A few years ago, an acquaintance asked me, "Do you celebrate Christmas?"
"The commercialized version," I replied.
The acquaintance smiled wryly at me. He knew what I was talking about.
There are two Christmases in the United States-the "real," original, religious Christmas that celebrates the birth of Christ, and the commercialized, secular Christmas of pop culture.
My family isn't Christian. But when I was a child, we had a Christmas tree in the living room, stockings hanging on the fireplace mantle and a wreath on our front door. We watched the "Charlie Brown Christmas Special" and "It's a Wonderful Life." We'd go to the mall and wave "Hi" to Santa. We'd drop loose change into Salvation Army buckets. We gave gifts to our teachers, our hairdressers and our newspaper delivery boy. We went to Christmas parties hosted by our schools, our piano teacher and our friends.
We even mailed Christmas cards (though we were careful to make sure they said "Happy Holidays" since at least 80 percent of the people to whom we mailed them weren't Christian).
In the days leading up to Christmas, my parents would drive my brother and me through neighborhoods in our hometown of Lexington, Ky., to look at people's Christmas lights. On Christmas morning, a few token gifts would be under our Christmas tree, and some candy would be in our stockings.
We weren't Christian, but we were Americans, and we partook of the American tradition of commercialized, secular Christmas. Why? Because it was fun, especially for the kids in the family-my brother and me. What kid doesn't like candy canes, snowman cookies, Santa Claus, parties and toys?
It's almost impossible to be a kid in the United States and not get enraptured by the "magic" of the Christmas season.
During the past few years, some Christians have been complaining about stores that are "banning" Christmas. Advertisements and cashiers don't say, "Merry Christmas;" instead, they've been saying the more inclusive "Happy Holidays!"
Personally, I have no problem with stores' saying "Merry Christmas." They're private businesses. It's their right to say whatever they want. (With the government, it's a completely different story, but that would be the subject of another column.)
Even if outraged Christians got all stores to say, "Merry Christmas," let's not kid ourselves. We all know those stores would be referring to the commercialized, secular Christmas-the one that fattens their profits while raising Americans' credit card debt.
If I were a Christian, I'd be disappointed that one of my religion's most important holidays had come to be associated with such materialism. If a Wal-Mart greeter said "Merry Christmas" to me, I'd look at all the garlands, Santa figurines and toys piled high to the ceilings of the typical warehouse-sized Wal-Mart and think, "This is what my religion is about?"
Essentially, Christmas has been captured by capitalism. The Grinch hasn't stolen Christmas. Capitalism has.
Christmas is gradually being secularized into a season of general merrymaking. It is in transition from religious "holy day" to secular holiday. The cries of Christians who are upset with this are the death throes of religious Christmas.
This isn't the first time a holiday has lost most of its religious trappings. Today, it's not just Irish Catholics who wear green on St. Patrick's Day. And the majority of children who dress as witches and goblins for Halloween aren't pagan. At Duke, Diya's annual Awaaz cultural show evolved from a Hindu celebration of Diwali to a more embracing, secular performance extravaganza. Participants and audience members include students of virtually all ethnicities and religions.
Similarly, Christmas is following this tradition and universalizing itself into a time of merrymaking to be enjoyed by all. When you see Santa Claus and Christmas lights in Japan-a country where less than one percent of the population is Christian-you know the process is well underway.
Just about every culture of the world has times of the year devoted to celebration and revelry. For Americans, this season is just that time. A small subset of Christmas "purists" will probably continue observing the holiday in its original religious form, devoid of Santa Claus and the abundance of gift giving.
For the rest of us-we'll indulge in the commercialized secular Christmas.
Conservative Christians can demand that stores start saying "Merry Christmas." Unfortunately, it's not going to put Christ back into Christmas.
Christmas has become a commercialized, secular holiday-no matter what you call it.
Preeti Aroon is a graduate student of public policy. She would like to thank everyone for reading her column this semester.
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