Don’t let the Grinch steal secular Christmas

The Christmas season brings out the Grinch in people. In early December I was in the University Art Museum gift shop, and a gray-haired couple next to me was looking at greeting cards. The husband saw one that said “Merry Christmas” and remarked to his wife, “I didn’t know they let us say ‘Merry Christmas’ anymore.” His comment surprised me because he said “Merry Christmas” with such a vindictive tone.

But I shouldn’t be surprised. Bill O’Reilly has been making “Merry Christmas” a battle cry for years. In his annual coverage of the “War on Christmas,” he claims that some non-Christians are trying to suppress Christmas celebrations. But he has it backwards. Non-Christians like me are celebrating Christmas, just not as a religious holiday. Christmas is not under attack; it’s evolving. According to a Gallup poll, almost 20 percent of Americans who celebrate Christmas celebrate it in a non-religious way. While O’Reilly has a right to be upset that Christmas is becoming more secular, to wage war against its secularization is belligerent and goes against the Christmas tradition of generosity.

Last month, O’Reilly suggested that non-Christians should just ignore Christmas. But the nation’s Christmas celebrations are too prevalent, too pervasive, to ignore. Every winter, Christmas trees go up in public spaces across the country, from Palmer Square to Rockefeller Plaza. The president even holds a lighting ceremony for the national Christmas tree. In my high school band, we played “holiday” carols (most of them Christian) and exchanged gifts. While we ostensibly celebrated the “holiday season,” Christmas dominated.

I join in Christmas celebrations every year so as not to feel left out. And fortunately, I can participate in many Christmas customs without celebrating religiously. I can give gifts, sing carols, hang stockings, and decorate a tree, all without celebrating the religious meaning of Christmas.

But I can understand why this secular version of Christmas would bother some Christians. We’ve taken the religious symbols they cherish and stripped them of their religious meaning. Take Saint Nicholas: Though he used to be a Greek bishop and then a popular Christian saint, his reincarnation in pop culture lives at the North Pole and delivers presents made by magical elves, in a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer. You know, like bishops do.

While Christians have a right to be upset that such an important religious holiday has been appropriated as a secular one, it’s selfish of Christians like O’Reilly to complain about how non-Christians like me are celebrating. I love secular Christmas customs because they let me share in the company and high spirits of my Christian friends. I know I don’t celebrate Christmas for exactly the same reasons that Christians do, but if O’Reilly has a problem with how I celebrate Christmas, maybe he should just ignore it.

Bhaskar Roberts is an electrical engineering major from Buffalo, N.Y. He can be reached at bhaskarr@princeton.edu.