jenk

From the 3rd-season Buffy episode Amends:

Xander:	So, you doing anything special?
Buffy:	Tree. Nog. Roast beast. Just me and Mom and hopefully an excess of gifts. What are you doing for Christmas?
Willow:	Being Jewish. Remember, people? Not everybody worships Santa.
Buffy:	(smiles) I just meant for vacation.
Willow:	Mm. Nothing fun.

What I like about this the honesty. Christmas is a vacation. Tree. Nog. Roast beast. Gifts. If anyone or anything is worshipped, it's Santa.

Which can make it hard for those who have actual, you know, religions that do not include tree, nog, roast beast, and gifts. It emphasizes the difference from the majority.

Growing up, the family that did not hand out candy on Halloween were "weirdos". They were also Jehovah's Witnesses. (Of course, now that the fundies are deciding Halloween is bad, maybe the JW's will have company.)

With Christmas, some who observe the holiday consider themselves Christians. Some might actually try to convert you or I, given the chance; others have proselyphobia. But there are also a lot of people for whom it's family tradition, or fun, or a folk tale (though they probably wouldn't call it that). I have uncles who can go from singing carols to bitching about how Jesus is a fairy tale and the preachers should get the hell of out Christmas in 2 seconds flat. Do they call themselves Christian? No. But they celebrate Christmas.

Of course, Jehovah's Witnesses don't celebrate Christmas. Neither did the Puritans. Actually, most protestants tossed it out during the Reformation ... so of course the Roman Catholics increased their celebrations.

Back in 1970, a novel recounted two flight attendants attempting to flee Christmas by hopping a flight to the officially Atheist Soviet Union. They were greeted with tinsel, garland, and trees. "Merry Christmas!" Now Christmas - and other Hallmark holidays - are catching on in China, too. The Manila Standard runs articles comparing the Laughing Buddha and Santa. ("Who looks fat, has a big tummy, wears a red cloak, carries a big sack, is surrounded by children, is loved by one and all and is always laughing heartily? "Santa Claus!" say those from the West. "Laughing Buddha" say the Chinese.")

And for those who aren't celebrating, especially those who are tired of correcting the majority presumption of "well you may not be RELIGIOUS but everyone celebrates Christmas", there probably isn't any difference.

Maybe I'm jaded. Maybe I spent too many years as a "show me where the Bible has Christmas trees, it doesn't, so why do we say the Puritans were wrong?" fundie. Or maybe I've had too many lectures about how Christmas resulted from early Christianity's using the "embrace and extend" strategy to various pagan celebrations. To me, there's nothing religious or Christian about tree, nog, or roast beast. Yet to those who view those things as trappings of Christianity, they are ... and who is to say whose view is correct?

(Now, the Eucharist, Baptism, and prayer, those are religious, yes. And I'm glad they aren't being celebrated hourly in Bellevue Square.)

From a "Talking Points" article on "the war on xmas":

The nation is rapidly becoming more religiously diverse. The percentage of the population that describes itself as Christian has declined to 77 percent in 2000, from 86 percent in 1990. The biggest increase has been in people who do not identify themselves with any religion, a group that has more than doubled since 1990.

America is still very much a country of Christians, these numbers show. But nearly a quarter of the country, representing as many as 70 million people, is not Christian. It stands to reason that stores and politicians would try to take into account the inclinations of such a large part of the population. - NYTimes

A nice thing about the "Talking Points" article is that they link to related information - in this case, CUNY summary of religous identification of the US population comparing numbers from 1990 with 2001. The number of Muslims, Buddhists, Native Americans, Baha'I, and Sikh in the US more than doubled over that time span. The number of Hindus & "New Age"ers have tripled. Wiccans have gone from 8,000 to over 100,000. 2001 had some new categories that 1990 didn't, like Santeria, Druid, Pagan, and Spiritualist.