I think they never celebrated it rather than newly refuse to.
Some Christians don’t celebrate Christmas or Easter either. Doesn’t mean they’re not Christian holidays though.
i’m confused. nobody is removing santa and twinkly lights. where are you getting this from?
I live in a heavily Jewish area, so my house is one of the few with Christmas lights usually. Neighbors that I’m good friends with are mixed: she’s Jewish & he’s Christian, so they have a big secularish Christmas / winter display up along with a tree and menorahs and dreidels inside. Maybe three or four other neighbors within thirty houses of mine have Christmas decorations.
Guy across the street should be putting up his massive outdoor menorah soon though. I always enjoy seeing that and following along with Hanukkah. It’s a fun holiday, even though I’m not Jewish.
This is about as made up of a controversy as the “War On Christmas” was. Participating in stupid discussions like this is the reason nobody gets along.
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For some people arguing about stupid non important discussions is actually fun and builds camaraderie. Our Thanksgiving mealtime was basically a giant argument about a whole bunch of stupid things and it was a great Thanksgiving. It’s fun. But if it’s not for you, then stop clicking on the thread?
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my sister and I argued about Candace Cameron. It was annoying and built hatred.
It’s not a “holiday celebrated by one person”, it’s a name one person gave to a holiday celebrated by most of the world.
I’m not trying to claim that there isn’t a Christian holiday called Christmas. I’m claiming that it sits on the same day, and usually shares a name, with a secular holiday. And i offered a (joke) alternative name for the secular holiday.
What i also claim is that “shopping” is older than Christmas, and that it currently has more people who celebrate it than Christmas-religious_version has. But i completely understand that there’s a real Christian holiday being celebrated on December 25th, and that many of the people in America who celebrate Shopping also celebrate Christmas-religious_version.
But the Japanese? Yeah, they call it “Christmas”, but they aren’t celebrating the birth of Christ their Lord. They are celebrating a midwinter gift-giving festival.
a few years back I tried to “keep Christ in Christmas” by taking everything else out. I suggested to the family, “Hey, let’s put all snowmen, presents, tree, merry-making, and all that stuff on New Year’s day! I’ll give and receive gifts on NYD, why don’t you join me? Then we can keep Christmas for Christ.”
Holy hell, you would have though I was suggesting to a horde of Taylor Swift fans that she’s only ever had one good single! Complete revolution, everyone mostly hated me for two weeks for even suggesting the thing, I couldn’t manage to stick to my conviction, and now it’s basically just an afterthought in the memories.
Essentially, what I’m saying is, most people are massive 
who don’t think for themselves, so challenging their traditions is gonna get you in pretty hot water.
it makes someone a sheep for finding tradition fun? the lights of christmas and christmas season is basically over by new years, so if you’re making your own tradition it won’t be as much fun for those who enjoy the season when everyone is celebrating it.
christmas isn’t my tradition, but i could see how it’s fun for those for whom it is.
at some point, my former company tried having the holiday party in January or something to save money. most people thought that was lame and stupid. holiday season was over. like, happy presidents day?
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I’d argue that if the christian christmas is different from the pagan holiday before it, then the secular shopping holiday after it must be different too.
There is nothing sacred about a secularized christmas, by definition. this is not true of whatever pagan holiday christmas may have replaced.
by emptying the natural world of its magic and autonomy, christianity arguably made room for the consumeristic and exploitive version of the holiday so many of us celebrate.
this is similarly true of the more valuable, secular humanistic version of “goodwill to all mankind.”
Enjoying traditions <> not thinking for myself.
Removing all fun to make it solely about Christ is just going to make kids hate the religious aspect of it since it is taking away the fun part of it.
Better is to keep the fun, but weave in lessons into the fun parts if you want - star on tree, why we give gifts, etc. Also going out and volunteering to help uplift poor people, giving gifts to those less fortunate, bringing joy into the world, those things are much better than having a boring day while everyone else gets to celebrate.
Secular - Non-religious
Non-Secular - Non Non-religious
So, if you celebrate Christmas but you’re anti non-secular Christmas celebrations, it means you have a non-non-non-religious celebration.
Hope this clears up the definition of Secular
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That’s fair. And I am not trying to argue that modern-day people are celebrating the Roman Saturnalia or anything. What I really mean to say is that people in the northern hemisphere have been celebrating the midwinter solstice with parties and lights and rich foods and gifts in pretty much every culture and pretty much every time frame. And they still are. Currently, we use the word “Christmas” for that celebration, and many Christians have layered a real religious holiday onto that universal celebration. But there’s a much older and much more universal celebration going on, and lots of people, including, for instance, the non-Christian nation of Japan, are celebrating “Christmas” without any Christian component to their celebration.
So,
is “Christmas” a Christian religious holiday? Yes.
is “Christmas” a secular holiday without any Christian component? Yes.
is “Christmas” both a secular and a Christian holiday? Yes.
It all depends on who is celebrating, and how they are celebrating. The name is just confusing, since all of those are going on at the same time.
Curious what you meant by this. Particularly what you meant by “magic” and by “autonomy”, and how Christianity removed them from the world.
Especially when it simply replaced the old “magic” with new “magic.”
I think we need a nun to rule on whether this is a non-non-non-religious celebration.
disagree
thanks for your extremely insightful response
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I just did some reading on Diwali. It seems to be about the same thing. Originally some sort of religious celebration, now it’s celebrated by a variety of religions and non religious folks. Seems to be a celebration of good over evil and a few other good things.
I’m thinking I might do a diwali party here next year for some of the students I hang with.