Why Christmas in America is for everyone, of all religions

America is not a Christian nation. It never was. It is a country founded on principles. Not least of these is religious freedom. This is a country where people are free to worship as they please. Or to not worship anything. In this context, the holiday of Christmas deserves further explanation, because, in the U.S., it’s not just a Christian holiday. It’s an American holiday, for all.

Christmas is celebrated on December 25. For some Christians, this date is treated as the birthday of Jesus Christ. This date actually has religious ties to Zoroastrianism that pre-date the existence of the Abrahamic faiths, but the birthday correlation is the reason behind the Christian connection.

And Santa Claus? The history is extensive. But, basically the name is a bastardization of Saint Nicholas of Myra, a Christian figure who lived in Turkey and gave gifts to the poor. The conceptualization of Santa Claus stems from several sources. None of them Christian. The gift giving aspects of Santa Claus, in addition to St. Nicholas’ altruism, come from Germanic pagan traditions. (Paganism is a catch-all phrase that denotes people with an animalistic, naturalistic, or polytheistic spiritual orientation.) Further, the modern imagery of Santa Claus emerged with the American Civil War in the mid-19th century. It wasn’t until Coca-Cola picked up similar images in the 1930s for an advertising campaign, though, that Santa Claus hit it big as an American icon.

What is the purpose of a holiday? Well, it’s a holy day. But, it’s also not. Holidays have a purpose in human civilization. They began soon after we started practicing agriculture 10,000 years ago. They were connected with the lunar cycle, like the Islamic calendar, and used to celebrate harvests or rainy seasons or any significant episode in an important crop’s growing season. Only later did these really have “religious” significance as we define it.

But, America is a capitalist society. Most of the world has many holidays. We have only a few, staggered evenly throughout the year, and always heavily marketed. St. Patrick’s Day. Valentine’s Day. Easter. Sure, these all have some basis in Christian tradition. But, Christian tradition has a basis in earlier pagan traditions tied to agriculture. As do Judaism and Islam. So, the religious heritage of these holidays isn’t why they are significant today. They are brief buying-and-selling seasons. Every holiday in the U.S. with a religious basis is now secularized and associated with a few select commodities.

Christmas is no exception. It is known here in the U.S. as the season for giving. Giving what? Gifts! Presents! Objects of every conceivable sort, from cars, to toys, to skateboards and guitars, right down to the least desirable . . . clothes. But, there’s little altruism here. These presents aren’t for the anonymous poor, like Saint Nicholas used to do in Turkey. They’re for us. To have and hold and enjoy. Sure, some people do charity for anonymous people. Sure, some people attend religious functions. But, that doesn’t preclude them from discovering an iPad under their own tree.

Yes, the traditionalists out there cut down a living tree, place it in their living room, bedeck it with lights and other ornaments, place gifts beneath it, open those gifts on Christmas morning, and then throw that tree away. My own parents did it every year when I was a kid, and they continue to do it now. My family is not Christian, yet Christmas still comes.

This year, I will be celebrating Christmas with my wife. She’s not from the U.S., and hasn’t celebrated Christmas before. So, we’re making our own version. Because traditions also evolve. In America today, Christmas is still a special time of the year. But, the reason why is entirely yours to decide.

About the author

Ethan Lazuk

Born in Montana in 1989, I attended high school in Phoenix, Arizona, and college at The University of Montana, from which I recently earned a Bachelor's degree in Central and Southwest Asian Studies. I currently live in Washington D.C.
Although American English is my first language, I also have an intermediate/advanced knowledge of Modern Standard Arabic, with some Lebanese and Gulf vocabulary, as well as a basic knowledge of Farsi-Persian. My academic areas of interest include Cultural Anthropology, Islamic Studies, and Environmental and Human Geography. In 2010, I was a summer intern with the Department of Defense, working on Ft. McNair Army Base in the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies. Additionally, I have traveled in Istanbul, Turkey, and lived in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia.


I am a third-generation American of Polish descent. My great-grandparents fled Eastern Europe during the Bolshevik Revolution and entered the United States through Ellis Island. Today, my parents and sister live in Colorado, where they are surrounded by the beautiful Rocky Mountains. I am also happily married to the love of my life named Dania. Originally from al-Madinah, Saudi Arabia, she came to the United States two years ago as an exchange student. She is a practicing Muslim. But I am a searcher who finds beauty in all religions, and therefore I do not belong to any one religion in particular. But her and I having different religious beliefs has not negatively affected our marriage. In fact, it has brought us closer together. We respectfully embrace our differences, while cherishing our infinite similarities. If being in an inter-faith marriage has taught me one thing, it is that religious differences are not a cause for division, but for collaboration.

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