I was thinking just the other day that, despite popular perception, Christmas has not always been the holiday in the US that it currently is, neither in its basically universal observance, nor in its basic form. The latest sparking of this not-so-new thought was a reference to the “Merry Christmas”/”Happy Holidays” conflict as made by the pastor of our church this past Sunday. One can guess the basic gist of the comment.

What is striking about the notion that there is a war on Christmas is that at its core is the thesis that attacks on Christmas are attacks on centuries old traditions and rituals. However, that really isn’t the case. In many ways Christmas, and our attitude towards it, are relatively new. Because despite the feeling that Christmas must have always been a key American holiday, as well as a key Christian one, that, in fact, this is not the case.

Christmas as a national holiday of grand significance started to emerge in the middle 19^th Century, and at that point was very much in the process of evolving to the celebration that it is today. Indeed, much of the way we celebrate Christmas is very much about commercial activity and secular/pagan rituals and symbols, making the holiday much more of a mélange than we normally like to admit, especially within Christianity.

In terms of Christianity writ large, Christmas has not always been a key celebration, and in some segments of the faith, was not celebrated at all (including a significant percentage that influenced early American Christians, and hence the lack of its original significance in early colonial and post-independence life). This is not to say that there aren’t sound reasons within the Christian faith to celebrate Christmas as a religious observance, but from a political/cultural point-of-view, it dampens the whole “War on Christmas” line of reasoning when one stops and realizes that Christmas as we know and understand it is not, as it might appear at first blush, a celebration two millennia in age. Really, from an American perspective it is only a century-and-a-half (roughly) in age—again, as we know, understand, and celebrate the season.

Along these lines, I would commend a piece into today’s WSJ: A Brief History of Christmas, which notes the attitudes by elements of the Christian church over the years to the celebration, as well as to some of the well-known secular (indeed, pagan) elements of the current holiday.¹ It seems to me, at least, that it is more difficult to argue that there is a “war” aimed at destroying time-honored truths, when we recognize that much of what we do is both relatively new, and not all that religious.

Beyond any of the history/origins of the holiday, another thing that has struck me for time over the “War on Christmas” notion is that so much of what we do now regarding Christmas (even the most devote of Christians) is wholly secular in origins and application (much of the music, movies (even the classics), and decorations have nothing whatsoever to do with the Gospel of Luke, for example).

As such, I am not certain why hardcore secularists get all that upset about observations of the holiday², nor do I understand fully why those who think that there is a war against Christmas think that the whole of the holiday is encapsulated in things like whether the clerk at Wal*Mart says “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays”(or vice versa)³. Why do we worry so much about whether retail outlets use the word “Christmas” or not? When Santa bellows, “Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night” or when Rudolph became significant “one foggy Christmas Eve” there was precious little about it that was theological in nature.

As I have argued before (see the links below), while I do understand that there are those who say “Happy Holidays” as a way of avoiding the “Christ” part of the word “Christmas,” more likely than not the “holidays” that they are wishing happiness upon are Christmas and New Years Day (the holiday season, as we have called it for decades), and almost all of us know that immediately. It seems that only when people like Bill O’Reilly and John Gibson started making a point of making a big deal of the issue, that most of us didn’t mind one bit if people said “Happy Holidays” or if store displays were “Holiday” displays instead of “Christmas” ones.

Ah well. Of course, I never thought of retail outlets as founts of theology…

I will confess that I finds it absurd that some find the utterance of the words “Merry Christmas” to be offensive in and of themselves. Of course, much of this debate is about hypersensitivity and offense-taking. Given, as a recent poll shows, that the vast majority of people in US at least marginally identify as Christian, one wonders sometimes were the outrage/war comes from anyway.

Just some thoughts on the subject on this Christmas evening, a bit rambling I will allow (but hey, it’s a holiday).

I have written about this before, by the way. I wrote a piece for the Mobile Register two years ago: What day is it? It’s Christmas Day and then there is this post: I Have a Confession to Make on the Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays business.

I hope that you all had a blessed day and I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year.

1. For example, it should be a well known fact that the date we celebrate Christmas is based not on the likely birth date of Christ, but of pagan summer (oops) winter solstice celebrations. [↩]
2. and yes, I wholly allow that there are those who do overreact to the holiday and its observance, such as those who find great offense at nativity scenes on public land [↩]
3. my anecdotal experience this year, btw, has been a lot of “Merry Christmas” and not much “Happy Holidays,” but then again, I do live in Alabama [↩]