wishes from a few more “self-serving” narrow-minded Christian types like me (bolding mine):
As a practising Muslim, I do not believe in following the holiday of Christmas as it goes against some of my religious beliefs. However, being a benevolent member of society, as my version of Islam teaches me to be (Ahmadiyya Islam), I fully support Christians and in fact any other group in celebrating their religious holidays.

I would dislike it very much for people to say “happy holidays” rather than Eid Mubarak for my religious holiday. Being a moderate Muslim, I not only tolerate other religions but respect them, and to that I would like to wish all my Christian brothers and sisters this year a warm and very Merry Christmas.

Tayyab Pirzada, Mississauga

I am an Orthodox Jew, and I simply detest the phrase “Happy Holidays.” This is the Christmas season, and the vast majority of Canadians celebrate Christmas. My faith is strong enough that it does not need to be affirmed by diminishing the traditions of others.

Jews represent about 1 per cent of the population of Canada, and Chanukah was a late addition to the Jewish calendar — it was added in 165 BC whereas our important holidays date from 1300 BC. I would hate to think that a minor holiday of a tiny fraction of the population has contributed to this widespread dampening of Christmas spirit.

So please, let’s leave the “Happy Holidays” at home and wish everyone a “Merry Christmas!”

Jason Shron, Thornhill

83

Once again the atheists are trying to ruin everything for non-atheists.

84

We will not rest until we make your god bow down before us.

85

No, I don’t. I don’t recall writing anything about people being offended, only that your definition of “inclusive” was a bunch of self-serving, ethnocentric bullshit, which it is.

And the examples you showed back that up, so thanks for helping me out.

86

Let me see… What’s “christian” about my Christmas…

Well, there’s the tree, which is a pagan symbol.
There’s the modern incarnation of “Santa Claus”, who, despite any tenuous connection to “Saint Nicholas” essentially exists as part of Coca-Cola’s marketing arm, i.e. secular and quite cynical.
There’s the presents, again an icon not of Christianity but of our seasonal glut of consumerism. Hardly a Christian fete.
There’s a little angel on the tree. I guess that’s kind of Christian.
There’s “Weinachtsmann & Co KG” (“Santa Claus Incorporated”), which is a German TV show we adore quite a bit, but again, this has about as much to do with Christmas as it does with the drugs the creators of the (to this day extremely popular) children’s TV show presumably took - I’m going to guess Ritalin and Prozium.

For all intents and purposes, the Christmas I celebrate has absolutely nothing to do with Christianity. It’s slowly evolved out all those pesky sectarian roots having to do with a bastard child and an incredibly gullible father.

What’s religious about our practice, though? We take the time off to spend time around the hearth, drinking Glühwein, swapping stories, and giving each other gifts. Christianity no more owns that than it owns the concept of the golden rule.

87

My people celebrate Festivus.

88

I find your belief system fascinating.

89

It may not be religious but it is, for lack of a better term, secular Christian. It’s not part of my Jewish tradition, but it is part of the dominant culture’s default Christian tradition. I have no objection to you saying your Christmas isn’t religious, but it is embedded in Christian culture in a way that is clear to someone raised outside that culture.

Again, I have no objection to you saying your celebration isn’t religious. But I would assert that it’s still Christian in cultural ways.

90

Excellent! Thus proving that you didn’t have the vaguest fucking clue about the point I was making, or the vaguest fucking clue about what those two people were saying, and probably both.

I suggest that instead of making an ass of yourself putting your comprehension issues on display, you should stick with what you know, like going down to the quarry and throwing stuff down there. It might help you work through whatever sociopathology causes you to utter brilliantly insightful observations like the following:

91

Or:

Keep S+M in
CHRIS+MAS

92

Fuck you. I know I have a lot of privilege in American society, and to a lot of people this is small potatoes, but you don’t get to tell a bunch of atheists who fight against Christian privilege and “default” status that they are “secular Christians.”

I tried to explain carefully that I recognized it looked different from the inside and the outside. Now you come along and tell me the outside view is correct. Fuck that shit. You don’t get to define my culture.

93

Well at least this thread has brought people of different backgrounds together and that is the real spirit of Christmas!

Here is a relevant and very short clip.

94

“Offended” or not, you’re 100% wrong if you are insisting that 100% of the millions of non-Christians in your community are all hunky-dory about Christmas celebrations in the schools.

Odds are that:

[ul]
[li]Plenty of people feel annoyed, put upon, or marginalized, but have decided to not make waves.[/li][li]Plenty of people have mentioned something to their school administrators, or to specific classroom teachers. Not every complaint or discussion that happens in public schools make the news.[/li][/ul]

As I said upthread, I have talked to students who have felt like marginalized outsiders when their school explicitly decorates in and celebrates a holiday that comes from the majority’s religious tradition (or rather, feel even more like outsiders than they usually do).

These people exist in our communities. Why is it such a bad thing to consider these students and be “respectful and sensitive” to the diverse populations in the school?

Not to make this more political than it already is, but all of this “if someone is offended (OMG dirty word there) they shouldn’t be” just sounds like a lot of bullying locker room talk from folks who are used to getting to do things their own way.

What is it about questioning Christmas celebrations in public schools that turns people into dick-wagging tough-guys who piss on anyone who is gonna be a crybaby who won’t take one for the team?

I, for one, feel free to celebrate Christmas enough on my own, and at my work, and on the streets, and on the TV, and freaking everywhere, that if my neighbors are uncomfortable, or their kids feel like their beliefs are invisible and subverted by Christmas in the school, I’m truly eager to try to be aware of that when choosing how to deck the halls of PS44.

95

Hold on there. My intention wasn’t to call you a secular Christian. I said that celebrating Christmas in the US with the trappings of Santa, a Christmas tree, the angel on top, etc, is full of Christian symbolism and is culturally part of the fabric of our culture being predominantly Christian. If you incorporated a menorah into your atheist celebration you’d be using a Jewish tradition in a secular fashion. I’m a Jewish atheist, and enjoy some of the Jewish traditions even though I’m not religious.

In my opinion (yours may differ) but if you have a decorated tree in your house and images of Santa then you are using Christian symbols and iconography in a secular manner. I really didn’t think it was controversial, but perhaps I underestimated the issue.

I apologize if I offended you, but it wasn’t my intent. I’m afraid I just can’t see a Christmas celebration as anything but embedded in the dominant Christian culture. If you feel otherwise, I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree.

96

Dude. He’s right. At its most secular, Christmas is Christian in the same way that, say, latkes are Jewish. It may not be religious to eat latkes, and anyone can do it, but they come out of, and are trappings of a specific culture/religion. You’re not a secular Jew when you eat latkes, but you are enjoying a food that carries religious/cultural symbolism.

97

What about Halloween? That is just another fun holiday that is almost anti-Christian. Do you have the same problem with that that one? What about Thanksgiving?

My Jevovahs Witness officemate isn’t allowed to celebrate any of them and I respect his decision but I feel a little bit sorry for him at the same time. However, I did feel the need to point out that it is basically impossible not to celebrate Memorial Day or Labor Day if you have the day off work. I feel the same way about Jewish and Japanese people that have their own Christmas traditions. They are “celebrating it”, just in a different way.

There is nothing wrong with that. Almost everyone loves fried chicken and Chinese food. You can bring those too.

98

Lol!

What if I eat bagels or kosher dills? Latkes have a specific religious significance. They also, however, occur in the cuisine of many non-Jewish cultures, even ones that are heavily Christian (albeit under different names). Is a German eating reibekuchen or a Ukrainian eating deruny participating in Jewish culture?

I won’t agree to disagree because our positions are not symmetrical. I was careful to describe the situation as one in which there are two perspectives and to describe them both faithfully. Then you came along and said that your perspective is right and that things about my cultural practices are only clear to you as an outsider. I’m open to an outsider perspective on how influenced by Christianity the dominant culture is, but not when it comes from ignorance.

Christmas trees are a pagan tradition. They were renamed, but the tradition is the same and its origins are well known. There is nothing Christian about it. Some Christians tried to put a Christian gloss on it by putting an angel on top. I don’t. If it had been a Christian tradition, you might have a point that replacing the angel with something else wouldn’t make it no longer a Christian tradition, but by the same point, the fact that some people add an angel doesn’t make it one.

Santa Claus is an amalgam of Norse myths about Wotan, nonreligious Dutch folk traditions, secular American folk traditions, American advertising campaigns (not just the Sundbloom ads for Coca Cola, which only cemented the tall, fat, red and white clad version of Santa, but the entire Rudolph story was an ad campaign), and modern secular media–especially popular magazines and Hollywood movies. You have to dig pretty deep to find even a trace that was influenced in the slightest by Christianity, and that too is really just the name–somewhat obscurely at that.

The typical church has no Santa Claus display. The typical department store Santa wouldn’t dare whisper the name of Jesus while on duty. There is no order of worship that mentions egg nog or tinsel, and elves and reindeer do not spout religious homilies on television. They are separate.

The fact that to some people it’s all just stuff-the-goyim-do or stuff-the-Americans-do doesn’t make it even culturally religious any more than eating cheeseburgers is a secular Christian tradition. You as an outsider might think headscarves and turbans are Islamic, but that doesn’t mean a Romani woman or a Sikh man are engaging in Islamic practices, even if they live in majority Islamic countries. Not even if they choose the same styles their Muslim neighbors wear.

I acknowledge that to you as an outsider, the difference may not matter. That’s fine, and I respect your right not to be expected to participate in secular Christmas practices just because they are secular. I acknowledge that their being secular doesn’t make them neutral or universal. But I won’t let you tell me where my traditions come from or what they represent when you clearly have no fucking idea what you are talking about.

99

Before I’m corrected, I just remembered that the Romani in majority Muslim countries are likely to be Muslim themselves. I trust my point still stands.

100

The whole business just seem like a crass mess.