Sorry, the connection is a tad too slow today, went over the edit window. I’m from Spain, hence considering Santa as “that fat foreigner”.
This year the parish priest in some village down south has had some cloths with images of the Baby Jesus made, in a similar style as a Santa model that invaded the village last year. The people purchasing them kept talking about “it’s our tradition”, not about the religious side - the priest himself said he wasn’t trying to start any anti-paganism crusade, just provide an alternative to the santa stuff that seems to be the only thing you find in stores (you get Nativities, but things like lights don’t come in religious motifs).
Maybe you all call it something different, but here the “12 days of Christmas” is a reference to the actual Christmas season, which does last from Christmas day until Epiphany. After Epiphany, the calendar goes back to Ordinary Time.
Now, traditionally, as Anne Neville and Northern Piper have pointed out, Advent is a penitential season, and Christmas (the 12 days) is a celebratory/joyful season. But I still maintain that Advent is not as solemn as Lent, and it’s not typical that people would find it inappropriate for someone to refer to the whole thing as a “joyful” season (although putting the “Christmas Season” BEFORE Christmas is certainly a secular/cultural thing, NOT a relgious thing).
That is interesting, especially in light of the fact that a lot of churches seem to do a lot of decorating for Advent!
Maybe that term used “joyous anticipation” is the difference…I don’t think anyone would describe Lent that way. The only joyous anticipation you really get at that time is at the Easter Vigil mass, when you are waiting for the Resurrection to be celebrated.
Then Nochebuena (Good Night), Christmas’ Eve. Christmas Day is Navidad. Boxing day is celebrated in some places due to being a “segundo día de Pascua”, second day of Pascua (Pascua includes Christmas Day, Easter Sunday and Pentecostes). The traditional days for gift giving vary by region, being either Christmas Day (gifts being brought by the Baby Jesus, the Shepherds or a coalmaker called Olentzero) or the Epiphany (gifts brought by the Kings).
Us secular folks refer to the whole season as “las navidades” (plural and small n), but it doesn’t refer to specific days. There are celebratory parts of the season which traditionally started around St Lucy’s (december 13th) but which have now mostly moved earlier, due to the “bridge weekend” we get for the december 6th and 8th holidays (it’s when people decorate their houses and put up the nativity).
The sundays which fall in what you’ve called the 12 days are Domingos de Navidad, again singular and capital N. But every time that the Epiphany falls on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday (turning the following Sunday into part of “las navidades”) I hear people leaving church surprised that we’re back into “tiempo ordinario.” There is probably some term equivalent to this “12 days of Christmas” but I just asked Mom and she’s never used anything but “las navidades” (daily Mass, teacher and whatnot, she’s more of a theologian than some of the parish priests we’ve been cursed with).
That’s about the same as it is here…of course, the Liturgical Calendar is the same everywhere, just with some days celebrated differently based on cultural tradition. But generally speaking, for short the whole thing is just called the “Christmas Season,” and I would say that traditionally it starts here in the US the day after Thanksgiving (late November) and lasts until New Year’s Eve. I say traditionally because the stores start putting Christmas stuff up in September these days, but that’s another story!
I see all the varying statements about what is which day of what, and I’m thinking to myself, “Wow, traditions vary from place to place. Clearly if there was ever one rule for which days are what, it’s long gone now.”
About two hours ago, when I went to lunch, in the window of the cafe where I got a sandwich. Big Christmas tree there, too. They had to remove a couple tables to make room for it. To get to the cafe, I had to walk through the lobby of my office, which also had a big Christmas tree, and the windows were covered with Christmas-themed window paintings.
Of course, I live in the San Francisco Bay area, which is a well known hotbed of covervative Christianity. Maybe it’s different in the more liberal parts of the country, like Virginia.
People in my neighborhood decorate heavily–there’s even a special night when streets are closed so people can stroll about, appreciate the lights & listen to carols. (Or rock & roll bands, bell ringers or balaika groups.)
Some former neighbors came from Louisiana. They had a statue of Our Lady in the front garden all year long. Their Christmas decorations varied from a nativity set through Santa Alligators to a big honking peace sign. But they kept the decorations up until Epiphany. At which time they hung the Mardi Gras flag.
Well, of course it isn’t. I’m speaking in generalities. In Catholic neighborhoods, you see different things than in other neighborhoods, and different ethnic groups have different traditions. I was just trying to differentiate the cultural celebration of “Christmastime” from the religious observances that are traditional during the Advent season and the Christmas season.
You’re absolutely right. The story only said that the group was offering holiday greetings before they flipped out on the Jewish people for wishing them a Happy Hannukah. I only presumed that a group of people who express holiday greetings and then flip out and attack another group for expressing different holiday greetings would probably be Christians. I certainly could be very wrong… oh wait, what’s this?
So, they may not have been Christian. The article is still not specific. It only says that they were yelling Merry Christmas before they started assaulting the Jews and the Muslim guy who came to the Jews defense. One of them had a tattoo of Jesus Christ, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that he was a Christian.
Okay, enough sarcasm. I think it is generally safe to assume that in America, if someone is flipping out because their holiday greeting wasn’t entirely exactly agreed with, that person is probably a Christian (see, e.g., Bill O’Reilly and the War on Christmas).
One nice thing is that they demonstrated that a Muslim man may in fact sacrifice himself to aide Jews.
I don’t accept the OP’s premise. there is no campaign to make Christmas “inclusive.” There is some effort by commercial retailers not to exclude non-practitioners from feeling welcome at their businesses, but the intent is to include them in the stores, not in Christmas.
I don’t get why Christian religionists have gotten the idea lately that they are somehow entitled to have their specific religion pandered to by private businesses exercising their own freedom of expression. There is certainly no public pressure on the businesses NOT to use the word Christmas (and most of them still do anyway, despite what Fox News tells you). Some businesses have tried to be more general because they want to sell more stuff. The only pressure they get is from Christian groups who believe they have the right to bully and browbeat other private citizens and businesss into saying the word “Christ.”
If the OP question is regarding the government’s observance of the holiday, then it’s clear the answer is that the government must not play favorites with religion.
If the question is about why stores tell employees to wish customers “happy holidays,” then the answer is that a store doesn’t make money by making 20% of their customers feel unwelcome.
This is what I’ve been saying in regards to the actual question being “Why does Christmas have to be inclusive?” In other words, why does everyone have to be included in Christmas by doing things such as stamping out “Happy Holidays” in favor of “Merry Christmas” or stamping out people who offer a “Happy Hannukah” on the subway?
