Why, as a Christian, Christmas Season Makes Me Wish I was Jewish

Every year from about November 20 to December 31 I wish I were Jewish. Jewish holidays are respectfully and religiously celebrated. I am a Christian, and my religious holiday has been kidnapped. The problem is, my holiday was kidnapped by fellow "Christians" as a misguided attempt at evangelism. Now, after shoving this religious holiday down the throat of the secular world, "Christians" have the temerity to get angry when the secular world wants to make the holiday, well, secular. If you wanted to keep "Christ" in Christmas you should have kept the holiday in the home and church!! (Yes, this sentence warranted two exclamation points, a practice I normally decry).

These "Christians" do this every year. This argument outrages me. It makes me want to take your light-up plastic baby Jesus from your front lawn and throw it through your gaudy-light-lit window.

First of all, Jesus was not born on December 25th. The decision to celebrate Jesus' birthday on this date was not based on the Bible, at all. Most biblical scholars place his birth date in March or September. In addition, Jesus' birth was not celebrated by early Christians; in fact, "Christmas" was not celebrated until the fourth century CE-give or take four hundred years after Christ's birth. Christians declared this day a holiday in order to drown out/counteract the Roman winter solstice festival of Saturnalia, which took place December 17 to 25. This declaration also thus allowed Christians to join in all the fun. How hypocritically funny that "Christians" are angry that secular society is now trying to celebrate a winter holiday. How dare they do so on Jesus' birthday? Oh wait.

Bill O'Reilly, for example, every year whines that a "war on Christmas" is occurring. (It never ceases to amaze me when the white, wealthy, conservative Christians who are running the country play the victim. The whole world is out to get them! It's horrible! But I digress.) Mr. O'Reilly is super upset that his Wal-Mart greeter does not say "Merry Christmas" to him. Well, Hanukkah begins on December 4, and I wonder if Bill will be offended if his Wal-Mart greeter says to him "Happy Hanukkah" during this Christmas holiday. I don't want to speak on behalf of Jewish people, but I feel pretty safe in guessing that they do not want a retail store using their holiday to sell stuff.

Unlike Bill, I am offended when the word Christmas is splattered all over everything, everywhere. I'm on the complete opposite end of the spectrum on this argument: instead of putting Christmas in everything, take it out! Let me actually honor the birth of Christ without dry heaving every time I step out of my door. And please wish me happy holidays, not Merry Christmas, unless you know me personally or are in church.

The secular Christmas in general is not bad. I'm glad we can provide an excuse to celebrate family and food and charity and magic and love. However, I'd be okay with calling the secular holiday something other than Christmas. Maybe have Santa in the holiday's title, because we should definitely not put him out of the job. And while we're celebrating the Santa holiday, we can recognize Christ's birth (and Advent leading up to it) in home and church-if we clearly separate the two, maybe the Billy O'Reillys of the world will stop complaining. (Who am I kidding? Then the angry "Christians" would complain a la prayer in school that the world is just trying to oppress Christians. Sigh.)

It doesn't matter to me when we celebrate Christ's birth. It's nice that Christmas and Easter fall on opposite times of year; I like the December 25th date. But I'm not going to pretend I have any right to claim the date or holiday-as a Christian I've imposed on another celebration. If I didn't like Advent so much I'd celebrate Christmas in September.

So if you are one of those who get angry when a sign says "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas," it's okay to stop. You aren't being a bad Christian allowing "Happy Holidays" to exist.

Happy Holidays.