Christmas and X-Mas: Trademarking a Religion?

Okay, as a disclaimer, this article's meant just as a rant against vapid holiday consumerism and as a thought-experiment; I have this grave feeling that I'm in store for flaming comments, anyway. *shrug*

Let's trademark Christmas!

This may take some time to explain my reasoning, so bear with me. In the meantime, I'll state my overriding idea: Perhaps a technological solution exists to the ultra-commercialization of Christmas. Established, recognized Christian churches should get together, collectively trademark "Christmas", and give it a non-commercial Creative Commons license. In theory, this would allow the free use of "Christmas" anywhere, as long as it was for non-profit uses. I know what you're thinking, "Won't this eliminate use of the holiday in stores?" Yes, oh yes. And, it just might reclaim the religious value of the holiday.

I know, the natural response is, "Won't that prevent stores from selling stuff for Christmas?" The answer should not surprise you, if you think about it for a minute. No. In fact, stores have long since celebrated "Christmas", and are celebrating something entirely different which I'll call "X-Mas". But first, allow me to back up, and provide a personal perspective.

I'm the kind of person who, at some point in December, wells up with the Christmas spirit, and gets all feel-good about the upcoming holiday, gift-giving, seeing family, and the only decent Winter holiday that someone in the Christian spectrum of belief gets to celebrate. That said, at the same time, the sheer consumerism that's injected into Christmas makes me want to hurl. It's nothing new; certainly pimping Christmas for commercial gain has been going on for at least a century, if not more.

I hear Christian believers complain about it from time to time, and I also *don't* hear plenty more of them, but no one seems to have any idea on how to limit it. I suppose business owners could be *responsible* and tone it down a bit, but I think the shareholders would have a conniption to hear that their company is doing something anti-consumerism, right? Isn't the theory that stores need the Christmas season to get into the black every year, and so they keep making it earlier and earlier in the hopes that people will spend more and more?

Two Different Holidays: Christmas and X-Mas

Okay, pause a second. There are really two holidays here: Christmas and, for lack of another term, "X-Mas".

Christmas is the holiday that has to do with the birth of Yeshua*, the prophet and divine-declared messiah for millions of Christian believers. Sure, because of the translation to Latin, the name got changed to Jesus. Sure, his Pisces birthday** got changed to December 25 to convert many local paganistic ancient religious followers who believed in a god born that day to a virgin mother. But, still, it's a deeply religious holiday that commemorates the man.

"X-Mas" is, literally, the abbreviated version of Christmas. And so it is that I will use it to describe the cultural non-religious holiday that goes on. It's got Santa Claus (a silly tall-tale version of the original saint), reindeer, decorated evergreens (a German cultural element), carols about Winter, and massive, vapid consumerism. Ironically, while I call it the "abbreviated" version to Christmas, it winds up adding elements to the holiday as it abbreviates the religious elements. Which brings me to the next point.

Political Correctness has already sucked all the religion out of X-Mas

Ever listen to the carols played in the loudspeakers at malls and stores? Ever notice most of them are just the "Winter"-flavored songs, and less the Jesus / Christ ones? Notice that store displays focus around Santa and trees and snowflakes? That some mega-stores forbid their clerks from wishing people a happy particular-holiday and/or simply stopped making any reference to any one holiday?

And further, do Christians really get the spirit of Jesus when they're shopping for your friends and family, unless they specifically try? Do members of the Jewish faith cruise the malls reflecting on the fate of the Macabees? My opinion: definitely not. There's nothing remotely religious in the advertising and shopping atmosphere during the holy-moly-it's-starting-before-Halloween-X-Mas-shopping-extravaganza season.

I try to imagine what it must be like as a non-Christian during November and December in America, being bombarded with X-Mas advertising. Ironically, I feel it must only further reinforce their beliefs. If I were a Muslim, for instance, walking in a mall during this time would be an overt reminder that I was, in fact, Muslim. For any Christian, however, that same stroll through the mall separates a person from their belief in the extensive denial of any religious connotation.

In short, I believe the Christmas shopping season actually promotes other religions (including athiesm) and disconnects Christians from their religious beliefs. If Christian churches agreed with this fact, and cared about protecting their religion (which is an assumption I will make), then I think there's one natural conclusion: Take back Christmas as a religious holiday.

Need for a Public Holiday

While my idea is to take Christmas out of the hands of commercial enterprise through trademark, I want to be clear that I think there's a great value and need for a public holiday. There is this "X-Mas" season where people get time off to be with family, can reflect on things like good-will, and stimulate the economy through shopping. These can be all positive factors. America should have a public holiday and it should be named something other than Christmas.

The key, I think, is to remove all religious tenets to the commercial, public holiday. Let people celebrate their religion where religion belongs - among fellow believers. It's not about being politically correct; as I've stated, it would help protect the religion itself.

There are two essential problems with my idea:

1. Many churches enjoy having casual Christians. That's right, I said it. They like having not only the people who go to Church regularly, tithe, participate in Bible studies, but also have people who come a few times a year out of guilt or desire for some holiday hymn-singing, and open their wallets. They like having a holiday dominating America, and, in fact, many parts of the world, that bears the "Christ"-based name. They whine that Christmas is too commercial, but they are unwilling to do something about it that would risk diminishing their reach or perceived power.

Okay, I admit, problem 1 is a pretty cynical take on it.

2. Perhaps even more than problem 1, I think people also feel that there's nothing that can be done against the consumerism machine. And honestly? They're probably right. Could churches really get together and trademark Christmas? Even if you got the major sects of Catholocism, Orthodox, and various Protestant churches to agree, there are going to be various sects or churches who will be opposed, and who could really claim a trademark without unanimous representation?

It's a nice thought-experiment to think that a technological solution could be afforded to this, but really, the problem is within the fabric of our culture. Christians have allowed their holiday to be used for generations, and they're going to have to suffer under the consumerism of X-Mas because of it. And for the true-believers, that might be enough to recapture a tiny bit of flavor of what it was like for the early Christians who were persecuted for what they believed, by the rest of society who believed something different.

Merry X-Mas, and Happy Christmas this year!


Notes:
* Yeshua means "to save" and has some cool properties with the letters it contains. Because Jesus was Jewish, and would have spoken Hebrew and Aramaic, not Latin, Greek, or English.

** Pisces, you know, the fish sign? There's plenty of debate to be found whether he was born in March, May, or September, but almost all the sources I've found definitely say that it wasn't December 25. I'm going with Pisces because it makes the most sense of the three, given the symbol used for his followers, the fact that the astrological age of Pisces started around the year of the birth of Jesus, give or take, and coupled with the astrological significance in Biblical text placed on foretelling of the coming of Jesus. Anyway, I digress.