Yes, Saint Nicholas really is 100% secu–
Oh wait.
I think you may have missed the point of his gripe.
I don’t think I did. He’s the one who spent half his gripe implying that holiday trees signified a religion that he did not adhere to. I didn’t have a comment on the other part of his gripe.
Who said anything about Saint Nicholas? Did Saint Nicholas live at the North Pole, operate a toy factory, and stable a herd of flying reindeer? Our modern conception of Santa Claus – though it might have some of its origins in Saint Nicholas – has pretty much zero religious content.
Two workplace gripes today:
Coworker: Yes, I am taking all calls for our team. However, it is clearly noted in our agreement that certain calls should be routed back to assigned worker. When I IM you, informing you that a financial worker (on the list) returned your call with a “WTF does she want?”, it’s your responsibility to call said FW back, not mine. I do not need you to go on for 20 minutes, explaining what you wanted from the FW and thanking me for returning the call. I’m not going to return the call - you are.
Client: I get that you missed my return call. I did leave you a pretty detailed response to your questions. To call back less than a minute after I hung up from your voicemail? You obviously didn’t listen to it, because I know I spoke for a few minutes. I’m already on to the next call. Listen to your voicemail then call me back. Quit this continued call/hang up / call / hang up / call / hang up that you have done nine times now. Voicemail says calls will be returned in the order they are received. Bullying your way through does nothing to speed up a return call. What it does do, though, is cut out any call I am currently on. Everytime the phone rings, it beeps and covers the conversation, so calls end up taking longer due to my asking people to repeat themselves. Dude, I will call you back. I promise.
The point is that **DrDeth **can’t have it both ways. He’s saying that Christmas trees aren’t really religious because they were originally pagan. Even though they’re now strongly correlated with the Christian holiday. So, accordingly, Sata Claus must then be judged by his origin in Saint Nicholas, even though he’s now often seen as a secular symbol (again, though, of Christmas–which often isn’t celebrated *even in a secular manner *by people who follow other religions).
So due to the aforementioned traveling and whatnot, I found out today that I am now going to miss 7 holiday days I would normally have gotten.
I don’t get the Friday after Thanksgiving, the Thursday before Christmas, or any of that next week I had off (we were given the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday after Christmas off as “staff appreciation days,” and combined with the Thursday and Friday we already had off for New Year’s made over a week of holiday break.)
So now all I get (other than weekends,) is just Thanksgiving, the Friday before Christmas, and New Year’s Eve.
The day after Thanksgiving, and the Thursdays before Christmas and New Year’s I will get paid as “holiday time,” and I will (eventually…in theory) still get those days off at a later date, so it’s not a total loss for those, but the three extra “staff appreciation days” aren’t anything special, really. So I don’t get any extra pay since it’s not a real holiday, and I technically will get extra days off, but I found out the window to use them is so small that in all likelihood I won’t get to use them.
This is lame in that I have a good job with a good company, but damn. My group, about 100 people, has moved to a “collaborative work space”. So far “collaborative” seems to mean “chaotic”, and “work space” is just NOT.
The space looks like a call center, only with unassigned workstations. It’s basically concert seating: if you don’t get there early, you’ll be left with a crappy station. Worse, there aren’t enough seats for everyone, so if most folks are in the office on a given day, you might not get a seat at all.
Mostly though, it’s just stupid and inconvenient. We have lockers (1’ cube) for our personal stuff; these are located way across the building from the work spaces, so if you want your lip balm or aspirin off you go. Since we’re all sitting out in the open, nose picking and underwear adjusting require a trip to the bathroom. The parking lot is the size of Disneyland’s and still there aren’t enough spaces. The cafeteria sucks (imagine that). We have rats and mice and god only knows what else sharing the building; it’s in the middle of an open field and the mousies just love the food (leftover Halloween candy and people’s lunches) and hiding places (leftover Halloween candy jars and people’s lunch bags). So far I’ve lost a mouse (computer-type) and found a mouse (real) while wandering the building like a Shaolin monk in search of the conference room for my next meeting. Also misplaced: a power cord and my water bottle.
All of this AND I’m limited in my Dope reading. Wah! I want my cube back, dammit.
I said nothing of the sort “Christmas trees aren’t really religious because they were originally pagan”. Nor is the holiday a Christian holiday, it’s secular. Matter of fact, I personally know no one whether they are- Neopagan, Jewish, Sikh, Hindu, Buddist, Atheist or Agnostic- that doesn’t celebrate Christmas. Now sure, my Pagan friends will say “Solstice or Yule” if pressed, but they still participate in presents, a tree, parties, and will accept a Christmas card- in fact, they mail out Christmas cards, but they do pick those out which say “Yule” or “Seasons Greetings”. Nor do they have any objection to being wished “Merry Christmas”. My Jewish friends do emphasise Hanukah over Christmas, but again, they have no objections to Christmas (they attend the parties, they have a tree, lights, they exchange presents). In fact, they are the ones that claim that since “Christmas” is a time of Frosty, Rudolph, Santa, etc, it has become secularized. They say “We celebrate Christmas just like we celebrate the 4th of July, it’s an American secular holiday”.
Okay, I’m not sure myself what Dr.Deth’s gripe is now. I think there are trees involved in it somewhere.
Um. Let’s roll the tape:
Christmas is a Christian holiday that is also celebrated in a non-religious or semi-religious manner by many people. That doesn’t mean it’s not a Christian holiday or that you can force people to engage in Christmas celebrations by insisting that it’s not really a Christian holiday.
Uh huh. So your proof that they celebrate Christmas is that they say they celebrate Solstice or Yule and don’t mail out Christmas cards. 
What does that have to do with anything?
DrDeth, I weep for your Jewish friends who celebrate Christmas.
Yes, half my gripe was about a company event to decorate a tree, where I do not have any observance involving trees until January.
Yes, acsenray, I consider a decorated evergreen tree to be a Christmas symbol. I am not familiar with any other holiday that uses such a symbol. I would no more celebrate (or denigrate someone else’s observance of) Christmas than I would Diwali. And for the same reason – it isn’t my holiday. BTW, a belated happy Diwali to you. 
Yes, those were my words. But "Correct, in fact the tree was originally a pagan symbol. " does not mean "“Christmas trees aren’t really religious because they were originally pagan”. I was saying the the original symbolism was pagan- do you deny this?
Then we have a period. “Frosty, Santa, Trees, Rudolph, etc are all purely secular.” There was no “thereby” between the two sentences. You have a bad habit of putting words in other peoples mouth.
Christmas was, at one time, a *minor *Christian holiday. It is now the biggest holiday of the year and is now secular. Yes, it retains the name Christmas, but it’s also called “Yule”= a pagan name. In fact, it’s growth as a Holiday is tied to its secular celebration. Even tho it retains some Christian trappings, the bulk of the trappings are secular or even pagan in background. In fact, more of the trappings were pagan at one time than are Christian. However, most are recent and secular.
Why? Should they also not celebrate the 4th of July? How about Thanksgiving? Memorial Day?
Note that both Thanksgiving and Memorial day have a Christian religous background.
They do mail out Christams cards, just that they pick out the more secular ones. They do celebrate Christmas- the secular holiday.
I’m surprised that no one else has suggested there’s a really easy way to combine these two traditions. 
Yes, we know you are. Always.
What does what have to do with what?
Confused again?
A Christmas symbol isn’t necessarily a Christian symbol, from my point of view anyway.
Now you make me chuckle. Being Bengali, I don’t celebrate Diwali. Bengalis ditch Diwali, Ganesh Chaturthi, and Holi and instead make bigger deals of Durga Puja, Kali Puja, Lakhi Puja, and Saraswait Puja. (And I just noticed that the first three are associated with male deities and other ones are all female deities. Hm.)
4th of July is specifically an American holiday, that of the country’s independence.
Thanksgiving and Memorial Day are purely American holidays, as used in this context. The religious precursors to those observances does not change that.
Christmas, however, is by definition a Christian holiday. That makes all the difference.
And from my POV, a Christmas symbol is a symbol of a holiday of a different religion.
That being the case, I wish you a belated happy Kali Puja.