First off: I'm a social historian and know for a FACT that Christmas became a secularized (and therefore commercialized) holiday in England in the mid-19th Century....please read A Christmas Carol.
From England, it spread rapidly, and by the '50s become a global celebration.
Secondly: I'm Jewish, and live in an area of the US (Cleveland, OH) where there are a lot of Jews (possibly the 4th or 5th largest Jewish community in the US) and the majority of us do celebrate the Christmas Season (which often coincides with the Hanukkah season, btw). Though (obviously) not in the exact way Christians do.
For us, this national holiday (as are Thanksgiving and Independence Day) is a time of in-gathering. It is a time for family get togethers. It is a time for thankfulness and gratitude.
And not surprisingly, the majority of Christians celebrate the Christmas Season as we, and countless other people around the world, do.
This is a topic I’m way too passionate about. I noticed a few years ago, through actually looking up the data, that Christmas is a near universal holiday in terms of observance among Americans. Even as the share of active Christians has gone way down, the observance of the holiday has went up.
I don’t celebrate Christmas, but I found myself in the fray, especially back in 2020 and 2021 during the Covid era, when there were huge arguments online in my sphere over things like coloring packets coming home from public schools with candy cane and snowmen.
I saw people (especially my fellow Jews who lived in areas without a lot of other Jews) getting offended by the inclusion of Christmas and going on and on about it being a religious holiday. I had to explain that it’s a federal holiday (and also explaining that the fact of it being a federal holiday doesn’t mean I agree with it, it just is) and that if something like 94 percent of people celebrate it (that was the statistic I found for 2020, when I imagine more people were inclined to do something), that meant that a ton of people who are not just nones, but actively identifying with other faiths, also celebrate it. Then I’d spend the remainder of my time arguing that my presenting that fact doesn’t mean I agree that non-Christians should be celebrating Christmas, it just shows up in the data that they are.
The simple large scale numbers in the data indicates that there are a lot of Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists, and even Jews (which makes sense as like 70% are partnered with non-Jews) in addition to Christians and nones who celebrate Christmas.
Out of a sample of 1000 Americans, 27 of them said that they celebrated the Winter Solstice. It's statistically unwise to do any type of analysis on a group where the N size is 27.
Ryan, I have a reasonably wide group of friends and family, spanning a lot of Christian, semi or ex Christian, Jewish (“secular” and observant) and nones of diverse flavors. Just a few would do self conscious rituals around the solstice; but most would notice it and of course it is religious studies 101 to trace how Christmas rituals take up some solstice observations that ran before and alongside Christianity. (In my own circles this could include St. Lucia Day which I suppose could poll as Christian or Other in your data set.)
Meanwhile MOST of these people would use shorthand about “Christmas breaks” or travel for “Christmas” (even though some would prefer “holiday” there), while a far lower percentage of them would go to a church as part of it. A far lower percentage than that could say honestly that the church parts is the most important part of the whole.
After this I would venture to hypothesize that New Year’s parties would on balance be on par in importance with Christmas ones insofar we can separate this out. But all somewhere in a cultural bucket with “Christmas time.”
Of course this is anecdotal in some ways but how far off the norm is it really?
I’m not saying your data is unimportant as far as it goes, and if it can’t much address this sort of complexity so be it. I like a lot of methods in my analytical toolbox. I was just commenting on what would interest me more to sort out with some tools or others.
What jumps out to me is that for both Baby Boomers and Gen X, their childhood Christmas experiences were more religious in nature- I wondered the same thing as well and like you, there isn't any one answer to that question. That was a really interesting article, thanks for taking your Thanksgiving time for this one. Merry Christmas to you and your family.
This reminds me of a recent Supreme Court case where they ruled that a cross was not a religious symbol because of its ubiquity in the US as a memorial symbol. I remember in my White Evangelical past there being a specific pushback against holiday stuff--like Santa--that didn't explicitly point to the tRuE MeAnInG of Xmas.
First off: I'm a social historian and know for a FACT that Christmas became a secularized (and therefore commercialized) holiday in England in the mid-19th Century....please read A Christmas Carol.
From England, it spread rapidly, and by the '50s become a global celebration.
Secondly: I'm Jewish, and live in an area of the US (Cleveland, OH) where there are a lot of Jews (possibly the 4th or 5th largest Jewish community in the US) and the majority of us do celebrate the Christmas Season (which often coincides with the Hanukkah season, btw). Though (obviously) not in the exact way Christians do.
For us, this national holiday (as are Thanksgiving and Independence Day) is a time of in-gathering. It is a time for family get togethers. It is a time for thankfulness and gratitude.
And not surprisingly, the majority of Christians celebrate the Christmas Season as we, and countless other people around the world, do.
And, Dr. Burge....thanks for this great posting.
Thanks...sometimes I think I'm off-base sharing my posts.
Have a good "holiday," whatever you celebrate.
BTW, I've quite a few Asian friends/acquaintendes, and they see nothing concerning about being Buddist and Christian, Taoist and Christian, etc.
Always good to hear/read what you think of my comments/musings.
Be Well, Eileen Beal
Fascinating. Having worked with statistics in my insurance career, your work is always intriguing and sometimes very revealing.
Thank you, and Merry Christmas to you and yours.
Merry Christmas Ryan! thank you for what you do.
This is a topic I’m way too passionate about. I noticed a few years ago, through actually looking up the data, that Christmas is a near universal holiday in terms of observance among Americans. Even as the share of active Christians has gone way down, the observance of the holiday has went up.
I don’t celebrate Christmas, but I found myself in the fray, especially back in 2020 and 2021 during the Covid era, when there were huge arguments online in my sphere over things like coloring packets coming home from public schools with candy cane and snowmen.
I saw people (especially my fellow Jews who lived in areas without a lot of other Jews) getting offended by the inclusion of Christmas and going on and on about it being a religious holiday. I had to explain that it’s a federal holiday (and also explaining that the fact of it being a federal holiday doesn’t mean I agree with it, it just is) and that if something like 94 percent of people celebrate it (that was the statistic I found for 2020, when I imagine more people were inclined to do something), that meant that a ton of people who are not just nones, but actively identifying with other faiths, also celebrate it. Then I’d spend the remainder of my time arguing that my presenting that fact doesn’t mean I agree that non-Christians should be celebrating Christmas, it just shows up in the data that they are.
The simple large scale numbers in the data indicates that there are a lot of Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists, and even Jews (which makes sense as like 70% are partnered with non-Jews) in addition to Christians and nones who celebrate Christmas.
The comparisons I am more interested in are Christmas v/v the winter solstice v/v New Years. Seems too much like apples and oranges in this data.
Out of a sample of 1000 Americans, 27 of them said that they celebrated the Winter Solstice. It's statistically unwise to do any type of analysis on a group where the N size is 27.
Ryan, I have a reasonably wide group of friends and family, spanning a lot of Christian, semi or ex Christian, Jewish (“secular” and observant) and nones of diverse flavors. Just a few would do self conscious rituals around the solstice; but most would notice it and of course it is religious studies 101 to trace how Christmas rituals take up some solstice observations that ran before and alongside Christianity. (In my own circles this could include St. Lucia Day which I suppose could poll as Christian or Other in your data set.)
Meanwhile MOST of these people would use shorthand about “Christmas breaks” or travel for “Christmas” (even though some would prefer “holiday” there), while a far lower percentage of them would go to a church as part of it. A far lower percentage than that could say honestly that the church parts is the most important part of the whole.
After this I would venture to hypothesize that New Year’s parties would on balance be on par in importance with Christmas ones insofar we can separate this out. But all somewhere in a cultural bucket with “Christmas time.”
Of course this is anecdotal in some ways but how far off the norm is it really?
I’m not saying your data is unimportant as far as it goes, and if it can’t much address this sort of complexity so be it. I like a lot of methods in my analytical toolbox. I was just commenting on what would interest me more to sort out with some tools or others.
What jumps out to me is that for both Baby Boomers and Gen X, their childhood Christmas experiences were more religious in nature- I wondered the same thing as well and like you, there isn't any one answer to that question. That was a really interesting article, thanks for taking your Thanksgiving time for this one. Merry Christmas to you and your family.
This reminds me of a recent Supreme Court case where they ruled that a cross was not a religious symbol because of its ubiquity in the US as a memorial symbol. I remember in my White Evangelical past there being a specific pushback against holiday stuff--like Santa--that didn't explicitly point to the tRuE MeAnInG of Xmas.