Christmas Is Not Secular

In the United States of America, where I live, the most popular holiday on the calendar is three days away. The name of this holiday is derived from the phrase "Christ's Mass." This holiday inspires songs with lyrics like "It is the night of our dear Savior's birth/Long lay the world in sin and error pining/'Til He appeared and the soul felt its worth." Millions of people celebrate this holiday by constructing on their property visual representations of the virgin birth of the son of God.

And millions of other people would tell me, with straight faces and apparent sincerity, that this holiday is secular. Some of these people are some combination of lying, insane, and stupid; some are desperately gullible; most are simply confrontation-averse to a fault. Christmas is not, in any way, shape, or form, secular, and it never has been, and it never will be.

I am on record as not particularly enjoying most aspects of Christmas. I like making a big deal out of this fact every year because it elicits hilariously butthurt reactions from a very particular kind of supercilious shitcardinal, but that is not the purpose of this essay. Whether Christmas is objectively good is not relevant to whether it is secular; while I certainly have my biases, there are plenty of religious things that are good and plenty of secular things that are bad. I am not out to convince anyone not to celebrate Christmas, at least not today. All I'm trying to do is get non-Christians who do celebrate it to be honest about the causes and effects of doing so.

And there is no denying that we all know those people, who could not, for the most part, give less of a damn about Jesus but celebrate the (alleged) anniversary of his (alleged) birth anyway. Let us now analyze their various excuses.

"But I only celebrate Christmas because in my family, [insert story of some simply adorable non-religious family tradition straight out of Norman Goddamn Rockwell]."

This is by far the most common excuse, and, in the interests of full disclosure, it is mine. I enjoy watching It's a Wonderful Life and White Christmas and The Muppet Christmas Carol of a snowy evening as much as any bloke. All of that is well and good.

Nonetheless, this argument essentially boils down to "Christmas can't be religious, because I'm not religious and I celebrate it." Of course, few people who put forward this line of reasoning bother to further examine why they celebrate it. Why do White Christmas and The Muppet Christmas Carol have such a special place in your heart? Why do those movies and "Jingle Bells" and countless YouTube videos of flashing lights set to Trans-Siberian Orchestra even exist? Why do avowedly non-religious people like these things in December?

It's because they--the entertainment and the people who consume it--exist in a time and place in the world that is still dominated by the cultural legacy of Christianity, and Christmas is among the most vital components of Christianity. This holiday first achieved its place as a permanent fixture in the collective consciousness because, and only because, of its religious importance. That its appeal has now broadened does not erase its origins or history as an explicitly religious observance. But for the story of the miraculous conception and birth of Jesus, there is no Santa Claus, Virginia--nor are there presents or artificial evergreen trees covered in baubles bought at Hallmark or nauseating commercials for Apple products. These concepts are bound up together and are not separable--embracing one means recognizing the importance of the other.

Again, none of this is to say that non-Christians shouldn't celebrate Christmas. They should, if they're so inclined! But they should not do so while pretending Christmas is a secular holiday--instead, they should acknowledge that it is a religious holiday that has been culturally appropriated by secular people, which is nowhere near the same thing.

"Christmas used to be a religious holiday, but it's not anymore."

Bullshit, you fellow-traveling, reality-denying dweeb. Listen to the music! Look at the nativity scenes! Ask any Fox News audience member!

Look here. Nobody in his or her right mind claims that, say, Easter isn't a religious holiday. Everybody knows that it is (it's about the son of God being miraculously raised from the dead and ascending to heaven--how much more religious can you get?). More Americans attend religious services on Easter than on any other day of the year. We, as a nation, are somehow able to acknowledge the religious nature of that holiday despite all of the (supposedly) secular traditions that have sprung up around it--giving out candy, painting and hiding eggs for small children to collect, having brunch on a sun-drenched patio and getting hammered on mimosas, &c. Plenty of secular people grew up in homes that were suddenly overrun by Peeps each year in early April, but none of them are trying to somehow spin Easter as a holiday whose religious meaning has been erased or diminished.

For the life of me, I cannot figure out what makes Christmas different in this regard. I'm not out to shame anyone who picks and chooses his or her holiday traditions a la carte, because that is, to a very large extent, what I do with almost every holiday. There's absolutely nothing wrong with admitting that Christmas is still religious and observing some of its rituals anyway (leaving aside that a very great number of the non-religious rituals of Christmas revolve around base, unapologetic materialism). But don't hide behind some cowardly lie about how Christmas doesn't represent what we all know it represents.

"Well, you know, Christmas is itself just a mélange of various pre-Christian pagan traditions which Christians appropriated to fit the narrative of Jesus' birth! [pushes glasses up nose, fluffs beard]"

Right you are, you insufferable pedantic jackass! That doesn't make it secular. Indeed, if you know what the word "pagan" means (which, I mean, most of the half-educated self-proclaimed theologians who spout off about this could neither define Saturnalia nor spell it if you spotted them the "Saturn," so perhaps they don't know what the word "pagan" means), you have in fact admitted that it is not secular.

At best, this argument simply moves the goalposts, showing that a holiday supposedly based on one mythological tradition is actually derived from one or more other mythological traditions. Pushing this reasoning as though it somehow makes a secular case for Christmas is actually counterproductive, because it shifts the question from "Why do non-Christians celebrate Christmas?" to "Why do non-pagans celebrate Christmas?", and the latter question obviously requires a good deal more explanation and evidence than the former.

"The rest of my family celebrates Christmas and I just don't want to make waves."

You are a contemptible wussbag, an oozing open wound of feckless weakness. Like the poseur-intellectual hipster doofuses who play up the pagan origins of Christmas traditions, you are not actually proving that Christmas is secular; instead, you are calling into question whether you are secular. Either you are a) so pathetically lacking in intestinal fortitude that you are unwilling to question your loved ones about even something as trivial as an oversized sock hung by a fireplace, b) a Christian who for various social reasons chooses not to admit it, or c) a closeted lover of the trappings of Christmas who for various social reasons chooses not to admit it. In each case, you are being dishonest for monumentally stupid reasons.

More than that, though, you are the reason that with each passing year, Christmas just gets bigger, and bigger, and bigger. You are the reason the craft stores put out the garland and tinsel in fucking September. You are the reason Thanksgiving, the best holiday ever conceived by humans, now exists mostly as "the day before Black Friday," or, more accurately these days, "the day when all the stores are maybe closed for a few hours in the morning and then start their Black Friday sales." You are the reason that Black Friday exists in the first place. You are the reason for every gridlocked parking lot, every out-the-door line, every fight between parents in a Toys R Us from mid-November to early January. If you would only grow a fucking pair, those of us fighting the good fight might gain some momentum, might be able to push back against the Red-and-Green Menace even the tiniest bit, might demonstrate to the jackbooted fascists who take their marching orders from an imaginary workshop at the North Pole that This Is Not Okay.

But no. Staying in Grandma's will is more important to you.

"What does it matter? Stop being such a scroogey grinchy scroogegrinch and enjoy it, you Grinchy McScroogerson. [smiley face] [Christmas tree emoji]"

Fuck you and the tide of treacly elf semen that carried you in, you fifth column of sickening yuletide bilge.