I don’t know if there’s a debate here, I’m just curious. What if people just stopped all the rituals associated with Christmas? Yes, I’m aware that Christmas borrowed a lot of rituals, and I’m aware that you don’t have to be a specific religion to celebrate and practice them… Let’s just say the whole consept is done with and New Years is the biggest holiday after Thanksgiving.
I understand that Chrismas Tree sellers would be out of business, but there’s more to it than that. If you live in a place where there’s shitty weather that time of year, I would expect it’s impact would be catastrophic. Very few people where I live wouldn’t be out-and-about unless they had an excuse to be.
I guess I’m wondering what the total outcome would be.
I figure the world’s businesses would adapt quite easily.
Gadgetmakers would shift their release dates to June to hook in to Father’s Day and graduation celebrations.
Restaurants would heavily promote New Year’s as a time for large gatherings of family and friends.
Likewise, clothing manufacturers would advertise “New Looks for New Year’s” to capture December sales.
Car manufacturers would probably still sell the most cars in December by offering “Buy Now, Pay Later With Your Tax Return” promotions.
Blockbuster films would still be targeted to December for Oscar prestige.
And Finally, as someone who lives in the land of shitty weather, it really doesn’t get bad until January. No one in the northern states is hiding in their house in December because it’s a little chilly.
The party starts with Christmas and ends with New Year, even if all religious meaning was removed the party will continue. In a world where the physical distance between families is growing Christmas is the time of year for touching base
On a religious note for Christians like myself it is a time to celebrate the birth of Christ and for Muslims to celebrate the birth of one of their prophets.
As for the party shifting to fathers day that would mean the festivities moving even nearer to the time of Christ’s birth But that is a debate for another day
Look at it this way - SUPPOSE your local McDonald’s closed down. Would you fret, “Oh no, all the money people used to spend there is no out of circulation, and the like local economy will collapse”?
Of course not! People aren’t going to take the cash they used to spend on Happy Meals and burn it! They’ll spend the money elsewhere, that’s all.
If there were no big holiday that obliged me to spend big bucks on presents, I’d have more money to spend on my own wants. Bad for toy makers, but good for other businesses.
Capitalists want to extract as much wealth from the population as possible, but I’m not sure if they could invent another holiday with as much peer pressure and emotional blackmail as Christmas. Valentine’s was pretty good though, so I’ll give them a puncher’s chance.
Christmas is just the Winter Solstice a few days late, which people have been celebrating since the dawn of time. So I think we’d still be celebrating at this time of year.
BTW I believe that not so long ago it was Easter (the spring equinox) that was the major Christian festival.