No, you can't take the Christ out of Christmas.
But you can take it out of Hannukah and Ramadan and Yule and all the OTHER holy-days of the Season, that deserve to exist without being bullied around by Christmas.
Oh, and the X in Xmas... comes from the first letter of the Greek work for Christ. Sorry, no persecution there.
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"But you can take it out of Hannukah and Ramadan and Yule and all the OTHER holy-days of the Season, that deserve to exist without being bullied around by Christmas."
Then we are all in agreement. Honestly, the majority of Christians who celebrate Christmas aren't trying to force their beliefs on everyone, and the majority of people who DON'T celebrate Christmas aren't trying to force their beliefs, either. But there are outspoken dummies on both sides that manage to get everyone's attention. It's all one big overblown whine-fest that the media decided to pick up and run with... And apparently, so is everyone else. Everyone's getting upset over absolutely nothing, and everyone's lumping everyone into great big groups. So much for being afraid of generalizations and stereotypes.
Jewish people are free to call Hannukah 'Hannukah'. And muslims are free to call Ramadan 'Ramadan'.
Christians should be free to call Christmas 'Christmas'.
So those other feasts certainly aren't bullied around by Christmas...
You're quite right Erik. Christians are completely free to call their holiday Christmas. But visualize for a moment being a non-Christian at Christmas time. It's like being thwapped upside the head with a giant manger.
Christian theology and symbology is primary, and when a non-Christian speaks up, hoping that people will remember that there's more being celebrated, they are often shouted down, by people who refuse to share calender space, and decry "PC"-ness.
It certainly can feel like you're being bullied. Like M. Anon said, the majority of both sides are indifferent to the squabble, and go about their season with joy in their hearts for everyone. It's the bad apples who get their Attack On Holiday X plastered across the news that irritates.
I bristle at bumper stickers that say "Jesus is the Reason for the Season," because to be quite blunt, he *isn't*... but overall, I must be fortunate because I really don't feel like I've ever been thwapped aside the head with a manger (to use Eleri's analogy).
There's a middle ground, a place of moderation on the issue of Christmas, and just the other day in Uru I encountered someone who actually became offended when he was wished a "Merry Xmas."
To me, wishing someone a Merry Christmas has no more significance than wishing "Have a good day!".
So, I'll keep on wishing people a Merry Christmas, and if someone cannot understand that I'm wishing him or her to have a GOOD DAY specifically on the day that is called Christmas, regardless of the person's religious affiliation, non-affiliation, belief or non-belief... then that is a personal issue of the well-wished individual and not my problem.
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