AH Challenge: Christmas ONLY celevrated by Christians.

Okay, long story short I was at school when a friend of mine walked up to me and wished me a Merry Christmas. I appretiated this, but I remembered that he was an Atheist and asked if he celebrated Christmas. He commented that "Everyone celebrates Christmas". I have come to realize that this is true. Despite the deparation of Church and State, Christmas is seen as a Universal holiday instead of just a Christian one. ((IE: Christmas Television Special, Mall Santas, Christmas Break etc)).

So how can Christmas be celebrated ONLY by Christians, similar to how Chanakuh is celebreated ONLY by Jews?
 
More militant Christianity?
(Of course if Anglicanism was turned Puritan, there would be less celebration of Christmas...)
 
Well, the simplest solution would be to keep Christmas as a strictly religious holiday; the fact that large number of non-Christians celebrate Christmas is a result of the fact that in modern times Christmas has very little to do with Christianity.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Perhaps if some sort of secular or non-denominational (like Thanksgiving in America) Winter Solstice holiday arose over time? Perhaps the American Founding Fathers initiate it, it's sort of replicated in France during the Revolution and it spreads?

Anyways, what I'm saying is that if you have a non-denominational holiday around the solstice that's all about togetherness and gift-giving and pageantry, than you should have no trouble having Christmas sort of go the way of Hanukkah, with it truly retaining its religious significance.
 
Okay, long story short I was at school when a friend of mine walked up to me and wished me a Merry Christmas. I appretiated this, but I remembered that he was an Atheist and asked if he celebrated Christmas. He commented that "Everyone celebrates Christmas". I have come to realize that this is true. Despite the deparation of Church and State, Christmas is seen as a Universal holiday instead of just a Christian one. ((IE: Christmas Television Special, Mall Santas, Christmas Break etc)).

So how can Christmas be celebrated ONLY by Christians, similar to how Chanakuh is celebreated ONLY by Jews?
Hm. May be hard to pull off, actually- as it turns out, the Christian covering of the pagan roots of the holiday is, er, less covering in some countries than in, say, Britain.
 
It would be very difficult to do that. Particularly when Hanukkah aped the gift-giving only a few decades ago. Xmas is not like Easter, which is somber and a purely religious holiday which cannot (and shouldn't IMO) be commercialized.
 
post 1900 is difficult - the issue you have is that some form of festival/celebration/holiday around the winter solstice is common in a lot of agricultural cultures. This is due to the winter solstice being an important point in the year, especially in higher latitudes. There is a suggestion that Stonehenge doesn't mark dawn on the summer solstice but rather dusk on the Winter Solstice

In Christian majority countries where the majority of the country celebrates Christmas at this time of year it's almost inevitable that it becomes a secular festival to mark the solstice (which in truth it is to a lot of people these days). The interesting thing is though that there is a totally secular holiday at his time of year - New Year/Hogmany. This has merged with Christmas over the last 50 years or so to produce the 'Holiday Season'

So if you want Christmas not to take on these secular aspects then your best bet is to have it at another time of year, say in autumn which IIRC most scholars seem to agree as the period of the year when Jesus was most likely born. Of course this could slow Christianity's spread into northern Europe due to the lack of a mid-winter festival

But does it matter? Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukah (sp?), Yule, Winter Solstice, Hogmany or some other holiday, just enjoy it!
 
Well, Easter eggs, but it's at heart a holiday which commemorates the death and miraculous resurrection of the religion's founder. I fail to see any potential there which wouldn't be in extremely poor taste.
 
Well, Easter eggs, but it's at heart a holiday which commemorates the death and miraculous resurrection of the religion's founder. I fail to see any potential there which wouldn't be in extremely poor taste.


I agree on both counts. My parents give my brother and I chocolate and maybe one or two small gifts each, and perhaps a card with some money in it, but that's about it. I really have a hard time rationalizing Easter with the same kind of trappings as Christmas.
 

Nietzsche

Banned
Well, Easter eggs, but it's at heart a holiday which commemorates the death and miraculous resurrection of the religion's founder. I fail to see any potential there which wouldn't be in extremely poor taste.

Easter, even the name, is firmly based in German Paganism. It's named after the fertility Goddess Eostre, who was associated with rabbits, eggs, ducks and the spring. The only thing Christians did was replace Eostre with Jesus of Nazareth. Similar to Christmas, actually, except they bothered to change the name.

The traditions of Christmas, however, the feasting and gift-giving, date back to two rather pre-Christian traditions. The Norse Yule and a Roman holiday based around the Sun.

I can't think of any Christian holiday(save ones based around saints) that is, err, genuinely Christian in origin.
 
Well, all the Abrahamic religions cross-pollinate in many respects. Early Christians didn't want to borrow too much from Judaism for obvious reasons, so they borrowed from paganism.
 

Nietzsche

Banned
Well, all the Abrahamic religions cross-pollinate in many respects. Early Christians didn't want to borrow too much from Judaism for obvious reasons, so they borrowed from paganism.

Eh, still. To call Christmas or Easter as it has been celebrated since they both began Christian holidays is almost a slap in the face to the people who pioneered them.
 
Easter, even the name, is firmly based in German Paganism. It's named after the fertility Goddess Eostre, who was associated with rabbits, eggs, ducks and the spring. The only thing Christians did was replace Eostre with Jesus of Nazareth. Similar to Christmas, actually, except they bothered to change the name.

The traditions of Christmas, however, the feasting and gift-giving, date back to two rather pre-Christian traditions. The Norse Yule and a Roman holiday based around the Sun.

I can't think of any Christian holiday(save ones based around saints) that is, err, genuinely Christian in origin.

If by "Christians" you mean "Anglo-Saxons", then you're spot on. However, outside of the Anglophone world, Easter is known mainly by some derivation of Pascha, the latin transliteration of Pasech, that is, Passover. This included the Romance, Germanic, and Semetic languages. The same goes for eggs, rabbits, and ducks. While some of them do crop up elsewhere (eggs in Eastern Europe, for example), they are by no means universal, and there are many, many, different customs when it comes to Easter. That isn't to say there *aren't* some pagan holdovers, not to mention Jewish ones, but to claim that it's entirely based off of Eostre is a bit disengenous.
 
It would be very difficult to do that. Particularly when Hanukkah aped the gift-giving only a few decades ago. Xmas is not like Easter, which is somber and a purely religious holiday which cannot (and shouldn't IMO) be commercialized.

I'm not sure I get the last part of your sentence - which holiday isn't commercialised?

Easter and Christmas both seem to be at a similar level of commercialisation and are largely deviod of religious meaning for most of us, at least in my experience in NZ/UK
 
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