Isn't it About Time We... End the Happy Holidays War

Who else is getting really tired of the awkwardness of the whole "Merry Christmas" vs "Happy Holidays" thing?  It's not just me, right?  I think I reached my limit a few days ago just trying to check out at the grocery store.  The clerk, simply trying to be friendly and customer-service oriented, said "Merry Christmas." Instead of engendering good will, the greeting triggered an instinctive "F. U. and your smug, we're-the-only-ones-that-matter Christian egoism." Of course, I squelched the rebel-without-a-Clause attitude, smiled, and answered with "Happy Holidays."

But that's just silly, isn't it?  And the real stupidity is that I actually love Christmas.  I think it's high time we got over the religious aspects of the season and claim it for what it is: the dominant celebration of our society -- a cross-cultural, many faceted festival of peace, good will, family, and giving. From a sociological perspective, it's time to rescue Christmas from the religious detritus and separate out the non-religious aspects the same way we've separated law and order from the Ten Commandments.

O Come, all Ye Faithless (and Other-Faithful)

One of my family's favorite Christmas stories involves some Jewish friends from my father's childhood who put up a Christmas tree. They may have actually called it a Hanukkah Bush, but I may have that confused with another story.  Anyways, when someone asked them why they had one, the father of the family replied "Why let the Christians have all the fun?"

Regardless of your own religious beliefs (or lack thereof), you can't deny the fact of Christmas as an integral and forceful presence in US culture (and indeed in cultures across the globe). A recent Pew study indicated over 90% of Americans celebrate Christmas. You can fight it, but you won't win. There's just so much going for the holiday: fun, cheer, cultural saturation, and the financial backing of the whole of corporate America (and Britain, and Germany, and...) Christmas possesses so much sheer momentum that it rolls right over whatever other holiday is in it's way. I say, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

That's not to say that we should all lay down our individual beliefs and just give in. You don't have to let it steamroll over Hanukah or force yourself to recite stories of a virgin birth you believe to be an outdated myth. That same Pew study indicated that only around half of Americans celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday.  So it's time we accept reality.  I'm suggesting is that we accept Christmas for the social festival it has evolved into, without any of us on an individual level feeling compelled to bring in the religious implications tied to its name.  After all, what's in a name?

Keep Christ out of Christmas

Okay, so that's an intentionally inflammatory way to get your attention and make this point: Christmas should be celebrated in the public domain as a secular event.  At some level the whole issue is one of semantics.  The historical reality is that most of the stuff we do at Christmas, including the date itself, has very little to do with Christianity.  The present reality is, like it or not, Christmas is the dominant cultural festival celebrated in a culture that has become too diverse to maintain religious ties to its celebrations. To say it plainly, the etymology of the word no longer holds any relationship to the reality it expresses.

This shouldn't surprise us.  Most of our holidays share this awkward relationship between their cultural manifestations and the often accidental etymology of the words we use to describe them.  What started as perhaps the most flagrant violations of the separation of church and state (started, ironically, by the greatest icon of American civil rights) has become arguably the least purely religious feast celebrated in the U.S. Everyone can pretty much agree to be "thankful" once a year without agreeing who (if anyone) we're thankful too.  Yet the very word "Thanksgiving" is a direct translation of the central rite of most Christian denominations -- "The Great Thanksgiving", more commonly appearing in the Greek-derived form "Eucharist", both of which have now been supplanted by the other term for the same celebration, namely Communion.

And what about Halloween?  Originally a term related to the honoring of Christian saints, the festival it refers to has evolved into an all-out celebration of everything occult and scary.  It's almost funny how followers of the religion originally responsible for the name and tied to its etymology now often reject that name entirely.  They are currently on an exploration of discovery for a term that they can agree on without sounding silly.  I don't think "Fall Festival" or "Harvest Celebration" are going to be the final destination on that journey.

Then there's the total reversal of unfortunate etymology.  The most important festival in the Christian calendar (albeit less popular than Christmas) never shook a name most likely tied to a Pagan goddess. Yet I've never met a Christian who was offended when someone used the archaic term to wish them "Happy Easter!"  So why do us non-Christians get so annoyed when they wish us "Merry Christmas"?

The point I want to make is that both sides of the war need to lighten up a little.  No one can tell Christians not to celebrate the holiday with all of the piety and reverence their faith can muster, any more than anyone would dare impede the religious experience of Hanukah celebrators.  But you can stop pushing on us your particular interpretation of the festival. From the point of view of a large and diverse world, Christmas isn't tied to Jesus any more than Easter has anything to do with Eostre.  Please don't keep expecting us to put nativities in our public places, and in return no one will ask you to burn effigies to Winter.  Cool?  Let's not spoil or miss the opportunities to come together and celebrate common values by quibbling over semantics. 

The Season is the Reason for the Season

So if we take Christ out of Christmas, what's left?

Almost everything.

Christians (including myself when I was one) feel and act as if the secular media and commercialization have been attempting to rob Christmas of its religious significance.  Yet a casual googling of the origins of almost every symbol we use to celebrate "the season", down to the date on which we choose to celebrate it, show the reverse to be true.  Christians didn't invent Christmas.  Like so many other rites, the church took existing symbols and practices, appropriated them for herself, and renamed an already-existing celebration to suit her needs.  That's not a bad thing, and the church should be congratulated in her effectiveness rather than scolded for her attempts. It does, however, remind us that while Jesus is the reason for why Christians celebrate "the season", you don't have to go to his place to have a great Christmas party.

Christmas give us as an entire culture something to share. It represents (and has since it's pre-Christian days) the turning of the year.  We've roped into it some extremely beneficial things to celebrate:  good will, peace, hope, love, family.  It's the block party of western civilization.  It rolls up the most iconic symbols and highest values of a host of cultures spanning millennia.  It needs a word, a big word, not just a descriptive phrase. Regardless of the etymology of the word itself, Christmas is undeniably the most recognized and nostalgic word our culture possesses for "the season".

IMHO, those of us excluded from the Jesus club need to grow up a little. Yeah, there's still a LONG way to go until our state and federal governments reach a point of true separation, but a) there are bigger battles to fight and b) we're in a growing minority and enjoying more tolerance and less persecution every day. It's time to move past where this particular word came from and accept the honest good will and peace with which the greeting is spoken.  And join in the fun, for christ's sake.

Merry Christmas, everyone.