OnyxIonVortex wrote:I agree, you can't ban someone from celebrating the holidays just because they aren't Christian, everyone is free from celebrating whatever they want, what harm can that do?
For example, here in Spain many people are blaming the US for "implanting their traditions over ours", such as Santa Claus or the tree rather than the "Catholic traditional" ones like the 3 Kings' gifts and the nativity scene. In my opinion that's stupid, noone is implanting anything nor destroying tradition, it's just culture diversification, and there is no point in complaining because you can still celebrate it the way you want.
It is doubly stupid to say that, since Santa went to America from Europe and later returned a bit fatter.
Finns have never really had similar disputes, since the word Christmas (joulu) doesn't quite label it as Christian (in fact, it comes from the same root as Yule - the older pagan "holiday") and Santa Claus is the Yule/Christmas Goat (joulupukki) even if he is a man these days (he originally was not). To be sure Christmas has Christian connotations and many people go to church to sing Christmas carols and take candles to graves of their deceased relatives, but just as well people leave porridge for the house elf to eat or perhaps to their dead relatives and kids wait for Santa Claus and most listen to the "Declaration of Peace of Christmas" from the market place in Turku (it states, for instace, that crimes will have twice the punishment than usually, although I don't know if that is still actually practiced).
That is the agglomeration that is Christmas, and it is really nice, IMHO. To say there is a war on Christianity... I don't understand these people, to make a holiday a fight is an abominable habit.