Christmas vs. Holiday Season -Yet Another View

There have been much talk lately about the use of the term Holiday Season over the traditional term Christmas. Religious conservatives stating that a religious holiday is now becoming secular. Yes, in some instances there are some ridiculous changes of the term in order to appear politically correct. Such as the Christmas tree offering from Halifax to Boston being changed to the Holiday Tree. My take is that if you are talking about something that specifically relates to Christmas and has a history with Christmas, call it Christmas. If you are talking about the season and talking to a broad audience who may be of different religious backgrounds, say Holiday Season. Of course many of the arguing points fall in the fuzzy area in between. Such as Target Stores changing their decorations to holiday decorations. The decorations are probably related to Xmas, but they serve people of various religions. And are decorations necessarily tied to Xmas.

Anyhow, the reason for bringing this up once again is I came across an article with a twist on the whole thing. Apparently there are Christians who do not celebrate Christmas. The logic is why celebrate Christ's birth when his teaching occured primarily as a grown man. Also, the merriment that is associated with the holidays is not really in keeping with strict religious doctrine. Pigging out and getting drunk are not really looked upon in the Bible in a positive sense. They also point out that many of the traditions like Santa Claus have no religious basis. So the argument follows that why make a complaint that Christmas is becoming secular when much of it already is and has had a long history being secular.

So my suggestion is that we forget this whole thing about whose Christmas it is and celebrate it the way we want to in the positive traditions of the holidays. It's a bit like the Christianity that I grew up with. Lets not dwell on negatives like banning gays, pitting us against them, and knocking off foreign leaders. Lets love our neighbor, help the less fortunate, and enjoy the company of those around us. That's what we should be focusing on.