Fleas gnawed my dog…
No but if hundreds of millions do it for decades, it does.
All you’ll wouldn’t be having this argument if you lived in the PNW, or you’d know that “Christmas in the Northwest” is the absolute worst holiday atrocity ever committed to song.
It’s like saying that if I (an American) decide to do Dia de Los Muertos celebrations, that it somehow ceases to be a syncretic Mexican-Catholic celebration.
And what if Christians decide to use Pagan traditions around December 25th? Does the pagan celebration cease to be pagan? Are the Christans now celebrating pagan gods?
Every time a Christian eats a Christmas log, puts up holly or listletoe, sing Deck the Halls they are celbrating a pagan Christmas. And tinsel, Christmas trees and eggnog were never mentioned in the bible, so who is celbrating what there?
Huh. I made myself a roast pork for Christmas this year (first time in a long time I had to “celebrate” alone, but COVID). So I was actually honoring Freyr? Cool!
Who made that claim?
My point was that whoever first mentioned the song said that the “Did you Know” song was the worst sort of Christian glurge, with an implication that as such, it didn’t have a place as a holiday song.
Which I said was absurd- Christmas is a Christian holiday, so explicitly Christian songs kind of automatically have a place, no matter how glurgey.
To which I was told that it’s not actually a Christian holiday anymore, because there are a lot of non-Christian celebrants.
That’s where my most recent answer came from- basically saying that even if people who aren’t of that culture or belief celebrate something, it doesn’t somehow negate its original nature, especially if there are a LOT of Christians around celebrating it. If say… Diwali somehow became a big thing in the US and a lot of non-Hindu Americans started celebrating it, it wouldn’t somehow cease to be a Hindu holiday, or be any less important to them. And Hindu religious aspects of it wouldn’t cease to be appropriate, just because non-Hindus celebrate it because it’s fun.
Madonna’s version of Santa Baby. She sounds both illiterate and stupid.
“Sounds”?
For years I got Kenny Rogers and Kenny Loggins confused. Still do, because I saw the song was by Kenny Rogers, got confused and thought it was by Kenny Loggins, and almost linked to the funniest fucking Christmas story of all time. Phew, close call, that!
Need I say more?
What are the origins of Diwali? Is it a Hindi festival that was kind of pasted over older celebrations, or was it created out of whole cloth?
I think the reason that a lot of people want to sort of claim Christmas as a non-Christian holiday is that the birthday of Jesus was pasted over a lot of older “rebirth of the light” (which is what Chanukah is as well, but nevermind that for now) festivals. Sol Invictus was a big one, and there were a number of pagan festivals across Europe, that gave us evergreens indoors, yule logs, and spiced wine.
People who want to celebrate a secular day of the rebirth of the light, or whatever, probably need a new name, something besides “Christmas.”
I was once asked by some pagan friends to a Solstice gathering on December 21. It had a lot of the same trappings as Christmas-- there was a decorated tree, evergreens, including holly & ivy indoors, mulled wine, lots of food, some of it similar to Christmas-type stuff, but some things not (they were vegetarian, and the food was eclectic). There was a fire going in the fireplace, and scented candles lit. Also, incense burning. I don’t know how it seemed to people used to celebrating Christmas, but it seemed outwardly Christmassy to me.
They had some very brief ritual I’d never seen before that had absolutely nothing to do with Jesus, nor any purportedly historical person. No one wore any vestments. No one did anything remotely odd-- the only thing that stands out is that they made sure all the pets in the house were in the room before they started, and said something about “gathering all the energy.” Other than that, they lit some special candle, and said something about the cardinal directions, and it just took a couple of minutes.
Then we played charades and board games, and some people drank a lot. I didn’t, because the choices were the spiced wine, and beer. As a result, I won two games of Monopoly, and three of Clue.
It was a good night.
I think I got a taste of how non-religious, and other-than-Jewish-or-Christian people feel at Christmas. I felt perfectly welcome and comfortable.
There is something very specifically alienating about being Jewish at Christmas that I doubt Hindi, Buddhist, or Muslim people experience. Christians have aimed a special venom at Jews for centuries, and to turn around and say “Welcome to Christmas” is very odd to say the least, and leaves you with a bad feeling in the pit of your stomach, like “this must be a trick.” To say “learn about us, and we’ll learn about you,” is almost an insult.
You cannot victimize someone for centuries, then turn around and say “Let’s be friends now,” without even an apology. And even with one, you have to understand why there is skepticism.
ETA: It’s just now dawned on me how far this thread has strayed from the OP. I will not post here on this subject again. If anyone wants to discuss it more, PM me, or start a thread on this subject. I do not want to start one myself, though.
For what it’s worth, the majority of Africa is in the Northern Hemisphere and Ethiopia, the country that the whole Band Aid thing was for, is very much in the Northern Hemisphere.
Now I know you making things up - no way you can get two games of Monopoly done in one night, much less add on three games of Clue (although playing Clue with drunk people would probably be very easy, so that part checks out).
Happy holiday(s). 
Monopoly only takes 45-75 minutes to play if you follow the rules exactly. When people use a lot of “house rules,” like giving $500, or all the taxes collected, to anyone who lands on Free Parking, or skipping the auctions, it takes forever, and is boring as shit, but play exactly by the rules in the book, and it’s a pretty intense game-- and I play it tough.
Clue takes about 25 minutes. It depends on how many people are playing, but optimum is 4 to 5. With that number, it goes quickly.
Besides, you don’t know how long we were there. It happens to have been an evening that started early and finished late. It was the freaking SOLSTICE, the longest night of the year. I didn’t even stay the whole night, but some people did-- sundown to sunup. Some people spent part of it crashed out in sleeping bags, but some people literally were up all night, and there was some kind of ceremony at dawn I wasn’t there for.
Or my personal favorite…
Not to mention, Africa is a large continent and there is freakishly rare to regular snowfall in different regions and altitudes depending on the season and weather conditions. There are also various ski resorts across Africa and the equatorial mountains.
I was 8 or 9 when the song came out and thought nothing of it then, but at some point in my adulthood I listened to it and came to the conclusion that it was really, really condescending. I don’t mind hearing it, it’s a piece of my childhood after all, but when I miss it during the Christmas season I don’t exactly miss it. I didn’t hear it or “We Are the World” this year. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I heard “We Are the World.”
Yep, that sounds about right. As young teens, we would play a lot of 3- and 4-player Monopoly and about one hour was average for a game. But, yes, follow the actual rules (which few people do.)
You forgot off-key. See my post way above.