Kicking Christ out of Christmas

By Jeanne Marie Pungello on December 2, 2012

So we’ve all seen those bumper stickers that read: “KEEP CHRIST IN CHRISTMAS!” It’s a mantra that pops up quite frequently during these next few weeks, right alongside billboards for cheap electronics and advertisements for seasonal ‘must haves.’ As interesting (and perhaps even humorous) as this juxtaposition is, it says quite a lot about the state of our ‘holiday’ season.

“The Christmas tree at Daley Plaza in Chicago” (2006) by laffy4k on flickr.

Christmas is —  and I say this without meaning to disregard anyone — the focal point of this time of year, and it has been for quite some time. Businesses advertise their products and services in ways that put every other seasonal flurry of advertising to shame, and it is the most lucrative time of year for retailers. Classic commercials (because those exist) like Coca Cola’s yearly variation of its polar bears, or Hershey’s musical Kisses, take up hours of airtime on our television sets, and become even more deeply engrained into our psyches. Musical artists rush to cover Christmas classics, even if nobody wants them to, and it is impossible to escape almost hourly reminders that Christmas is coming, and that you’re probably not ready for it.

In a strictly Christian sense, there is something that some know as ‘The Holiday Season.’ However, it lasts from Christmas day until sometime in early January, depending on the faction of Christianity. The collective sense of the holiday season blows this completely out of the water, and (based solely off of when radio stations start incessantly playing Christmas music) ranges from the day after Thanksgiving until a little after New Years.

The funny thing about this is that despite all of this advertising, there is relatively no mention of Christ from secular businesses and other parties. This is understandable, considering they don’t want to alienate potential customers, but the irony is withstanding.

Given all of this, I’d be hard-pressed to say that Christmas is still a religious celebration in America. Our radios and televisions are dominated with reminders about the holiday, but they’re all aiming at something that is very unrelated to the original sense Christmas’ ‘meaning.’ Christmas used to be about gathering together and celebrating the birth of Jesus, and now it’s about getting together and exchanging gifts.

I’m not saying that there aren’t any religious Christmases out there, but I am saying that they are not the majority. Given the general apathy with the current generation towards religion, and the fact that I know many Jewish people who celebrate Christmas, I think it is safe to say that Christmas-time in America has morphed into a hybrid of consumerist ideology and a sort of expected seasonal warmth. America’s hive-mind is frenzied with the desires to find the best gifts and receive the best gifts, and there is a collective sigh from the nation when it’s finally December 26th. We (in general, of course) don’t celebrate Christmas to be closer to Jesus, we celebrate Christmas to be closer to one another… and to get things.

Whether this shift is positive or negative really depends on who you ask, but I definitely think that it’s interesting. Whether consumerism is solely responsible for this change or people actively played a role in it is hard to say, but the fact that such elements can warp a time of strictly religious celebration into a time of national chaos, greed, and altruism is borderline wizardry.

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