Christmas vs the Holidays: What Christians Actually Celebrate

Every December, reliably, there is a conversation about whether to say "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays," whether the latter erases the former, and whether anyone is being persecuted by the existence of gift wrap that says "Season's Greetings." This conversation is, by this point, almost a holiday tradition itself.

Here is a different angle: what are Christians actually celebrating on December 25, and what does that have to do with the broader cultural event that December has become in America?

What Christmas Is

Christmas is a Christian feast day commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ. The date of December 25 was established by the early church and is first recorded in a Roman document from 336 AD. Whether it corresponds to a historical date of birth (scholars have various opinions) is less important to Christian practice than the fact that it is the day the church has kept for celebrating the incarnation -- the theological claim that God became human.

The theological core of Christmas is not the manger scene as decorative element. It is the idea that the divine entered the ordinary, that the infinite became finite, that the Creator showed up in creation as a baby in a borrowed stable. This is, for Christians, the hinge of history. Everything before it was preparation. Everything after it is response.

What Christmas Has Become

Christmas in America is also many other things. It is a retail event of enormous economic significance. It is a cultural moment that involves television specials, office parties, travel, and gift-giving that would be bewildering to the early church. It is a time when people who do not otherwise attend church attend church, which most pastors greet with a mixture of genuine joy and mild comedy.

The secular Christmas and the Christian Christmas coexist in American culture in a way that is genuinely peculiar. Both involve Christmas trees and carols and a general atmosphere of warmth and goodwill. One of them involves a theological claim about the nature of God and the salvation of humanity. The other involves sweaters with reindeer on them.

Neither version is fake. The secular version of Christmas -- generosity, family, light in the darkness, goodwill toward strangers -- captures something real, even if it has been detached from its theological roots. The Christian version includes all of that and adds a specific claim about why those things matter.

The "Happy Holidays" Question

December contains, in addition to Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, the winter solstice, New Year's Eve, and the birthdays of various people. "Happy Holidays" is a legitimate acknowledgment of this fact. It is not an attack on Christmas.

At the same time, Christmas is the dominant holiday of the season in American culture, practiced in some form by about 90 percent of Americans including many who are not Christian. Saying "Merry Christmas" is not an act of aggression. It is the name of the specific holiday most people are celebrating.

The actual position of most American Christians, if you asked them honestly, is that they would prefer you said "Merry Christmas" but they are not going to ruin their December about it. Life is short. The cookies are good. Say what you want.

What Actually Matters

For Christians, what matters about Christmas is not the phrase on the coffee cup or the decorations in the public square. What matters is the story -- that a child was born in poverty and obscurity, that angels announced it to shepherds rather than kings, that wise men traveled from far away to bow before an infant. The story subverts every assumption about how power and divinity work.

That story does not require anyone else to celebrate it, and it does not diminish when others celebrate something different. Christians are not served by treating December as a battlefield. They are served by telling, and living, a story good enough to stand on its own.

Merry Christmas.