Take Christ Out of Christmas

“Merry Christmas,” is the phrase of the season, uttered by every store clerk, parking attendant and fast food operator, and why not? With city halls spending taxpayer money (not to mention electricity) on decorating their buildings and every telephone pole the eye can see, it’s hard to believe that Christmas isn’t a secular holiday.

Schools close for it. Many people get off work for it, and most businesses close for it. But it is a religious holiday, right?

I’m not a Scrooge by any means. Celebrating Christmas is always fun with my family—particularly with my child—and I enjoy feasting, decorating, baking, and whatnot as much as the next person.

And yet you see all these signs that say, “Keep Christ in Christmas,” while the cities are simultaneously celebrating the occasion. One could argue that Christmas isn’t really about Christ—that other winter festivals predated the holiday, that Christ wasn’t even born in December, and what have you—but to me, that’s just not as important as the assumption that everyone should partake in it, and that it has a place in American culture because it’s a Christian holiday.

I remember how, when in high school, we decorated the school in Student Council and only had enough lights to spell out “Xmas.” Several students had a fit over it and demanded it be fixed or taken down. (OK, kiddos, then you pitch in to the budget, right? We fundraised for those decorations, not the whole school.) I remember thinking that it was crazy that we were forced to take down our hard work just because it didn’t feature the word “Christ.”

Look. This country was not founded by Christians. You can quit making that argument, because, as Robert Wuhl has drolly noted, this country was founded by rich white men—many of whom were atheists—who did not want to pay taxes. Period! There was no sacred Jesus moaning, Mary swaying, Adam-and-Eve riding dinosaurs about it.

And it continues to be that way. If you want to be religious, it’s protected in the Bill of Rights; if you don’t want to be, it’s also protected in the Bill of Rights—in the exact same spot, in fact. Basing laws, national holidays, and anything else on religion is a direct defiance of the Bill of Rights, in fact, as it imposes religion onto those who are not religious—or are of a different faith entirely. How would Christians, after all, like celebrating a national holiday for Allahmas or Durgamas or Spider Womanmas? Yeah, I don’t think they’d be too happy about it.

If everyone’s going to celebrate the holiday, I say we take Christ out of Christmas and make it “Midwinter’s Day” or something. The Christians can keep celebrating Christmas, and everyone else can keep celebrating Yule, Hanukah, Kwanza, or whatever their holiday is. But if it’s going to be a mainstream event that’s recognized and celebrated by so many stores and the very government itself, it should be a secular observation.