Credits: STUART DRYDEN/CALGARY SUN/QMI AGENCY
There are two Christmases. One is the Christian holy day, the other a Western cultural celebration full of snowmen, chestnuts, bright lights, eggnog, warm fires, giftwrap, pop songs and cheer.
There's no denying the cultural event has its origins in the Christian holiday. Still, the cultural side is no longer inextricably bound to the religious side, if it ever was.
Within Christianity there has long been tension between the spiritual meaning of the day and its secular celebration. To this day, there are Christians who worry the commercial and cultural elements that have attached themselves to the holiday represent a re-emergence of the day's pagan origins as a winter solstice ritual to coax back the disappearing sun.
Most of our cultural Christmas traditions date only to 19th-century Victorian England. The greeting "Merry Christmas," which has become so controversial on public signs and on the lips of government clerks and store cashiers, was popularized in the 1840s by Charles Dickens and by early greeting card makers. It comes originally from a 16th-century song, "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," which sounds more like a pub tune than a church hymn with its good-natured demand for figgy pudding and "a cup of good cheer" and its insistence that "we won't go until we get some."
Indeed, the cultural side of Christmas has so overwhelmed the spiritual side in the past couple of centuries that devout Christians have sometimes felt compelled to print T-shirts and bumper stickers or erect billboards reminding others that Jesus is "the reason for the season."
So why my little sociological history of Christmas in Western countries? To demonstrate the silliness of those who seek to eradicate any and all public exhibitions and expressions of Christmas.
Take Ashu Solo of Saskatoon. He has threatened to complain to the Saskatchewan human rights commission about the flashing of "Merry Christmas!" from the route signs on the front of public buses in his city.
Solo claims to have been "extremely surprised, offended and angered," by the greeting. "This is not a Christian city ... Christmas messages on Saskatoon Transit buses make religious minorities, atheists and agnostics who do not celebrate Christmas feel excluded and like second-class citizens." He insists wishing passengers, motorists and bystanders a "Merry Christmas!" amounts to "a forcible attempt at Christian indoctrination."
Thankfully, Saskatoon city council has rejected Solo's way-off-base complaint and voted to keep the bus-front messages. It is not clear, though, whether the province's human rights busybodies would be equally sensible.
Just like the suburban Philadelphia principal who suspended a high school senior for dressing as Santa (because Santa is a saint who has no place in a public school) and the Texas school that banned candy canes because they represent shepherd's crooks (as in Jesus, the shepherd of souls), Solo misses the point.
The joyful greetings, the decorated houses, the mall Santas, candies and trees are all from the cultural side of the holiday, not the religious side. You don't have to be Christian to enjoy them, so those outward trappings are inclusive, not exclusive. I would never go to Mumbai during Diwali - the Hindu festival of lights - or a Muslim country during Eid and demand an end to those celebrations' public expression. Indeed, I would do all I could to experience and enjoy those other cultures. The Ashu Solos of the world should open-mindedly do the same at Christmas.
Christmas is a celebration. Whether it has religious significance for you or is simply a time to gather with family and friends for good food, gifts, charity and hopes of peace on earth, enjoy the day.
Have a very Merry Christmas!