Talk:Christmas/Archive 3

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Secular Christmas

Should this article perhaps have a section on "Observance by non-Christians" to detail Christmas as celebrated by people of faiths other than Christianity and by the non-religious? This section could provide information on the number of non-Christians who celebrate Christmas, the customs which are observed, and the controversy over the secularization of Christmas. -Severa (!!!) 00:34, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

The secularization of Christmas is already mentioned in the History section, so I don't think it needs its own section. Also, I think for the most part the religious and secular celebrations are identitcal, only with Christ removed for the secular celebrations. I can't think of any major differences. What do you proprose for that section? MightyAtom 02:36, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
If there are significant differences, they would be worth noting, especially since we don't have the space limitations that we thought we did. I had also wondered about adding a section for the various controversies, court cases, and rulings. All these things get mentioned in the article, but should they have their own section? --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 04:35, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
I can see the use for a "controversies" section over a "secular Christmas traditions" section. MightyAtom 05:23, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

(reset indent)I think, from an ethnographic perspective, a section covering Christmas practices among non-Christians would be very interesting, if it were well-researched. My proposal for this section is briefly outlined above. Some ideas for this section:

  • How many people who do not identify as Christian state that they celebrate Christmas (as opposed to another holiday)?
  • How do these numbers vary from nation to nation, religion to religion, etc.?
  • What common Western Christmas customs and themes are practiced or observed by non-Christians who celebrate Christmas around the world?
  • Are there any special traditions among non-Christians, in, say, Japan or India? I know most of this is already covered in "Regional customs and celebrations." Perhaps it could be moved and expanded upon in this new section.
  • What meaning or significance do non-Christians assign to Christmas, if not the birth of Christ?
  • Does church attendence among non-Christians increase during the Holiday season?
  • The controversy over the secularization of Christmas, which I think would more appropriately be handled in this section, if it is developed, rather than "History."

A "Controversies/Legal issues" section is also a very good idea. It would be an appropriate place to cover secularization concerns. Discussion of laws, such as the Saudi Arabian law mentioned in "Christmas Tree and other decorations," and case law related to Christmas are another possibility. -Severa (!!!) 07:59, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Many good suggestions, and for the most part I agree. All of these points (properly cited, of course) would be great material to include. The one exception I see is perhaps the history section. I think it makes sense to keep the chronology - pre-Christian origins, Christian origins, then each historical period in order. Given Severa's long experience editing controversial and difficult articles, I think we could also use guidance on maintaining balance and neutrality. --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 16:30, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it definitely sounds like you have a good take on it. Although I wouldn't know where to do the research. For myself growing up, I always celebrated a secular Christmas. All of the Christmas holiday specials, like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman and How the Grinch Stole Christmas! were always completely secular. The same with books like A Visit from St. Nicholas and A Christmas Carol. However, that is all original research...MightyAtom 00:46, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

There have been recent additions to the section on modern times detailing Christian concerns over secularization. Most of them are things that everyone has heard of, but I think citations are still required so I've added a fact tag.

I deleted one statement that cannot be supported by citations: "Recently, the song Silent Night has had new, secular lyrics written for it. The new version, Cold in the Night, has received harsh criticism not only for its secularization of a beloved Christmas carol, but also for its dark lyrics." This is a misleading charge that arose last year, notable in Bill O'Reilly's appearance on the David Letterman show. There was in fact a song, Cold in the Night, sung to the tune of Silent Night, but it was not rewritten out of PC/secular concerns. It was part of a children's musical called The Little Tree's Christmas Gift, written in 1988, which used several new versions of older Christmas songs to tell the story. The play's author is a musical director at Bel Air Presbyterian Church; the play has been performed by churches across the USA; the author has said "the play was a really charming, wonderful, positive story about love and acceptance ... removing it from the Christian tradition was something I never thought anyone could ever come up with." (See this article, or the wiki article on Dodgeville, Wisconsin.)

Given how easily accusations of creeping secularism and political correctness are thrown about in the popular culture in cases like this, I think some solid references for these controversies must be provided. Eron 18:22, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Even though this page mentions some of the secular aspects of Christmas (which I have absolutely no problem with as I fully take part in both secular and religious celebrations) the page mainly has to do with the religious side of the festival. Therefore I'm not happy with the use of a Christmas tree as the main image of the page when it should be a picture (traditional or contemporary, I don't care) of the Nativity of Jesus. After all, the festival at this time of year as it used to be before Jesus was born would be completely different only for this event, let alone the fact that it would have a different name or may have died out altogether.

This page should be about all aspects of Christmas, giving equal balance and space to both secular and religious aspects. If you feel it is too religiously focused, please help contribute to establish a better balance. Also, speculations like "would have a different name or may have died out altogether" can't really be addressed here. MightyAtom 03:35, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to agree with many posters here

The Christmas holiday has nothing to do with Christ. I would like to cite the historical section of our artical which clearly illustrates that the holiday was and is Pagan, not Christian. By continuing to mislead people, that Jesus has anything to do with that holiday you are attempting to rewrite history and that is not our job.

I would suggest that the article start off saying something to the effect: Christmas is a "[Christianized] term" for a traditional holiday practiced by many cultures throughout the world.

I think that would be a more accurate opening.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.133.207.244 (talk • contribs) 22:38, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Clearly, Christ and Christianity are very important to Christmas, so this suggestion can't realy be taken seriously. MightyAtom 02:46, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
That comment indicates one of the major challenges of this article...neutrality. It seems everyone wants to own Christmas. --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 04:35, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
The key is verifiability. There are no sources that define Christmas as what the original poster suggested. Every source imaginable (i.e.- encyclopedias, dictionaries, other notables) desribes the holiday as being the celebration of the birth of Jesus, with various secular aspects. Although the secular aspects often dominate the celebration of the holiday, this is why they are called "aspects"; they are methods of celebration. One does not just "stare at a picture of Jesus" to celebrate his birth, they enjoy each others' company, disperse gifts, and involve in various secular AND religious aspects. Some prefer only the secular aspects (sometimes ignoring Jesus' birth), some only the religious.— OLP 1999 05:33, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, I will find the middle ground, and say that every reputable source imaginable describes Christmas as a amalgamation of various pre-Christian holidays that were adopted/assimilated by Christianity, which where then further evolved across the centuries to include the secular and religous traditions of a wide variety of cultures which each contributed their own elements leaving us with a popular holiday that is celebrated by an imense mixture of people but which can be exclusively claimed by none. To some people, Christmas is the birth of Jesus. To some people, Christmas is a season of giving. To some, it is an appreciation of family and traditions. To some people, it is a celebration of the Earth's continuing orbit around the Sun, and the end of Winter. To some, it is a romantic evening to share with a lover. In this case, all are correct and absolutely none are wrong. There is no "reason for the season," other than human beings have celebrated at this particular time of the year for roughly as long as there has been recorded history. Celebrations on or about December 25th happened long before Jesus's birth, and will continue for the forseable future. Now, let's try and be inclusive and give everyone equal respect and acknowledgement for this important holiday. OK?MightyAtom 18:21, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
Agreed MightyAtom, and thanks for such a reasonable and eloquent summary of the situation. --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 18:43, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
  • [1][2][3]. These sources irrefutably reference the birth of Jesus as the opening statement and the definition of the holiday. The secular aspects are always secondary which thus suggests the birth of Jesus is the most documented main definition of this holiday. Sure, the secular version can have first paragraph mention but not the very first sentence.— OLP 1999 18:56, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
Human beings have celebrated at this particular time of the year for roughly as long as there has been recorded history. Celebrations on or about December 25th happened long before Jesus's birth, and will continue for the forseable future." This statement is absolutely true. However, those midwinter celebrations were not and are not Christmas. Wikipedia has articles for all these festivals - Hannukah, Yule, Winter Solstice Festival, Saturnalia, etc. Some midwinter festivals predate Christmas by millenia. I understand that, more than the other festivals, Christmas has gradually taken on more and more secular aspects, and that for many people it is now a purely secular holiday. But its origins are still as a Christian religious festival. The fact that it is probably the most widely celebrated midwinter festival does not mean that all it is is a midwinter festival. Eron 19:18, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
Good point, and no one is denying that it is a Christian holiday, just trying to present a balanced picture of its origins and observances. --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 05:01, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, some people are trying to deny it: "The Christmas holiday has nothing to do with Christ." That aside, I fully support a balanced picture that includes the secular aspects of the modern holiday, and the pre-Christian antecedents of many "Christmas" traditions. (We drag a great big evergreen tree into the house on the longest, coldest, night of the year, and hang lights all over it; how can anyone miss the pagan imagery?) Eron 19:46, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Exactly. Well said. Just because someone decides the secular aspects of this holiday are more important or significant to them personally, does not mean they can rid of the Christian ties and origins of this holiday. If you really want to disconnect yourself from these ties, celebrate Winter Solstice or Yule. Alot of neo-Pagans do.— OLP 1999 06:23, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Let's please focus on the article and refrain from personal comments. --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 06:37, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Goddess help me, I find that I have to agree with OLP... Christmas is, by definition, originally and always a Christian holiday. Yes, it happens that it coincides with alot of winter celebrations, and by no accident that, but it is still a Christian holiday. I observe Yule on the 21st-22nd, not Christmas. BUT I do attend festivities on the 25th with my family while THEY observe Christmas.

Let's stop all the bashing and bouts of political correctness before the Christian commenters here have apoplexy. I will AGREE that the first paragraph should be ONLY about Christ and His birth and Christmas. HOWEVER, the second paragraph should point out that the Christians intentionally placed Christmas to coincide with the Pagan festivals, thereby continuing a policy they used over and over. Embrace, engulf, devour and then kill the few old believers that are left by calling the local gods and goddesses demons when the previous year they were sharing sacred space with the local worshippers.

BTW, it is fairly certain the historical Jesus, if he existed and if the stories about "shepherds in the fields sleeping with their flocks" are correct, Jesus was born in the spring, during birthing season, as this is the only time in that part of the world that the shepherds would have been sleeping in the fields with their flocks. --Bill W. Smith, Jr. 07:42, 19 November 2006 (UTC)



Well, upon reviewing my original post I would like to moderate my original statements because I understand the confusion between the term "Christmas" and the related practices. It is my belief that we must clarify in the minds of laypeople(and people of other cultures) that Christmas is a commonly used term, often commercial, sometimes secular and used to apply to all seasonal celebrations, i.e. "state Christmas tree", when in fact the united states government is not affiliated with any particular religion.

I would like to insist that the opening paragraph is highly bias and simply incorrect as it stands now:

1) Defines the Christian history of a celebration
2) Brief history
3) Anecdote
4) Note on the fallacy of placement of the celebration
5) Secular statement, as though the "Christmas tree" and "Santa Claus" are secular in origin, which they are not.

The way to fix this is to separate the term Christmas from the seasonal celebrations in the minds of readers. Christmas is a commonly used religious and secular term first. Second, it is a Christian celebration of a Jewish man's birth.

Revised suggestion:
1) Define Christmas as a commonly used term
2) Christian definition of the celebration
3) Brief history of celebrations
4) Note on the Christian placement of the holiday
5) Accurate attribution of Christmas, brief origins of

Proposed pp:
Christmas is a "[Christianized] term" for a traditional holiday practiced by many cultures throughout the world; the term is often used in a secular and commercial capacity. Christmas (literally, the Mass of Christ) is a holiday in the Christian calendar, usually observed on December 25, which celebrates the birth of the man, Jesus Christ. The first Christmas celebration took place in Rome about the middle of the fourth century. The exact date of the nativity is not known, but the period from December 25 to January 6 — now known as "The Twelve Days of Christmas", is traditionally a time of celebration for many cultures throughout the world.

Additionally:
I would like to ask that all references in the article precisely identify that "Jesus" is Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus Christ. My Christian friends should also support this request, as my Mexican gardener is also named Jesus and I am left wondering which Jesus you are celebrating, lol.
--66.133.207.244 20:41, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

This section has been vandalised in the etymotoly and the history sections. I do not have an account and don't really know how this all works but just thought I'd give a heads up. Maybe it should be moderated (as I've seen with other sections...some people need to grow up)

Thanks —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 192.188.168.12 (talk • contribs).

Hi, thanks for noticing our little vandalism problem. This page has been protected now, so things should settle down. --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 19:57, 20 November 2006 (UTC) Insert non-formatted text here

Nature of the holiday

For reasons of both accuracy and balance, I would support the version of the first sentence which reads: ..."Christmas is a Christian and secular holiday...". This makes it clear that there is a variety of reasons why people celebrate, but gives primacy to the Christian aspect, which seems reasonable to me. It might be necessary to add a brief mention to clarify that the secular aspects don't revolve around the birth of Jesus, which is currently a bit unclear. Doc Tropics 16:48, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

From your quote directly you say "secular aspects", which indicates that you agree that the secular aspects are "aspects", not primary reasons for celebration. Just because Christmas has secular aspects doesn't mean it's a secular holiday. Verifying your belief that it is a secular holiday by saying "many only celebrate the secular aspects" is original research and still wouldn't make it a secular holiday nonetheless. The fact that many American schools ban use of the word "Christmas" and ban Christmas carols (traditional AND secular) only proves that it is definitely a sectarian, Christian holiday. This is not a secular holiday.— OLP 1999 17:14, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
U.S. Courts disagree with your personal opinion on this matter, as do tens of millions of people who celebrate Christmas in secular fashion. I'm willing to give Christians top billing here, that seems reasonable. But it's not reasonable to deny all non-Christian aspects. I think there is plenty of room for compromise here. I'm going to insert a slightly modified and expanded lead. Please allow others to review and comment on this, don't just delete the material...Doc Tropics 17:27, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
The only role the US courts have in this situation is deciding whether or not Christmas Day is a federal holiday. Of course they are going to say it is because 96% of the population celebrates it and would want the day off. They obviously needed to justify their decision by calling it a secular holiday because of separation of church and state. If I and millions of Christians celebrated Hanukkah just because we like lighting eight candles it wouldn't make it a half-Christian half-Jewish holiday. I understand alot of people celebrate the secular aspects of Christmas only, but that doesn't mean they're celebrating Christmas, it could be considered Yule or Solstice or even "Giftmas" (which was a former Wiki article). Either way, it depends on consensus so I'll leave the new version until we get further input.— OLP 1999 17:34, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks OLP, I'm glad we can discuss contentious issues in reasonable fashion : )
BTW - Christmas has long been established as a Federal holiday in the U.S., but that is unrelated to court cases which have consistently declared it a secular holiday. Your statement that "...they obviously needed to justify their decision..." is purely specualtive OR. As to your Hanukkah example, if 100 million non-Jews suddenly begin celebrating Hanukkah every year, then yes, we would rewrite the article to reflect that, giving due weight to it's origins while expanding the content to include all the facts. At this point however, I too will wait for more opinions. Doc Tropics 17:44, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

OLP, thanks for tweaking my addition to the lead. It wasn't quite right, and your version is better. Doc Tropics 17:50, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree, good rewrite Doc and that last tweak helped clarify. Shell babelfish 17:55, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Note on 2nd para: As the beginning of the first sentnce now reads: "The modern popularity of Christmas can be attributed to the fact that Christianity is the world's largest religion", this appears to be partially original research. The cite provided supports the assertion that Christianity is the largest religion (a point which might be considered only tangentially relevant), but nowhere does it state that Christmas is popular for this reason. I would suggest it be rewritten unless a specific cite can be found to support the conclusion. Doc Tropics 19:16, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

There are no citations for the other argument, which states that Christmas is popular due to its status as a winter festival. The only citation is one that links Yule to Christmas historically speaking. I inserted the Christianity argument to create a POV balance. If you wish to remove my addition then the entire paragraph must be removed or rewritten with citations. Why is it that the Christianity-related segments need citations while the winter festival ones do not?— OLP 1999 19:25, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
What would you suggest for a rewrite?— OLP 1999 19:28, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
This gets into a question of how much we can infer from two facts without it becoming original research. There are two easily cited facts: 1) Christmas is a Christian holiday and 2) Christianity is the world's largest religion. From these, I can infer that 3) Many people in the world celebrate Christmas as a Christian holiday. Is that OR?
Similarly, we have 1) Christmas is a winter festival and 2) Many people in the world like to celebrate winter festivals leading to 3) Many people in the world celebrate Christmas as a winter festival.
Rather than use the word "popularity", which does include a certain subjective quality, would it be better to say, "The global spread of Christianity has led to Christmas being widely celebrated around the world. The secular aspects of the holiday have also led to its adoption by non-Christians as a winter festival."
(I think the first sentence is on more solid non-OR grounds than the second, but I don't think either is an affront to common sense or reason) -- Eron 19:40, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm still thinking this over and trying to find a middle ground that can be properly sourced and would satisfy all parties. I didn't want anyone to think I'm ignoring these comments, because I'm about to start another small section. Doc Tropics 20:17, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Eron, I would agree 100% with a rewrite including "The global spread of Christianity has led to Christmas being widely celebrated around the world. The secular aspects of the holiday have also led to its adoption by non-Christians as a winter festival", as you stated. I think your revision explains in great detail what I was trying to express with my addition. Feel free to change it. Doc Tropics, I'm interested in seeing your new small section; I'm glad we can all work together here and try to find some middle ground as you mentioned.— OLP 1999 23:26, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
In general, I can also support Eron's suggestion. I think the phrase "...led to its adoption by non-Christians" might need a little tweaking, but if you put it in now, we can always polish it later. I'm also very happy with finding a middle ground, this actually looks like progress : ) Doc Tropics 23:36, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Okay, but I don't understand what's wrong with the "...led to its adoption by non-Christians" phrase—are you saying that secular people are not adopting the celebration of Christmas but are in fact adopting...just selected aspects and calling it a non-specific generic winter festival? If so, then wouldn't the indication in the introduction that this holiday is a "Christian and secular holiday" be inaccurate because those who are secular have not in fact "adopted Christmas", but have just selected secular aspects? Correct me if I'm wrong, but that was my assumption.— OLP1999 23:50, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

My only issue with the phrase is that it implies a certain chronology; ie, that Christmas came first and was later adopted as a holiday by others (sorry, I wasn't at all clear about that). This is kind of the reverse of the way things happened, and just needs some minor clarification. I'm not offering a specific suggestion at the mo', just because my brain isn't in high gear and my attention is scattered. Please do go ahead and make the change; I really am happy with it, despite minor quibbles like that. Doc Tropics 00:03, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

We should stick to the facts as much as possible here, rather than inferences and speculations. It is well-established that the nature and focus of Christmas has fluxuated over its history, ranging from a wild drunken party to a serious religious observation to a secular family gathering. Modern Christmas retains all of these aspects together, and people individualy choose which ones they want to celebrate, and ignore the ones they don't. We can't really be justified in saying exactly which of these aspects of Christmas lead to its continuing popularity. MightyAtom 00:13, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Okay then. For the secular part, how about a simple statement of fact without delving into causes? "The global spread of Christianity has led to Christmas being celebrated around the world. The holiday has also been widely adopted by non-Christians as a secular winter festival." I'm going to be bold and make that change.
Then there is the lead sentence: "Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual Christian and secular holiday that celebrates the birth of Jesus with many secular winter festival themes." I know that we are trying to balance the competing aspects of the modern holiday, but I find it a bit... clunky. I think we may need to take a few more words to express things. It is a complicated holiday, with it's pre-Christian, Christian, and post-Christian aspects. We can't expect to explain that in a bullet point.
I'm thinking of an opening that reads like this: "Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday. Originally a Christian feast day marking the birth of Jesus Christ, over time Christmas has developed many secular aspects. Today, Christmas is celebrated by Christians and non-Christians alike."
There it is; fire at will. -Eron 02:01, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate the new sentences, but unless you can find a source, I just can't support anything that links the spread of Christianity to the spread of Christmas. For instance, Japan started celebrating Christmas because of commerce. American companies hired Japanese manufacturers to produce Christmas-themed toys, decorations, etc...The Japanese workers got curious about what they were making, and started bringing them home from the factories. Japanese companies saw a potential market, and started selling the stuff from their own storefronts. MightyAtom 02:34, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I'll see what I can dig up. To my mind it is self-evident that as Christianity spread, its practices spread with it, but I recognize the vast gap that sometimes exists between "self-evident" and "factually correct". I'll also note that I only meant to refer to the spread of the celebration of Christmas as a Christian holiday; I recognize that a much different dynamic was probably a factor in the spread of secular practices.
On that note, that is an interesting point about Japan. I wasn't aware of that. Properly referenced (of course!) it would be a great addition to the article. - Eron 03:55, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

A minor point

In the last sentence of the intro, "widespread influences", someone has repeatedly inserted "Australia" into this sentence, and I've removed it more than once. Am I just another ignorant American? I'm simply unaware of any widespread Australian influence on the holiday. Does this merit inclusion? Doc Tropics 20:17, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

A quick review of the references to this article, and of Christmas worldwide, doesn't reveal any noted Australian influences that have global reach. I'm going to remove that; if someone wants it back in, they can provide a reference to support it. (I'm happy to play the ignorant Canadian.) -Eron 21:30, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Similarly with "British". The bits of british Christmas culture that are spreading worldwide are either American or European (Santa Claus, Christmas Tree). Since the article is protected, can someone remove "British" from the intro? 195.128.251.214 20:49, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure; the "traditional" western Christmas owes as much to Dickens as to anyone else. Some of those British customs may have filtered through the US on their way to other parts of the world, but I think that Britain still stands as a primary influence on the modern holiday. - Eron Talk

Asian Christmas?

Recently this was added "The holiday has also been vastly adopted by non-Christians as a secular winter festival, namely in Hong Kong and the PRC whereas there are small Christian populations."

I added Japan to this list, as it is a common holiday in Japan, but I am curious about the others. As far as I know, South Korea is the only East Asian country to recognise Christmas as a public holiday, and Chinese Christmas celebrations are largly an importation of the Japanese secular version. There is no link between Chinese Christian populations and the celebration of Christmas.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-12/25/content_403184.htm

MightyAtom 03:38, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Here, Hong Kong's inclusion is verified. As for the PRC, the same section also mentions that secular Christmas customs and traditions are becoming more prominent in China due to Western influence. As for whether Chinese Christmas celebrations are an importation from Japan, it makes no difference. The fact that it is celebrated as a secular winter festival with no Christian connotations is really the point. I think there is merit for inclusion of all three examples.— OLP1999 03:50, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm really more inclined to keep the lead clear of too much specific detail. This is a long article and there is a lot of space below the TOC to detail particular areas of the globe where Christmas is celebrated one way or another. I'm not sure we need to list specific countries in a general introductory statement that Christmas is celebrated more-or-less everywhere. When I wrote of non-Christians adopting Christmas as a secular festival, I was thinking just as much of my Canadian atheist friends who put up trees as I was of Chinese or Koreans. - Eron 03:52, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Eron, and think we should drop specific countries from the intro. MightyAtom 03:57, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

But mentioning entire countries that have very minute Christian populations as examples helps to support the theory that Christmas is vastly celebrated in a wholly non-religious manner. A Canadian atheist celebrating it might be expected to do so since Canada has a large Christian population, and is rich in Christmas culture and other Christian traditions. Also, it is likely that a Canadian atheist would have close ancestral relatives (as close as parents or grandparents) who were/are Christian due to lower atheist populations in the recent past. I wouldn't disagree with its removal, but think it helps support the secular celebratory theory— OLP1999 04:08, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
I think we definitely need to describe the observance of Christmas in countries like China, and try to explain why and how it came to be. I just don't think we need to do it in the introduction. Eron 04:10, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree. There is already the Regional customs and celebrations section as well as an entire Christmas worldwide page. We should try as best as possible not to duplicate information. That was a problem with the older version of this article, with the same information being introduced several times in several different sections. MightyAtom 04:15, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh yeah, Christmas worldwide... it needs a bit of work too. -Eron 04:17, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I understand. As I already mentioned above, I wouldn't be against its removal, and with both of your comments I'm going to agree to go forth with removing it. Thank you both for your co-operation and thanks for not just reverting.— OLP1999 04:20, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
In Japan, South Korea, and to a lesser extent in China, Christmas is a girlfriend/boyfriend holiday. Think Valentine's Day + New Year's Day + Santa Claus. I've never seen any explanation of how it happened. The phenomenon is even more bizarre when you consider that South Korea is nearly half Christian, yet it is the Japanese (non-Christian) version of Christmas that they celebrate. If any of these countries are mentioned, it should be Japan. Japan is the trend setter and Christmas is certainly more popular there than in China.Kauffner 04:26, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

References

Congratulations to everyone for their work on this article so far! It is good to have lots of points of views here, and I think we are getting a much more balanced article. A major next step for us should be to work on getting inline citations and solid references up for a lot of this. What do you think? MightyAtom 04:00, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. We appear to have lots of shiny new [citation needed] tags at the moment. A round of cites and refs is probably in order. Doc Tropics 04:13, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Intro. issue

I'm having a problem with a certain phrase in the introduction. Though a small issue, I think it needs to be fixed because the introductory sentences of an article are essential to the entire article as they fully summarize the contents and the article's subject. I don't like how the phrase "It is traditionally observed on 25 December." ends abruptly with a period, and then is followed by the same subject matter, "Eastern Orthodox Churches celebrate it on 7 January, which corresponds to 25 December of the Julian calendar". I think we need to rewrite this portion or at least get rid of the period after 25 December. It rings too much like a sentence fragment and though it would be permissible later in the article, I think the introduction needs to be able to be read easily and smoothly. Any comments or suggestions?— OLP1999 04:30, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree, the intro is really clumsy. Plus it uses the word "traditionaly" twice in a row. Yikes! MightyAtom 04:42, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Oh yeah, that's a bit clumsy! Full agreement here. Doc Tropics 04:47, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I re-worked the opening. Didn't add anything new, just moved things around to try and make it a little more organized and flow better. Give it a look and see what you think! MightyAtom 06:05, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

WONDERFUL changes, MightyAtom. I tweaked a few things like spelling errors and capitalization but the changes were great and very well appreciated. I think your newly written introduction is closest to perfection this article has ever seen. Great job!— OLP1999 07:02, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Outstanding work. I think it's excellent, and the fact that OLP does too is practically exhilirating. Atom's new version is very impressive, and so is this new-found spirit of co-operation. The wiki-way seems to have really worked out here : ) Doc Tropics 09:16, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Very nice work on the intro. Eron 13:05, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

slight typo

Just letting someone know that the polsih "santa" is Święty Nikołaj not Mikołaj.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 38 66.71.44.107 (talk • contribs).

Thanks for pointing that out; it's fixed now. Doc Tropics 21:12, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

De-Mithras edit

I've modified the ancient origins of Christmas section to remove material which is rather odd and contradicted by the linked-to pages. The idea that Mithras had some kind of festival on 25 Dec. is mistaken; the festival is that of Sol Invictus (which is not associated with Mithras). The idea that the Sol Invictus feast was created in 274 is a theory, for which no actual evidence exists (although I believe it, myself, but no evidence means it cannot be stated as fact). The theotokos was the subject of dispute a century later, so can't be relevant. The idea that Christmas was created by the church to promote the idea that Christ became divine at the incarnation is daft, since the church held no such view (on either side of those disputes). We need to be wary of some of this stuff, which goes around and around, but for which no primary sources are ever cited. I've linked in the Chronography of 354, which gives the first witness to the Sol Invictus festival. I hope that's OK with everyone; but I don't see who benefits from letting these legends carry on. As far as I can tell, no-one actually *knows* how Christmas came to be on that date. Roger Pearse 17:27, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

And even as I wrote those words, someone nipped in and reverted all my changes on the grounds that I had deleted "valid material" and made "too many changes", and exhorted me to "use the talk page". Frankly I wonder why I bothered -- let's just write Wikipedia off as a heap of crap and move on. Roger Pearse 17:33, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
OK, calm down. I noticed your changes to the article, which are rather sweeping for a single edit. I then checked the talkpage in case I had missed some new discussion. You hadn't discussed the changes prior to making them, so I reviewed again before reverting. While I actually agree with certain points and certain changes, it's very difficult for others to evaluate the differences when there are so many in one go. This article has several regular contributors who have put a lot of effort into working together to meld disparate views into a useful consensus. While you're welcome (really welcome) to join the discussion, it would probably be helpful to make changes in smaller increments so that the points can be considered individually. Please remember that this is a contentious topic because it touches on deeply held personal beliefs for many people. I'm, not trying to say your changes were "bad", just that they need consensus. Doc Tropics 17:42, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
It was remarkably hard to write anything on the talk page before you reverted it, since you did so within 6 minutes of the change, and without writing anything on the talk page. As for smaller changes, what about this: produce any ancient source or any modern scholarly textbook that says that Mithras was born on 25 Dec. You will find none. It's a myth. Roger Pearse 02:36, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

There are quite a few references stating that Mithras' birthday was observed on December 25.

For example: http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/holidaysfestivals/a/solsticeceleb_4.htm

"The comparison of Mithraists and Christians is not coincidental. December 25 was Mithras' birthday before it was Jesus'."

"...he actual choice of December 25 for Christmas was made under the Emperor Aurelian because this was the date of the Winter Solstice and was the day devotees of Mithras celebrated the dies natalis solis invicti (birthday of the invincible sun)."

http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/jesus.asp

"On December 25 (the date of the winter solstice) pagan Romans, still in the majority, celebrated Natalis Solis Invincti, "Birthday of the Invincible Sun God," Mithras."

http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/newsletter/2000/dec08.html

"The eventual choice of December 25, made perhaps as early as 273, reflects a convergence of Origen's concern about pagan gods and the church's identification of God's son with the celestial sun. December 25 already hosted two other related festivals: natalis solis invicti (the Roman "birth of the unconquered sun"), and the birthday of Mithras,"

MightyAtom 23:37, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Based on solid references, I have edited the Mithras information back in. In a disputed section like that, I think we need to be extra careful with our references. I have made sure to link a reputable source to every change I made. MightyAtom 00:05, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, you sound as if you're doing your best, and I can't criticise you for that. But any useful "reference" must be to something better than some amateur web-sites, however numerous. There is a reason why you won't find any scholarly sources, and still less any ancient source that says this. It's because it isn't true. All these sites above are doing is repeating hearsay. Always ask to see the ancient source that says something about antiquity (very many of these sources are online). If such doesn't appear, ten-to-one it's a myth. This idea about Mithras seems to go back to a very careless comment in Appendix C of the English translation of Cumont, and even there it had no reference. Roger Pearse 02:36, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Right now it seems there are references (however shaky they may be) for the December 25 - Mithras connection. Is there a comparable reference that disproves, or casts doubt, on those references? We can - and should - accommodate different points of view, especially if there is no consensus in the sources. If there are sources that dispute the Mithras claim, let's note that and reference them. - Eron 02:47, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I really don't think The History Channel or Christian History and Biography magazine, can be dismissed as "amature web-sites." They seem like pretty solid sources to me. Snopes has a good reputation too, and is often used on wikipedia for cites. Like Enron says, if you have a equally reputable reference that casts doubts on this, we can add something to that effect. But it looks like most sources are in agreement of the Sol Invictus/Mithras link, and those festivals, along with others, being the predecessors to Christmas. MightyAtom 03:31, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Aurelian picked the date of Christmas? Right there, I'd say there is a little something to be desired about your sources. Aurelian was a Sol Invictus devotee. Christians already recognized Dec. 25 as the date of Christ's birth before Aurelian's time, as the Sextus Julius Africanus reference in the article shows. (This is from Britannica.)
I cited the magazine History Today for the material about Christmas being used to promote the church's Christological views. This relates the the Nestorian controversy (over when Jesus became divine). Roger Pearse is probably thinking of the Arian issue (over whether Jesus was fully divine), which is a different Christological controversy.
As far as why December 25 was chosen as date of Christmas: the late December/early January period is nine months after Annunciation (March 25). December 25 finally won out over, for example, January 6 (which was also considered), probably because it was the date the Romans marked the Winter Solstice. (January 6 being the date of the Egyptian solstice celebration, now Epiphany.) In Iran, Mithras' birthday (Yalda) was celebrated on the solstice, so this would transpose to Dec. 25 when he was adopted as a Roman god.
The material about Yule in the article makes no sense at all. Pagan Scandinavia used a lunar calendar, so there is no way Yule could correspond to December 21 or to any other date on the Julian/Gregorian calendar. Nor is it possible that Yule was held on the solstice, since that wouldn't correspond to any particular date on a lunar calendar.Kauffner 04:13, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

"Pre-Christian origins" issue

This section seems to lack any text that connects any of the mentioned former pagan feasts to Christmas, such as how Christmas came to be on December 25 and how these holidays affected that decision, as well as what aspects of these holidays were borrowed to be included in the celebration of Christmas. As of current, the section seems to only be explaining what these holidays were about and when they occurred, not the story (or theory, perhaps) between their relation to Christmas. Could anyone, perhaps MightyAtom, make some clarifications on this and make it clear as to what connections these holidays have to Christmas?— OLP1999 05:46, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

That's a good point. I suspect that those of us who worked on the section are so accustomed to taking the connections as a given, that we focused on the the details of "what came before" without providing specific text and evidence for the later intertwining. Also, that section has been edited, cross-edited, and vandalised so many times it's difficult to keep it coherent at all. Since Mighty Atom has done such a stellar job so far, I'm more than happy to volunteer him for this mission : ) Doc Tropics 06:50, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
I've gone through and given the section an amount of organization it was lacking before this but it could still use some work. :bloodofox: 15:21, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate the faith! I have been pretty busy lately, and so haven't been able to work on the article as much as I like. I will chip in when I can! MightyAtom 12:39, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Christmas Lanterns

Can some please discuss about Christmas Lanterns? It is how Christmas is being symbolized in the Philippines. John earlm 16:02, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

As a local custom, that is probably covered in Christmas customs in the Philippines. - Eron 16:20, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Content dispute

Because Zachd62790 vandalized my userpage by adding obscenity to it here I made a not-unreasonable assumption that he is, well,...a vandal. However, his non-productive edits to this page have the appearance of a content dispute, and I don't want to violate 3RR. Would another editor please review his "contributions" and clean things up? Thanks. Doc Tropics 00:13, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

My bad on the vandalism,but I have a valid point; your assertation that December 25th "is not believed to be the true birthdate of Jesus" is way too broad. Who doesn't believe this? Many Christians do think that it is the true date. If you insist on removing my edits no matter how I word them, than at least fix this inaccuracy yourself. Zachd62790 01:36, 3 December 2006 (UTC)Zachd62790
On the contrary, you seem to misunderstand the sentence in question; belief is not an issue. In fact, "belief" is irrelevant in a discussion of facts. December 25th is the date that Christmas is celebrated, but no one (with any education at all) actually thinks that Jesus was born on that day. There is no evidence to support such a belief, and all evidence is against it.Is that what you're trying to assert...that Jesus was actually born on the 25th? Find a reliable, verifiable source which states this to be true, and then we can talk again. Until then, your unsourced POV statements have no place here. Nor do your personal perversions have any place on my userpage. Doc Tropics 01:50, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Just for the record, there are many people (though they might only be children who have completed some public grammar school) who do acually think that Christmas is the real birthday of Jesus Christ. DSG, 3 December 2006 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.170.54.197 (talk • contribs) 04:08, 3 December 2006 (UTC).
Yes, and the job of an encyclopedia is to educate them, not to perpetuate their ignorance. Doc Tropics 04:30, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Your comment on education has convinced me that this is not worth my time. I can guarantee you that there are educated people who hold on to their traditional beliefs. You might want to edit your user page. If you want to call people who firmly believe in their religion uneducated, then I'll insult you too. Zachd62790 02:00, 3 December 2006 (UTC)Zachd62790

  • I was tempted to use this opportunity to "get in the last word", but Z has been blocked and I'll refrain from further comments, except to note that I was not attempting to insult "belief"; I was deploring ignorance. Doc Tropics 02:55, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Brother, can you spare a link?

An IP editor dropped this link into the "Reformation" section. That's wouldn't be the right place given the info this includes, so I brought it here for discussion:

I briefly reviewed the site and I'm a bit dubious about it. It is on "Angelfire" which is a free webhost; therefore this isn't much more than an essay. I didn't want to delete it outright, but I think others should review it carefully before including it. Doc Tropics 03:21, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Brother, can you spare the editing?

A vandal keeps removing information that I place on this page, thinking to have the last word on Christmas and Santa Claus. If only he would respect the rights of others as much as he respects his own. DSG, 3 December 2006

I know you're not talking about me, because I made a point of using as much of your material as possible. I rewrote what I could for a more encyclopedic tone, while leaving your main point untouched. Doc Tropics 04:05, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
What shall we call those who "know" things that are untrue? DSG, 3 December 2006 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.170.54.197 (talk • contribs) 04:10, 3 December 2006 (UTC).

Citing up

I can't help too much, having two major projects as well, but could you use a hand? Adam Cuerden talk 13:14, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to join in; we could probably use a bit of help, especially with cites : ) Doc Tropics 16:25, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

The only remaining items that are tagged as needing citations are items listed in the Modern times section to illustrate the secularization of Christmas. These can be quite difficult to track down - some of these are stated so broadly as to defy verification one way or another ("Some businesses have..."). In many cases, it is easy to find a source showing that some commentator (*cough*BillO'Reilly*cough*) says they happened, but what actually happened is quite different. (This was the case with one listed item that I removed; see above under Secular Christmas.) There is already a link to Christmas controversies, which details many of the modern complaints around secularization. I think all this article really needs is a statement, referenced, that perceptions of secularization are a modern issue - there's no need to list claims which may or may not be verifiable. - Eron 21:41, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

There has been a lot of activity here recently; I didn't actually realize that so many refs had been added. I agree with your suggestion for a single statetment, but I'm disappointed about Bill O'Reilly; so many juicey quotes : ) Doc Tropics 21:46, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Some sections are very good, others are cite-free. Would you rather I added citation needed tags here or in user space (I will help replace them with cites) Ignore phrasing. About to collapse to sleep. Adam Cuerden talk 00:42, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I think adding them right into the article is fine. It provides extra incentive to actually find the references. - Eron 01:53, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I cut out the no-Christmas-trees-in-Saudi-Arabia claim, and Doc beat me to the punch on the fundamentalist Christian version. I can't find any reputable, NPOV sources for either of those. There are sources which suggest that S.A. probably frowns on Christmas decorations, but only inasmuch as they restrict all non-Islamic religious activity. And even if they do... is it really significant enough to be put here? But, if a good source can be found, I won't object to its restoration. - Eron Talk 21:46, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

You've been doing good work Eron; I've mostly been vandal-whacking : ) Doc Tropics 21:49, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

More secularism

I've cut back the section on modern concerns about secularization; it still has a fact tag, as it turns out that objective reports on what is or is not happening - or reports on what people think is or is not happening - to Christmas are hard to come by. Everything I've found so far seems to be either a right-wing fundamentalist comment on the War on Christmas, or a left-wing secular humanist comment that the War on Christmas is just a myth. I could try to triangulate these to come up with an NPOV statement, but I'm worried that could stray into OR territory.

In other secular news, the infobox lists "Winter Holiday" as an alternate name for Christmas; that name is linked to the Christmas controversies page. Is there any evidence that anyone, anywhere, actually calls Christmas "Winter Holiday" (as opposed to Xmas, or Christ's Mass, which are the other two listed names)? If not, I think that needs to be removed. - Eron 04:04, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I've never actually heard someone say "Happy Winter Holiday", but people do say "Happy Holidays" as an alternative to "Merry Christmas", and U.S. schools more often refer to "the holiday season" than "the Christmas season". Of course, that's all OR, too : ) Doc Tropics 04:10, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
I strongly recommend that you both check out the Spring holiday article, which cites various instances of the Easter holiday (and Good Friday) being replaced with "Spring holiday" on the calendar, namely in schools, government calendars, mall Easter promotions, etc. Some of those cites also mention "Winter holiday" replacing "Christmas Day" in the same situations. Not exactly proof of widespread usage of the term "winter holiday" but it certainly isn't OR.— OLP1999 06:09, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Hey, good work! I'll try to incorporate some of those. Doc Tropics 06:19, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, but upon closer inspection, unfortunately that one cite that I added is now defunct; argh I hate when news websites do that. Anyhow, to verify the instance I'm talking about you can check this blog I found on the subject, but blogs are hardly sufficient for referencing so I'll remove the cite now and remove the "Winter holiday" designation until I (may be able to) find another cite. Thanks for the co-operation, Doc Tropics, and I'm glad you're willing to help.— OLP1999 06:29, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

OLP, I found another cite from there that will work well, but I have a question about placement. When your original cite was in the infobox I noticed that it became ref #1, which meant that in intro text, the first visible cite was ref #2. I wondered if this might be confusing to readers who don't glance at the infobox first? Is there any guideline about this placement? I'll drop the new one into the infobox, but maybe we should try to place it elsewhere in the article? In the meantime, please, call me "Doc", we should at least be on a first-name basis : ) Doc Tropics 06:48, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Doc. Sorry for the delayed response, I was doing an extensive rewrite to the introduction at Christmas controversies. I understand your concerns about the ref in the Infobox, and am not entirely sure if there's a guideline concerning that matter. If you like, we can remove it for now, as I'm not sure where we could fittingly place it elsewhere. Perhaps, as well, I'll make an attempt at seeing as to whether we could change the number (#) placement of this ref.— OLP1999 07:29, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
The more I look at it, the more it just bugs me to see the numbers apparently out of sequence; no doubt this reveals some character flaw on my part. I guess I'd like to remove the ref for now, but keep the info (because we know we have a ref for it), until we get a pointer on how it should be handled. BTW - your response was speedy by WP standards : ) Doc Tropics 07:35, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, "Winter Holiday" itself doesn't seem right in the specific context of the infobox. All the usages I'm familiar with refer to the 'season' of holidays, up to and including, New Year. None refer to Xmas Day itself as "Winter Holiday". (sigh) I'll remove it again...

Does anyone actually use Winter Holiday as a replacement for Christmas? When I worked in retail, the term Winter holiday season was used as a catch-all to include Solstice, Yule, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Teng Chieh, Diwali, Soyal, Las Posadas, Zagmuk the birth of the Flying Spaghetti Monster anything else anyone wanted to celebrate at the time, but never as an actual replacement term for Christmas. Granted, I haven't been in the US for a long time, and even longer since I worked retail, but...MightyAtom 11:20, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree; I think "winter holidays" is a term for the whole period of time when schools are closed, people take time off work, etc.; more the season of Christmas than the holiday itself. I don't think we can say that it is an alternate term for Christmas Day. (Oh, and purely anecdotally, my children's 100% secular school board refers to their upcoming two-week holiday as the "Christmas Break" so it looks like the tide of creeping secularism has been stemmed, at least in Ottawa.) - Eron 12:05, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I am glad to hear it, Eron. My students here in Japan are also looking forward to their Christmas holiday, not their Winter holiday. I think sometimes there is a tendency amongst wikipedia editors to feel that the American way is the ONLY way. I am glad to see that the traditions of other countries are represented her as well. MightyAtom 15:25, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Agreed; one of my concerns with the creeping-secularism content of this article was that it seemed to be purely from an American perspective. Eron Talk 15:28, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Origin of Xmas timeframe

I've removed the reference to Christmas first being referred to as xmas in 1173, and replaced it with verbiage indicating it has been in use since the mid-sixteenth century. The citation previously listed was to Oxford English dictionary, however I could find no Oxford article confirming the 1173 date. I did, however find this statement: "...XMAS has been used as an abbreviation since the mid-sixteenth century" at this address [4]. I have changed verbiage to reflect this timeframe and the citation to lead to the exact URL above. 71.36.191.213 06:57, 5 December 2006 (UTC) User coreydaj 1.57AM ET.

Hi, I saw your change, then I noticed that the original OED ref wasn't valid at all, so I removed the lot. It looks like you changed the text but not the ref; hence my confusion. I'll sort this out and match them all up. Thanks for the useful link. Doc Tropics 07:07, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Agh, I think we're going in circles around each other doc! You caught me in mid-edit, before I actually executed my citation change; hence the discontinuity between what you saw and what I said. I'll just leave this in your hands, looks like you've been around this article for a while. I just researched it for my curiousity and figured I'd add a bit of knowledge to the article, as well as cleanup an obvious error people wouldn't catch unless they did a bit of looking into the #4 citation link. Thanks! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Coreydaj (talk • contribs) 07:16, 5 December 2006 (UTC).
LOL, we did stumble on each other, didn't we? How does it look now? I think that was what you wanted, right? Your ref was great, BTW! Always happy to have actual facts in the article : ) Doc Tropics 07:21, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Christmas on January 6 or 7 -- "Old Christmas" or Orthodox Christmas

I can't comment on the timing of Orthodox Christmas, but there is much "traditional information" about people in the British Isles and the Southern United States celebrating Christmas on the date determined from the Julian calendar (January 6 or thereabouts), rather than the Gregorian calendar. Here's a link to a storyteller's website that tells the story pretty straight: http://www.pjtss.net/library/chuck/chuck14.htm . And another link: http://homepages.tesco.net/~jk.calisto/calisto/england/greg_change.htm . And a more citeable source: http://www.lib.unc.edu/ncc/ref/nchistory/dec2004/dec2004.html . —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Orlady (talk • contribs) 02:35, 6 December 2006 (UTC).

More international view in history sections

Hi everyone. Just read the history sections of this article and enjoyed it. Congratulations to everyone who has worked so hard on it. It struck me that the Medieval, Reformation, and Modern sections of this are England-centric (particularly the Reformation section). I was hoping to learn a bit more about Dutch and German traditions, for example, in getting a broader view of how Christmas changed after Roman times. Being new to this area, I don't know if this is considered to be covered elsewhere. Advice? HMAccount 15:24, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with your observation; I think that as primarily English-speaking editors on the English Wikipedia, we've relied heavily on English language sources that give short shrift to non-British tradition. There is certainly scope to fix that, if sources can be found, as I'm sure they can. We don't seem to have a History of Christmas article, so I think this would be the place to do it. There may be some pointers to good sources at the Christmas worldwide article. - Eron Talk 15:42, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
I also agree that more international info would help the article, but as EM pointed out, it presents some difficulties for English-language editors. I like the idea of a History of Christmas article; I think there is enough info to merit a page for it, which could then cross-link with this one. Doc Tropics 15:47, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. I think the entire History section of this page could be copied to a new article; we would just have to trim it back (fairly radically) to a short description, as with the Nativity. That's a significant revision and I think we would want consensus on the rewritten section. I've not worked on something like that before; would it be appropriate to create a sub-page to this talk page to work on a draft of a reduced history section? - Eron Talk 16:22, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I just created User talk:Doc Tropics/History of Christmas for this purpose. Feel free to jump right in and start puttering with it. I'm a little under the weather right now (flu), so I'm not good for much brain-work today; but I think this could be made into a darn good article by the addition of extra material and sources. Doc Tropics 16:27, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I assume we are going to work on History of Christmas at that page, right? On that assumption, I've created User:EronMain/Christmas - History to work on trimming back this article's history section in anticipation of a new main article. - Eron Talk 16:36, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good! Count me in for the fun! MightyAtom 23:56, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for all the responses. I will help if I can - here is a useful source to start with from the City of Nurnberg (but in English) on the history of the Christmas market. [5] and [6]. HMAccount 20:59, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Next steps

There's been a lot of good work done on this article by a lot of editors in recent weeks. I think we are slowly dragging it back towards Featured Article readiness. Are we ready to submit it for a peer review? I think some fresh eyes on the page would be a big help to point out things we might be missing. - Eron Talk 16:30, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

One of the previous concerns had been refs, which I think is now resolved. I'm not sure the article is quite up to FA yet, but agree that we need some 3rd party input at this point. Peer review sounds reasonable; will you inititate it? Doc Tropics 16:38, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
As soon as I figure out how ;) - Eron Talk 16:50, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Heh. I was hoping you knew, because I've never done it : ) Doc Tropics 16:52, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
It is done. There was a minor complication caused by the old peer review, but that's been overcome. And we even have our first comment! I'm not sure I understand what that comment means, but it's a start. - Eron Talk 17:11, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, well done! I have no idea what the comment about "See also" means...we follow standard MOS guidelines for that section. Doc Tropics 17:20, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Review

The first response at this article's review suggested that (in keeping with the MOS we need to remove items from the "See also" section which are already linked in the article. I made a pass through the text and weeded out several, but I probably missed some. Would someone else take another look? Doc Tropics 23:25, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I went and weeded out about three of them. If it is a problem, we can probably find ways to work many of them into the text as well, instead of just linking them at the bottom. MightyAtom 23:53, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I deleted many redundant links from the page, including several in the infobox. Someone has now added the infobox links back in. Am I missing a style point here? Are duplicate wikilinks in the infobox okay? - Eron Talk 01:17, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

From MOS, a relevant word or phrase should be linked the first time it appears, but not thereafter (paraphrased). The only thing I'm not clear about is the infobox itself. Does it count as "first appearance", or does the link rule only apply in the body of the text? I guess it's time to go digging through the MOS again  : ) Doc Tropics 01:39, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure when this happened, but at some point the last sentence of the first para got changed from "...the Santa Claus myth,...", and it now reads "...the arrival of Santa Claus,...". Call me a Grinch but I think the first version was more accurate. Does anyone know why it was changed? Is it too brutal for the kiddies that will doubtless be flocking around here in the next few weeks? Doc Tropics 01:47, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I didn't change it, but I believe the person that did just said it was unnecessary and POV. We didn't say "The Jesus myth," so why put "the Santa Claus myth". MightyAtom 01:57, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
I didn't touch that, although a few days ago I did soften a bit of the text in the Santa Claus section. (Look, I have kids, okay? I'm a big softie.) I actually think we can dispense with "the arrival of" from that sentence. - Eron Talk 02:00, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

In other peer review news, I think we need a checklist where we can import any points raised in the review and strike them off as they are addressed. I've seen them on other pages; I'll see if I can figure out how to put one here. - Eron Talk 02:04, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Checklist is a definite necessity. Personally, I favor "the arrival of Santa Claus," but thats just because I too am a big softie...MightyAtom 02:09, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
OK, general agreement here too - remove "arrival", keep "myth" out. Checklist would be great. Doc Tropics 02:14, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Christmas and Islam

We've had some back-and-forth insertion of the text "some muslims celebrate Christmas because they regard Jesus as one of the great (Ulu’l-azm) prophets" (or similar versions). The latest insertion included a reference that supported the respect accorded Jesus by Islam, which I certainly do not dispute. The problem is that we have no references showing that muslims "celebrate" Christmas. If there are any references to support that statement, it can certainly go back in. - Eron Talk 01:14, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I actually had some extended discussion on this topic previously, with a Muslim editor. He assured me (and provided some credible refs from the Sharia) that Islam acknowledges Jesus' status as a prophet and respects him accordingly, but it is against fundamental teachings (and even court rulings) to celebrate the birthday of a prophet. I had originally wanted to include the material on the basis of NPOV, but he convinced me that it's either a fabrication, or taken out of context and distorted. The discussion and refs are in the archives (probably late Oct. - early Nov. somewhere). Since then I've been removing the material (it pops up fairly often) because the part that is verifiable isn't relevant to the article, and the part that's relevant is not only unverified, but strongly disputed. I suggest we continue removing it until solid and very specific refs are provided to support it. Doc Tropics 01:33, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree. One reference I found stated "Another point regarding the Christmas season is the position of Jesus (PBUH) in Islam. If Christmas represents a feast of celebration of the birthday of Jesus, then we should observe it according to the Islamic principles and honor Jesus as a prophet of God. Christmas trees and fairy tales of Santa Claus should have nothing to do with such celebrations." (emphasis added). I think there may be some confusion between "recognizing" the birth of a prophet, and "celebrating" the holiday of Christmas. All signs indicate that some muslims may do the former, but not the latter. - Eron Talk 01:39, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Opening sentence

A peer reviewer has suggested that we revise the opening sentence: The opening sentence needs to be rephrased. For now it reads "Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual Christian and secular[1] holiday that celebrates the birth of Jesus," which suggests that Christian or secular, all people celebrate the birth of Jesus.

I know that a lot of people worked hard on that one sentence but... I see his point.

I propose a minor adjustment: "Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual Christian and secular holiday. For Christians, it marks the birth of Jesus Christ; for both Christians and non-Christians the holiday celebrates themes such as family, goodwill, giving and compassion."

I also think we can drop the reference tag on secular; the whole article provides numerous references to the secular nature of the holiday, and that particular reference is included elsewhere. (And yes, I've expanded "Jesus" to "Jesus Christ." I think we can use the full name once, just so no one confuses him with anyone else.) - Eron Talk 01:57, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

That sentence was a major compromise. I think the adjusted sentence is good, and am all for it. The reference tag was added mainly as a safety measure. The secular information had gotten removed so often, it needed a solid reference attached to it to make it edit-proof. MightyAtom 02:01, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Agreed, the proposed version scans better (much better), and the ref tag is no longer necessary. I believe that the usage of Jesus Christ for an initial clarification should be acceptable as well. Doc Tropics 02:12, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I think that it needs to be clarified that Christmas is a holiday created with intention to honor the birth of Jesus, whether as merely a historical figure or as a divine Virgin birth event. The current Christmas controversies in the United States show proof beyond a doubt that Christmas is considered a hostile subject in American government, public schools, and even mainstream media, due to its religious definitions. Regardless of one's belief in the divinity of Jesus, I think it needs to be pointed out that Christmas is absolutely a holiday engineered to honor the birth of Jesus; after all, the title is a contraction of "Christ's Mass" and was originally only celebrated by Christians (or pagans who were converted to Christians) and only recently developed the secular aspects so popular among atheists today. Any comments on this? I don't think Christmas can be clarified as a Christian and secular holiday separately, the two celebrations are not of two different holidays.— OLP1999 06:14, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

recently developed the secular aspects so popular among atheists today. Yikes! Please be careful of statements like this. I am neither an atheist nor a Christian, but obviously Christmas is very important to me and I celebrate it enthusiastically. MightyAtom 06:21, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Apologies on my part that I should have used "non-Christians", but usually people of non-Christian religions wouldn't celebrate the Christian holiday of Christmas so I assumed the non-Christian celebrants were mostly atheist, agnostic, or other non-specific religions. But nonetheless, the holiday of "Christmas" itself was engineered to honor (whether as a divine or historical figure) the birth of Jesus, regardless of its pagan origins. If non-Christians want to celebrate Yule that's a different story, but if you call it Christmas, Christ's Mass, I think we need to acknlowledge that it is an honor of Jesus' birth.— OLP1999 06:26, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm afraid I have to disagree with you OLP. I think the first paragraph is an exceptionally well-written and well-balanced introduction to the topic. While I respect your opinions, I really don't think that what you're suggesting would be an improvement. Doc Tropics 06:28, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

If non-Christians want to celebrate Yule that's a different story Ah, but who wants to celebrate Yule? No Santa Claus, no Rudolph, no Ghost of Christmas Present...none of the things that make Christmas great. no fun at all! :P MightyAtom 04:49, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the giver of gifts to children (Santa Claus, Papa Noel, Kris Kringle, Father Yule) predates the Christianization of the winter festival in most traditions. Some names got changed a little along the way, but gift giving at Yule/Winter Solstice is an old idea. :) --Bill W. Smith, Jr. 04:55, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

But I want Santa! Santa! Who wants to get a present from Father Yule...and I see you got nothing to say about Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer or Ghost of Christmas Present! No...I will stick with Christmas. :) MightyAtom 05:43, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Rudolph Rulz!!! --Doc Tropics 05:48, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Origins of Christmas

Para 3, first sentence. This has two refs, but #14 seems to be circular (go to the ref section and click on one the the links associated with #14, they all lead back into the article), and #15 is more of a translator's note than an actual ref. I'm going to try finding a valid ref so we can remove those confusing little bits. Doc Tropics 02:36, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I think that's my fault; I probably deleted a named reference when I tidied that section up. I know what I did so I'll go back and try to fix it. Sorry about that. - Eron Talk 02:47, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Turns out it wasn't really my fault. When we were playing whack-a-mole with vandals earlier today, one of them deleted the whole Etymology section... and we didn't notice. That section included a rather important named reference (the Catholic Encyclopedia's entry on Christmas) which was referred to in several other places. I've restored the section, and the refs seem to have worked themselves out. - Eron Talk 02:56, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks! That's really good , because the only ref I found was in Latin...not so useful. Next time I catch a vandal on this page I'm gonna...*grumble*..*grumble*... Doc Tropics 03:04, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Economics of Christmas?

What happened to that section? Did it get wiped out in a vandal attack and not restored? Did it get removed for a reason? It is pretty important! MightyAtom 05:01, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, it certainly wasn't removed by consensus. Yes, that section is important and should be restored. Good catch; I can't believe what the vandals have been able to get away with : ( Doc Tropics 05:07, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Wow! That was chopped out days ago! Can't believe it went this long unnoticed. Well, it is back...grrrr....thought this page was vandal-protected....MightyAtom 05:32, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I must have been asleep. Thanks for finding "Economics" again. What would you think about placing it one rung lower, so that "Christmas tree" and "Regional customs" stay together? I think it would make for better flow, and seems internally consistent. Doc Tropics 05:36, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I think it should come right after the history section, because that is what it seems most related to. Flow from current history into economics...then collect all the festive celebrational aspects together. I was over-ruled by that last time, because people thought that the Nativity should have prominence over Economics, purely for the perceived statement it was making...MightyAtom 05:40, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, I've been staring at the ToC for a few minutes, and I can see both sides. On the one hand, transitioning from 20th century history to economics is very logical, and would seem to give it a good "flow". But on the other hand (and you knew there was another hand coming, right?), I strongly suspect that what our "average" reader will want to see first is the celebratory material, including the Nativity. I guess we should be satisfied that at least the history sections come first, and leave it as-is : ) Doc Tropics 05:54, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Opening rewiring

I have rewired the opening sentence to provide a more clean, NPOV and OR–free description of Christmas traditions, customs, and so forth. The former rewiring that had descriptions of exactly how Christians or non-Christians celebrate the holiday is not acceptable for Wikipedia—we have no evidence that all Christians choose to celebrate the birth of Jesus at Christmas (Jehovah Witnesses, as a counter-example), or that all non-Christian persons choose not to honor the birth of Jesus (I am non-Christian, and I, along with enjoying secular activities, honor Jesus' birth non-religiously during Christmas; he was a historically notable and empowering person). We must merely present the facts of the holiday, how it is traditionally celebrated, and what it was designed to acknowledge or celebrate. The Catholic church designated this holiday as a "celebration", (or honoring) of the birthdate of Jesus of Nazareth, the historical person. Thus, whether from a Christian or secular viewpoint, Christmas honors the traditional birthdate of Jesus of Nazareth. Your beliefs on whether this person is the "son of God" or not has nothing to do with this. Jesus was a virtually undisputed historical person and it is certainly possible to acknowledge this secularly, as does Martin Luther King Day honor that man's birthday. Think of it this way: as opposed to Jesus' resurrection (Easter), his birth (Christmas) is not a religious or supernatural event. Christmas simply honors the birth of this historic and very popular carpenter. — `CRAZY`(lN)`SANE` 09:56, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

UPDATE: If some of you believe strongly enough that the secular side of Christmas should not be labeled under "honoring the birth of Jesus" (though that is a secular observance), then it would be a good idea to offer some suggestions on how to present these two ways of celebrating Christmas separately in the article, rather than assuming that all non-Christians do not honor the birth of Jesus while all Christians choose to celebrate his birth—which is how the former introduction was worded. We need to realize that this holiday was engineered by the Catholic church to honor the birth of Jesus, so that obviously comes first in the intro. But what we also need to decide is whether the increasing amount of people who solely celebrate Christmas' secular aspects are still honoring the birth of Jesus—something that I believe is true, as an agnostic myself, simply because there is no other "reason" for Christmas; gift-giving and goodwill cannot be a definition for a holiday. — `CRAZY`(lN)`SANE` 10:16, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
I think the new opening is pretty good. I agree that eliminating references to how (or even if) Christians and non-Christians celebrate Christmas is probably wise. I have two minor wording points. First, I'd like to change "honors the traditional birthdate of Jesus of Nazareth," to "marks the traditional birthdate." There will always be some opinionated obstreperous independent-minded editors who will say that many people who do Christmas don't "honour" Jesus or his birth. "Mark" simply means that we have a holiday on that day with that name because of that person (cf. Valentine's Day). Second, I'd change "Christmas incorporates Christian religious ceremonies..." to Christmas combines..." I just think that's a more precise way to put it. - Eron Talk 13:46, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree with your suggestions, they definitely would make things clearer. I'll incorporate them now; thanks for your comments and co-operation.. — `CRAZY`(lN)`SANE` 14:55, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Wow, I go to sleep for a few hours, and look what happens! I had thought the previous intro was quite good, but the new one is even better. I agree that it is now more neutral and less POV. Really good work : ) Doc Tropics 15:06, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Thank you. I apologize for having bluntly changed the intro. without first adequately discussing the issue here, but then again, the WP:BOLD policy has to come into play sometimes, haha :). Don't misunderstand my intent, though, I really appreciate all the work that several of you have accomplished on the article, it really looks a LOT better than it did when I left on my long wikibreak in August. Since I'm back at the Wiki until Christmas I hope to work closely with all of you on this and various other articles and I hope we can co-operatively decide what changes are appropriate! Thanks again for the warm appreciation of my blunt changes. — `CRAZY`(lN)`SANE` 15:21, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Hi Crazy, I've seen your name around wiki a lot, but never worked with you before; I'm looking forward to it. I suspect that some of us have been puttering with this article for so long that it's hard to make objective evaluations about it. Your initial changes were a significant improvement, and I'm sure your participation will be a great asset. In addition to polishing the article in the hopes of getting it to FA, we're facing a real challange just keeping it coherent because of the high levels of both well-intentioned but non-productive edits, as well as blatant vandalism and random deletions. Your help will certainly be appreciated : ) Doc Tropics 15:36, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, I'm looking forward to resuming contributing at Wikipedia :). — `CRAZY`(lN)`SANE` 15:43, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Alas! All my hard work on the openeing sentence undone! I do like the new opening sentence though. Good work! Just for the fun of argument though, I do disagree with your Martin Luther King Day comparisson. Christmas is more along the lines of January 15 being a day that traditionally celebrates the birth of the Goddess Ishtar by eating lots of apples, yet because that religion has fallen out of fashion is now used to mark the birthday of Martin Luther King by eating lots of apples, even though Martin Luther King was really born on September 3rd, and neither January 15 nor eating lots of apples really have anything to do with him whatsoever. :P MightyAtom 23:40, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Recent changes

Blink and the article's changed. Before there was a paragraph explaining the connection between the pagan holidays and Christmas, but that's been taken out. It's no longer obvious why the subsection on say, Saturnalia, is still in the article. I'd suggest changing it back. The theory that the date of Christmas was chosen to correspond with with the Sol Invictus festival is both widespreads and quite old. (Goes back at least to the Puritians.) But I do not think it is plausible. Sol Invitus was a minor festival (just one of the city of Rome's 160+ festivals a year), until Aurelian promoted an imperial holiday beginning in 274. December 25 was given as the date of the birth of Jesus by Africanus in 221. Logically, the birth of Jesus has to be nine months after Incarnation. Incarnation as March 25 is a tradition that predates Africanus (not to mention Aurelian).Kauffner 18:07, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure what the issue is; the content on the Incarnation, Africanus, Aurelian, et al, is still in the article. What is missing? - Eron Talk 18:10, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Kauffner, we have been doing a lot of work on this article in response to the peer review. One of the comments we had was that the annunciation/death of Jesus content didn't really seem to fit in, so it was cut back to keep the article more clearly focussed on Christmas. The part of the article dealing with December 25 is linked to the Annunciaton and Incarnation articles, which are probably better places to talk about integral dates and the death of Jesus being March 25. I won't revert right now as I'd like to hear your ideas about why that content should not be removed. Thanks. - Eron Talk 13:44, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I have read the review. The reviewer talks about "an entire paragraph on March 25 and Jesus' death." He doesn't mention the Annunciation or Incarnation and apparently didn't see the connection. I think the connection is clearer the way I have rewritten it.Kauffner 17:55, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Date of Christmas

I see that the December 24 - December 25 thing is raising its head again. I've taken out the "celebrated" in the statement of the date to try and head it off. I think that a mere glance at a calendar will make it clear that the date of the holiday called Christmas is December 25. That doesn't mean that everyone "celebrates" on that day. Different cultures have different ways of doing it, and some do place more emphasis on December 24. That can be, should be, and actually is, reflected in the body of the article. But that doesn't change the fact that the date of Christmas is still December 25. - Eron Talk 15:29, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, this is another ongoing issue. Since we clearly discuss the common variations like this in the body of the article, there is no need to mention it in the intro. I agree that we should keep it lean and clean. Doc Tropics 15:38, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
A fact that is only enhanced by the occurrence of Christmas Eve on December 24—that is, the eve prior to Christmas. So Christmas is definitely on December 25, any emphasis on other day(s) is purely cultural, and belongs in the lower paragraphs, not the intro.. — `CRAZY`(lN)`SANE` 15:43, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Can I include a section on my friend, who celebrates Christmas with her extended family at (Canadian) Thanksgiving because her parents don't want to come back from Florida in December? - Eron Talk 15:46, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
That sounds like a good addition, but maybe it would be better to add a section on Florida itself...it's one of the most popular U.S. holiday destinations. And after that, we could also mention that no sane person would want to leave Florida in December : ) Oh my, are we starting to lose our marbles? Doc Tropics 15:53, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
"Starting?" - Eron Talk 15:54, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I object to this article's totally unbalanced POV which clearly favors Canadians. There is obviously some sinsiter Canadian Cabal at work trying to promote Canadian nationalism on wikipedia. I propose that all Canadians be perma-banned from editing this article. Doc Tropics 15:59, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Now I am both a Cabalist and a vandal. Mom's gonna be so proud of me. - Eron Talk 16:12, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Years

I've gone through looking at the use of AD. I think for the most part it isn't necessary; dates referring to the observation of Christmas itself must, by definition, be AD. I have retained one AD in the Sol Invictus section as that is not clearly an AD date. I've also kept one in at the start of the origin of Christmas section simply to ensure that readers start off in the right era; all subsequent dates in the section are listed chronologically and so should be clearly AD without the notation.

I'm going to take a look at parts of the text where we talk about this thing that happened (YEAR) and which led to another thing (YEAR). I think it flows much better if the years can be integrated into the text of the sentence. - Eron Talk 18:14, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good. I've been doing the "trivial" cleanup; about 100 duplicate links so far : ) Doc Tropics 18:35, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Images

The second half of the article is a bit clogged with images. Unfortunately, none of them really relate to the first half, so just shuffling things around may not be enough. Of the images in question, we have two of "decorations in malls", one in Australia, one in Brazil, and that seems redundant. If we wanted to remove an image, I'd suggest we consider one of these. Since I don't know any Brazilian editors, but there are several Australians who might kick my butt, I would lean towards removing the Brazilian mall image. Alternatively, the image for "Harpers" U.S. Civil War Christmas doesn't really add much either. Doc Tropics 19:27, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to be contrary. The Harpers image illustrates the content about Thomas Nast's creation of the Santa Claus image; I'd actually lean towards removing the generic Santa Claus picture. As to the decorations, I think the Brazilian one is actually a better representation, what with the elves and Christmas trees and snow and such. The Australian one is pretty generic. (That said, there's a house a couple blocks away from me that has a truly insane array of Christmas lights, complete with Santa, reindeer, etc... perhaps I'll take a pic tonight and upload it.) - Eron Talk 19:54, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
You are a contrary cabalistic vandal! I have to admit that I'm biased against the "Harpers" because I prefer color images when possible; I do see your point though. The Australian mall is fairly generic and would probably be the best choice if we need to cut one. If you wanted to add a new image, we might need to cut something else to make it fit, but we don't have anything showing a nicely decorated house...that could be a good addition. Doc Tropics 20:08, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm going to be bold and move some of the images around. I'd like to see one picture to illustrate each section. I'll take a stab at it. - Eron Talk 21:23, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
That's a good idea. I'd like to see a good picture for each section as well, and if you like I can help you search for appropriate photos. If there's any picture in particular you're looking for just say the word.. — `CRAZY`(lN)`SANE` 21:28, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
3rd century portrayal of Jesus Christ as Sol Invictus
3rd century portrayal of Jesus Christ as Sol Invictus

I found a really interesting picture at the Sol Invictus article; it's an early Christian mosaic that seems to portray Jesus as Sol Invictus (although that is disputed). I'd really like to find a place for it in this article, as it seems to be a good visual illustration of the early Christian adoption / co-opting of earlier religions in establishing Christmas. (If you believe that sort of thing...)

As to other pictures, we're missing a pre-Christian one (guess what gets my vote?) and a medieval one. As a minimum. - Eron Talk 21:38, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, we need an image for the pre-Christian section, and here an editor has thoughtfully provided one that seems to fit. Serendipity in action? The mosaic is beautiful, too bad it has to be low-res; still, an excellent addition to that section. Doc Tropics 21:47, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Make it a three–man consensus on the 3rd century mosaic; it does seem a good fit for the pre-Christianization sections.. — `CRAZY`(lN)`SANE` 21:51, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Great picture! I went ahead and added it! MightyAtom 23:51, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Semi-protect?

Per MightyAtom's edit string comments, are there any administrators at our dispense that could semi-protect the page from new or anonymous users? If not, do you all think we should request that this article be semi-protected at Requests for Protection? The IP vandalism is becoming ever-more increased, probably because we're getting close to Christmas and all the anons want to alter the article. A semi-protect would be convenient and will cut down on the vandals.. — `CRAZY`(lN)`SANE` 00:32, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

EDIT — Hehe, I see Doc Tropics is way ahead of me on this. Hopefully we can get it SP'd.. — `CRAZY`(lN)`SANE` 00:34, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I have requested Sprotect for this page due to the recent increase in IP vandalism. It's a shame to restrict the article from new editors, but we're spending more time reverting than editing right now. If granted, the Sprotect will only be a short term remedy, almost certainly to be lifted in a few days. Doc Tropics 00:36, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I have to go teach my next class in a few minutes, so I happily surrender vandal protection for awhile. Have fun! Someone is being quite persistant at the moment...MightyAtom 00:40, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
This page has a lot of watchers now, so no worries. I enjoyed the "Ho ho ho" edit sumaary : ) Doc Tropics 00:43, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Controversy

One suggestion that came up at peer review has actually been mentioned before on this page as well; the addition of a controversy section. No question that there is enough material for it, but as I reviewed the article I realized something: apart from a couple of great movies, the 20th Century didn't do much for Xmas except to generate controversy. If you check the "20th century" section, you'll notice that moving the 'controversies' material to a seperate sec would leave it with only one paragraph - about a poorly documented footaball game. Should we consider turning that whole section into something like "20th century Christmas controversies" or similar? Then we could move all the stray bits about controversy,lawsuits and court decisions into it, and give a "main Article:" link to Christmas controversies. I'm not positive that this would be the right way to go, and I'd certainly like to hear other ideas, but at least this an option we might consider. Doc Tropics 03:10, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree that a lot of the 20th century stuff could go to controversies, but I think we (and by we, I mean "hopefully someone other than me") should then find more info for the 20th century. The increasing secularization of Christmas which took place did cause controversy, but I think the trend itself can be objectively described, with suitable references to shopping mall Santas, Coca Cola, and NORAD HQ tracking Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. We (by which I mean... oh never mind) can also look at the increased globalization; Mighty Atom's story about Christmas coming to Japan, for example. And the 20th century, with movies and mass communication, is really what made Christmas an (almost) global event - and a primarily American version of Christmas, at that. - Eron Talk 03:32, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Pre-Christian origins

As I was out carolling this evening (no, really, I was!) I was struck by the familiarity of a line from "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing". I've been familiar with the words for years, of course, but there was a line that I suddenly realized I had encountered in a different context: "Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace, Hail the Sun of righteousness..." Hmmm...

"The Sol Invictus festival honored the birthdays of two related solar deities, Sol Invictus (The Unconquered Sun), a god of Syrian origin, and Mithras, the Iranian "Sun of Righteousness," who was worshipped by many Roman soldiers."

Being a glutton for punishment, I of course googled "sun of righteousness" as soon as I got home. And found a verse from the Old Testament Book of Malachi (chapter 4, verse 2): "But unto you that fear my name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in its wings; and ye shall go forth, and gambol as calves of the stall. "

So, how does an Old Testament prophecy about the messiah give a name to a Persian sun god? Further research indicated that the worship of Mithras, or Mithra as the Persians knew him, was around a couple of millenia before the birth of Christ - plenty of time for some of the Hebrew prophets to have co-opted it, particular Malachi who was the last of the lot. But I couldn't find any direct reference that Mithra was ever called the Sun of Righteousness. The only source claiming that was the source for the sentence I quoted above, Christian History and Biography, which stated "December 25 already hosted two other related festivals: natalis solis invicti (the Roman "birth of the unconquered sun"), and the birthday of Mithras, the Iranian "Sun of Righteousness" whose worship was popular with Roman soldiers." I did some more digging and all I could find were references that suggested that Sol Invictus and Mithras were, in fact, the same god.

So, what is my point? I guess it is that even with a reference, I'm not sure we can call Mithras the "Iranian 'Sun of Righteousness'. For one thing, Mithras - or Mithra - was actually Persian. Yeah, tomato, toMAto, but in Roman times, it was Persia. More importantly, I don't think we can call Sol Invictus and Mithras "two related solar deities". Really, there is only one Sun so I can't see why even the Romans would have given it two gods. And my superficial understanding of the Roman approach to religion and gods was that they cheerfully adopted whatever local deities they came across, and just appended their names and attributes to the ones they already had. Right now all of this is original research, so I'd like a clear reference that comes to the same conclusion, but it seems likely to me that Sol Invictus was Mithras, and vice versa.

That's a hell of a lot of analysis to arise from one line out of the third verse of a Christmas carol, but there you have it. And now, having convinced you all that I have lost both my perspective and my mind, I should probably go to bed. - Eron Talk 03:24, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Much of the problem is that Mithras was a mystery cult, which means that it id difficult to pin him down. However, there is heaps of references to Mithras as a sun god:

http://www.iranvision.com/mithras.html

"Mithras was known as the God of Truth, and Lord of Heavenly Light, and said to have stated "I am a star which goes with thee and shines out of the depths"."

http://www.iranheritage.org/programmes/yalda_back.htm

"The Cult of the Sun was first introduced to Iran thousands of years ago by migrant Aryans. Mithra, the Sun God remained a potent symbol of worship throughout the following centuries"

http://www.sacred-texts.com/gno/gar/gar20.htm

"the Sun of Righteousness with healing in his wings."

http://www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk/Scriptures/www.innvista.com/scriptures/compare/mithra.htm "Originally Mithra was one of the lesser gods of the ancient Persian pantheon, but he came to be regarded as the spiritual Sun, the heavenly Light, and the chief and also the embodiment of the seven divine spirits of goodness; and already in the time of Christ he had risen to be co-equal with, though created by, Ormuzd (Ahura-Mazda), the Supreme Being [J.M. Robertson, /Pagan Christs/, p. 290.], and Mediator between him and man [Plutarch, /Isis et Osiris/, ch. 46; Julian, /In regem solem/, chs. 9, 10, 21.]. He appears to have lived an incarnate life on earth, and in some unknown manner to have suffered death for the good of mankind, an image symbolizing his resurrection being employed in his ceremonies [Tertullian, /Praescr/., ch. 40.]. Tarsus, the home of St. Paul, was one of the great centers of his worship, being the chief city of the Cilicians; and, as will presently appear, there is a decided tinge of Mithraism in the Epistles and Gospels. Thus the designations of our Lord as the Dayspring from on High [Luke, i. 78.], the Light [2 Cor. iv. 6; Eph. v. 13, 14; I. Thess. v. 5; etc.], the Sun of Righteousness [Malachi iv. 2]; and much used in Christianity, and similar expressions, are borrowed from or related to Mithraic phraseology."

http://www.gobedo.com/christmas1.htm

"December 25 was also regarded as the birth date of the Iranian mystery god Mithra, the Sun of Righteousness."


Granted, not all of those are the most solid sources, but the Cambridge Residential Centre for Biblical Studies should hold up.

What do you think? MightyAtom 04:24, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't doubt that Mithra/Mithras was a sun god. The various names applied to him are another story; there are references saying he was the sun of righteousness, and there are references saying he wasn't. I am having a terrible time sorting out the POV issues in most of what I am finding, to be honest. All I seem to see on the Internet are references either trying to support the theory that Christmas is really a pre-Christian sun worship ritual, or references trying to debunk that theory. What I really want is some boring early-20th century translation of an ancient Persian text.
One thing I think we can do is actually firm up the Sol Invictus/Mithras/Christmas connection. There are a lot of references that do suggest strong parallels. It may be possible to write an NPOV "some claim" - with references - drawing attention to things like the Sun of Righteousness parallel. We can even pull that into our Christmas controversies section, as at least some Christian commentators I have read take a stand against Christmas celebrations precisely because of the possible link to what they see as pagan sun worship.
I also think we need to a bit more digging for a reference to address the statement that Sol Invictus and Mithra were separate entities - I don't think that is actually supported. - Eron Talk 14:05, 8 December 2006 (UTC)


On a different note, I have removed the statement that the early Church "may have made held a different attitude toward the birth of Jesus, as evidenced by the second chapter of the Gospel of Luke." The may have shows that it is speculative. The Gospel of Luke does indeed go into detail about the Messiah's birth, but I don't think that it necessarily follows that the early Church made that an exception to their general disregard for birthdays. Saint's days were always on the anniversaries of their deaths, not their births, and the major holiday association with Jesus was the resurrection anniversary of Easter, not Christmas. - Eron Talk 22:03, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, good move. I've been avoiding any work on the article until other issues are resolved, but at least we can keep it clean in the interim. Doc Tropics 22:10, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Recent changes

Kauffner has recently made a significant number of changes to work that was done by consensus and per the suggestions of the peer review. This included the removal of several pieces of well-sourced info and major changes to the body of the text. These changes need to be discussed, and they need to be addressed individually. Unfortunately there were so many changes made so quickly, that it's going to be difficult to do that. I'm almost afraid that we need to roll-back K's changes so that they can be discussed here, one at a time, in advance. I know K put a lot of hard work into this, but discussion and consensus are a necessary part of the process, especially as we work towards FA status for this article. Doc Tropics 17:05, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Some notes on the changes I've made:
I know the reviewer objected to the "paragraph about Jesus dying on March 25." But it's a paragraph on the date of Incarnation, which is relevent because it is marked nine months before Christmas. I rewrote the paragraph in such way that I believe clarifies this point.
On the rebirth of Sun compared to the birth of the "Son", Jesus: Despite what Britannica seems to think, this homonym works only in English, and the church fathers wrote in Greek or Latin. But it is true that John Chrysostom and others were fond of comparing Jesus to Sol Invictus. (Both were "unconquered", etc.) I changed a sentence to reflect this.
I moved all the Sol Invictus material to the "Sol Invictus" subsection. This might be what makes you think I cut out well-sourced material. I did cut a few sentences here and there that struck me as non-substantive. ("No one knows why the date of Christmas was chosen." -- Write what you know.)
On the issue of the use of the phrase "modern times": Historians use this phrase to means post-1450 (or sometimes post-Reformation). That's the way we should use it, at least in the history section.Kauffner 17:31, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but I'm not really comfortable with a series of 30 rather extensive changes being justified with 4 brief lines of explanation after the fact. Would you please consider reverting your own changes and discussing them individually, before changing text that was the product of consensus? I'm asking you to do it yourself to avoid any further hard-feelings; but if not, I think the other editors should discuss the possibility of a roll-back before proceeding any further. Doc Tropics 18:02, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I tried a total rollback at one point, but appearently too much has been change by then.Kauffner 11:14, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
I appreciate any efforts to help improve this article, and I think that several of the recent changes do that. My concern, like Doc's, is with the number and extent of the changes. Many of them were made without edit summaries as well. I'm not sure about a roll-back as I don't want to discourage a well-intentioned and capable contributor, but I would ask that the rest of us be given a bit of breathing room before additional changes are made to take a look at the changes made so far and raise concerns, if we have them, here. - Eron Talk 18:20, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't want to seem like I'm attacking a good-faith editor who has made some valuable contributions and I'm certainly not claiming that all the recent changes were incorrect. Some of them were good solid improvements to the article. However the sheer number of changes made without discussion and the lack of edit summaries is problematic. Here are some of my initial concerns:

  • This edit here removed an entire para of properly sourced material. K apparently disagrees with the source, but our standard is "verifiability", and this was clearly verifiable info.
  • This edit here and the one immediately following it are quite confusing. A lot of material was moved around, and some seems to have disappeared. Possibly it was simply altered or relocated, but still, very confusing.
Both of these edits represent moving the info about Sol Invictus to the Sol Invictus section. I wrote most the of the original paragraph to begin with, so its not about disagreement.Kauffner 11:14, 9 December 2006 (UTC) Update: I've done another edit, so I hope its less confusing now.
  • This edit here made a fairly small change, but it doesn't appear to be supported by the cite (unless I'm missing something).
Maybe you overlooked this sentance: "Consequently the ancient martyrologies assign to the 25th of March the creation of Adam and the crucifixion of Our Lord;"Kauffner 11:14, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm just concerned that we are obscuring with detail here; the date of the Feast of the Annunciation is sourced. There are articles on the Annunciation and the Incarnation that are linked. December 25 is nine months after that date. It may well be that March 25 was also considered the date of the crucifixion, and the creation of Adam, but that information is more relevant to the Annunciation. Put another way, no one is saying that December 25 was chosen because it is nine months after the creation of Adam. - Eron Talk 12:43, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  • This edit here removes the mention of Shakespeare and 12th Night. It may not have been in the right spot, but it's useful info, and relevant to the article.
I didn't think Shakespeare belonged under "Middle Ages." I hope we can find a place for it.Kauffner 11:14, 9 December 2006 (UTC) Update: I've restored the Shakespeare reference in slightly modified form.
  • This edit here removes important and properly sourced info without an edit summary.
The three wise man aren't historical? Well, of course not. But it was given just as an opinion with no basis.Kauffner 11:14, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
We should probably find a reference and put that back in. - Eron Talk 12:43, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  • This edit here again removes text without an edit summary.
To me, "alleged" sounds like something a lawyer would say, "disputed" is more of a historian's word.Kauffner 11:14, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
I do think "disputed" works better in that context. - Eron Talk 12:43, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I really don't want to revert anything on my own at this point, but I think these specific issues need to be addressed, along with any concerns that other editors might have. Doc Tropics 20:05, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

:"Despite what Britannica seems to think" I have a lot of trouble with this. You can't really just choose to dispute the Encyclopaedia Britannica as a reference. Also, the section stating "No one knows why the date of Christmas was chosen." is a fact. It is unknown exactly why the date was chosen, and that should be included in the article. That was also referenced by the Encyclopaedia Britannica. MightyAtom 03:03, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the point is well taken that the Sun-Son pun probably didn't have quite the same ring to it in Latin. Still, I think the important point is that early Christian leaders did probably did draw parallels between Jesus and earlier pagan sun deities like Mithras. In fact, prophets were doing that even before the Nativity (per my ramblings above on the Sun of Righteousness, which seems to have been used to describe both Mithra and the Messiah). I'd be okay with dropping the specific sun-son thing (not the whole Britannica reference) as long as we provided some form of (non-punning) statement about how the early Church tried to align their saviour with already existing deities. And I think the "no one knows" needs to stay. Some people will come here trying to find out why Christmas is December 25 and we need to tell them that we can't tell them. Like the man says, it's a known unknown. - Eron Talk 03:27, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I see what you are saying, but isn't that just original research? A respectable reference makes a statement about Sun/Son, and we just choose to ignore it/censor it because we don't like it? Is that OK? MightyAtom 06:00, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Actual quotes of the Sol/Jesus comparisons made by the church fathers are in the Catholic Encyclopedia. None of the comparisons given are puns. A source closer to the primary source trumps one further away. (I suspect the assertion in Britanica represents a misunderstanding of the set of quotes given in CE.) It's not a question of original research.Kauffner 11:14, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
Can we get a quote for one of those Sol/Jesus comparisons? - Eron Talk 12:43, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
Here we go. Two quotes from the Catholic Encyclopedia.
"But Our Lord, too, is born in the month of December... the eight before the calends of January... But they call it the 'Birthday of the Unconquered'. Who indeed is so unconquered as Our Lord... Or, if they say that it is the birthday of the Sun, He is the Sun of Justice." (That last line in the original Latin is "Vel quod dicant Solis esse natalem, ipse est Sol iustitiæ.") That is a 4th century quote by St. John Chrysostom from (Christmas).
"that he may gaze upon his Sun,—not that sun which you worship... but that of which it is written through the prophet, 'The Sun of righteousness has arisen upon me'" This is St. Augustine, from Against the Fundamental Epistle of Manichaeus.
Perhaps one of these might be suitably illustrative of the connection? - Eron Talk 13:23, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

External links

I reviewed the external links, and then gave them a good trimming. This article now has a lot of linked references; I personally don't believe it needs a lot of external links. It is such a broad topic that the possible number of links is overwhelming - there are just so many Christmas-related sites out there.

I looked at the guidelines for external linking before doing this, paying special note to the suggestions to avoid "any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain once it becomes a Featured article," "any site that misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research," "links mainly intended to promote a website," and "links to sites that primarily exist to sell products or services."

I removed the following links, for the reasons noted:

  • [http://earlyhistory.googlepages.com/historyofchristmas History of the Origin of Christmas] - A short history, replete with spelling errors. Not a better resource than this page, even now.
  • [http://www.history.com/minisite.do?content_type=mini_home&mini_id=1290 The History of Christmas] - History Channel site, already in the references.
  • [http://www.ucg.org/booklets/HH/christmasuntoldstory.htm "A History of Christmas from the UCG"] - POV pushing from the United Church of God, telling us about the nasty pagan origins of Christmas
  • [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9082431/Christmas Encyclopaedia Britannica, Christmas] - Britannica article, already in the references.
  • [http://www.hungarianbookstore.com/christmas.htm Christmas in Hungary] - Very specific; also contains numerous commercial links.
  • [http://gosouthamerica.about.com/od/christmas/ Christmas in South America] - Very specific; also contains numerous commercial links.
  • [http://festivalsinindia.net/christmas/index.html Christmas in India] - Very specific; we should perhaps use this as a reference but put the content in our article.
  • Max Heindel, [http://www.rosicrucian.com/mic/miceng01.htm ''The Mystical Interpretation of Christmas'', 1920]. ISBN 0-911274-65-0. - POV pushing from the mystical Rosicrucians - or at least I think that's what it is; I'm not sufficiently enlightened to get it all.
  • [http://aaiil.org/text/articles/light/jc25dec.shtml Was Jesus Born on the 25th of December?] - POV pushing from the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement for the Propagation of Islam.

If anyone thinks I've erred in removing any of these, please let me know why and I'll gladly put them back. - Eron Talk 03:16, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for doing that! That area definitely needed cleanup! MightyAtom 06:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Ummmm....wait a minute. All those links are still there? Is this a proposed trimming, or something that has been done? To many edits going on all at once! MightyAtom 06:06, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Speaking of external links, this guy User:West wikipedia is spamming lots of pages with his links to his earlyhistory.googlepage.com pages, which are trivialized histories with lots of error, not anything useful. If he puts one back here, someone else deal with him for a while, as I'm getting tired of it. Dicklyon 06:08, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
I cut the links, then we had a big rollback that reversed that edit (and several others I had made). They've been cut again. (And it was West wikipedia's addition of his link that prompted me to do the review. I'll be watching.) - Eron Talk 12:32, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, that was good work. I wanted to do it myself, but I'm already feeling like the Grinch because I've done so many reverts and deletions. I concur with your reasoning about these specific links, and I think we should rigorously review any new additions. Doc Tropics 17:20, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Question to add link

I was wondering if people would be in support for adding a link to the following: [http://earlyhistory.googlepages.com/historyofchristmas History of the Origin of Christmas]? Please give your reasons as to why or why not. Thanks! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by West wikipedia (talk • contribs) 18:32, 9 December 2006 (UTC).

Because it does not cite it's sources, doesn't add anything already in Wikipedia, the site is non-notable i.e. it hasn't been cited as an authority by other reliable sources and it's authors are completely unknown. In fact if I google for earlyhistory googlepages com I get nothing. Please read WP:WEB (under criteria), WP:RS (e.g. Non-scholarly sources) and WP:NOTABLE and ideally please solve this one link first before you start posting to all the other entries you've been trying to make. Ttiotsw 18:44, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
I have to agree with Ttiotsw. The linked page appears to be an essay rather than an encyclopedic source, as do the similar "earlyhistory" links that have been added to other articles. This is not to imply that the material is necessarily incorrect or inaccurate, simply that it doesn't meet the criteria for inclusion. Doc Tropics 18:56, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Xmas

We had an edit that changed the opening from "Christmas or Christmas Day is..." to "Christmas Day, Christmas, or Xmas is..." I'm not sure this is appropriate. There is already a separate article on Xmas so adding that in bold to the opening may confuse matters. This article is about Christmas. (And for that matter, do we really need "Christmas Day"?) - Eron Talk 00:10, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I preferred the previous version which seems sufficient for the opening sentence. The extra addition clutters it a bit, and placing "Christmas Day" first contradicts the page's title. Since all the variations are mentioned later, it's not really necessary. Doc Tropics 01:51, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

New introduction changes by CIS

I realize that I should probably be "leaving well alone" when it comes to the introduction, since we've already worked hard on perfecting it. Actually, there had already been a decidedly perfect intro. until I came along, sorry again about that, but, I'm really an "introduction perfectionist" and you'll usually see me editing the introductions of many pages (though I do inner-content as well). I believe the intro. is essential to providing the reader with a smooth transition to the continuing dialogue without confusing them or throwing them off. Also, a perfect introduction certainly helps if we want Christmas to be a FA. BUT ... I also firmly believe in discussing any changes here. Although I already made them, I'll gladly revert them if anyone objects; I'm just trying to improve it.

Onto the changes. Firstly, I re-organized the listing of the popular Christmas traditions, bunching Nativity scene and Christmas tree as "displays" and Christmas cards and gifts as "the exchange of". At the end of this sentence I inserted "the arrival of Santa Claus on Christmas Eve", which differs from the original by explaining Santa's role in the holiday. I was going to go one of two ways with Santa, the other was going to be "the Santa Claus myth" (or "story" in case any kids come to read, hehe). That one is less detail, but takes less space. So, I wonder what one you guys prefer?

The next change is the replacement of "Christian religious ceremonies with traditions and customs..." with "the story of Jesus' birth with various secular traditions and customs...", which I believe fits better because the "religious ceremonies" wasn't specific enough in what type of ceremonies. The last change was just moving some words around and the replacement of "secular" with "Christmas". This was mainly done since I had added "secular traditions and customs" in an earlier sentence. So there you have it—I hope all of you agree with the changes but please, do discuss. Review them for yourself here. — `CRAZY`(lN)`SANE` (my Xmas) 12:28, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to discuss your changes! One quick note...we went with "religous ceremonies" instead of "the story of Jesus' birth" because that also encompased things like midnight mass, Nativity plays (which I am surprised there is not an article for!) Twelve-dish Christmas Eve supper and any other ceremonies/traditions that I may not be aware of.MightyAtom 14:48, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
How about "religious ceremonies celebrating Jesus' birth"? (And hey, it gets "celebrate" back in the intro!) - Eron Talk 14:51, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflicts) Well, the intro really is important, so I don't think it can get too much attention. In general, your changes look good, but I did make one alteration...I replaced "family togetherness" with quality family time. Personally, I prefer the way it scans in the second version, but it's a relatively minor point. If this usage is too "American" feel free to replace it. Doc Tropics 15:03, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks to all three of you for responding. I agree with all three of your comments, MightyAtom I agree that we need to encompass all the Christian religious ceremonies, EronMain I agree with your suggestion on how we can do that, and Doc I agree with your change, I certainly would've wrote it like that if I'd have thought of it. Thanks all for the positive responses. I'll add Eron's suggested change. — `CRAZY`(lN)`SANE` (my Xmas) 15:16, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Commercialization of Christmas

Thinking ahead to a future controversies section, I have stuck a small piece on the commercialization of Christmas under the economics section. I figure it might be easier to create these sections bit-by-bit, then merge them all under a controversies section when they are ready. Anyways, take a look and please add anything that you feel is missing. MightyAtom 05:48, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Good material, and good placement. I'm sure this section will get fresh tidbits fairly quickly :) Doc Tropics 22:33, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

References

We've had some back and forth on the titles in the references section. I've reverted once but I'd like to resolve the matter here before doing so again.

The title above the list of inline citatition has been changed from "References" to "Notes", and "References" has been added above two books that were listed below the cites. The manual of style states "'Notes' is only for footnotes (explanations or comments on any part of the main text). 'References' is only for referenced materials (books, websites etc. cited in the main text). Otherwise 'Notes and references' should be combined." In the case of Christmas, the citations are all references; I don't see any that are explanatory or commentary footnotes. Guidelines on citing sources are a little more muddy, but they also generally support this, noting "All citation techniques require detailed full citations to be shown in a 'References' section following the text."

I'm not opposed to cleaning up the References section; the guidelines on citation also say that "It is helpful when non-citation footnotes are used that a "References" section also be maintained, in which the sources that were used are listed in alphabetical order. With articles that have lots of footnotes, it can become hard to see after a while exactly which sources have been used...a 'References' section, which contains only citations, helps readers to see at a glance the quality of the references used." We haven't got explanatory footnotes, but we do have a lot of references, and this might be helpful. However, I would recommend waiting until the current work on the page is done; there are two more sections that need a lot of referencing, and I think it would confuse things to change our reference style in the middle of that job.

And on that note, the sections Regional customs and celebrations and Arts and media are completely without inline references. - Eron Talk 17:31, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi Eron. Points taken. There are many styles of references/footnotes around WP. Best left for now as it is. Thanks. --- (Bob) Wikiklrsc 17:59, 14 December 2006 (UTC) (talk)

Non-Christians who celebrate the secular aspects (in the infobox)

I dont think this is entirely accurate. I'm not Christian, and I celebrate Christmas, and it would be absurd for me to suggest that all that my celebration entails is entirely secular. I mean, the lyrics of Christmas carols, angel on the tree, the fact that it's actually called Christmas (regardless of whether or not it was an existing holiday co-opted by Christians) yadda yadda yadda. I like to think of it along more the lines of Sikhs celebrating Diwali, which is primarily Hindu, even though Sikhism is radically different from Hinduism, and in fact its very formation was largely out of opposition to Hinduism. I'd like to see a better wording of that little sentence but am not clever enough to come up with one myself. --Jamieli 02:16, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you, and this is the initial reason I changed around the entire previous introduction, which actually suggested that Christmas was two separate holidays, one in which Christians celebrated the birth of Jesus and another which was only the secular aspects, celebrated by both Christian and non-Christians. The main difference between the celebration of Xians and non-Christians would be the assertion of the divinity of Jesus, (i.e.- that he is the Son of God). Celebrating Jesus' birth, even the religious aspects, doesn't mean you are Christian—you would have to believe he was the Son of God. I tried re-wording but welcome anyone to word it better if needed. — `CRAZY`(lN)`SANE` (my Xmas) 22:28, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
This is for the infobox, right? Do we really need to shoehorn a very complex issue in there? There are so many different ways people celebrate. Some are Christians who do the whole religious thing combined with Santa Claus and all the rest: High holiday Christians who make one of their two annual appearances in church at that time. People who go to church on Christmas Eve because they like a good carol sing. Christians who keep the religious aspects but tone down the secular side. Non-christians who only do trees and Santa. Non-christians who add in Christian aspects out of respect for a (non-divine) holy man. And the list goes on...
Why don't we just put "Celebrated by christians and non-christians worldwide" in the Infobox and leave it at that? If people want to know more, they can read the article. - Eron Talk 23:09, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
That would be fine with me, go ahead. — `CRAZY`(lN)`SANE` (my Xmas) 01:08, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
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