Weren't a lot of our Founding Fathers Masons? I seem to remember a picture of George W. with his Mason's apron and the symbol nearby. The Masons and Eastern Stars are a Christian sect, but not the kind the Fundies want to hear about. After all, they
did borrow a lot from classical Greek ideals, laws, and so on....
I think that that Christmas was "created" in the 4th century as a way for Christianity to counter the progressively growing Cult of Mithras. It seemed that Christianity valued fasting, prayer, and soul-cleansing austerity so much that the "common pagans" who they were trying to convert got tired of the "lack of fun" factor, and Mithras had so many similarities to Christian values that it was a real threat in popularity.
And Mithras had parties. So the church elders decided to make a celebration on December 25th specifically to counter the great Feast of Mithras (held on the same day). They saved the rebirth aspect of God for Easter, which, religiously speaking, really is supposed to be more important to Christianity than the Nativity.
If Mithras' cult hadn't gained the "upper hand" in the religious PR war (thanks to the Roman Legions bringing it back with them from their travels), the church elders of the time would probably never have bothered recognizing Christ's birth. They were far, far more concerned with His adult ministry, His death, and His resurrection. Pretty much everything written about His childhood was meant to point to His status as Savior, by outlining all the prophecies He fulfilled on the way up.
Also, according to the Orthodox tradition, the original Saint Nicholas was a Bishop of Myra in the 3rd century. He was born wealthy, his parents died while he was young, and he gave away all his posessions to the poor. There's all sorts of stuff on him out there on the web. Here's what I cut+pasted from one site, which gives a quick explanation of the "Christmas Stockings" origin, as well as some other decorative traditions:
One story tells of a poor man with three daughters. In those days a young woman's father had to offer prospective husbands something of value—a dowry. The larger the dowry, the better the chance that a young woman would find a good husband. Without a dowry, a woman was unlikely to marry. This poor man's daughters, without dowries, were therefore destined to be sold into slavery. Mysteriously, on three different occasions, a bag of gold appeared in their home-providing the needed dowries. The bags of gold, tossed through an open window, are said to have landed in stockings or shoes left before the fire to dry. This led to the custom of children hanging stockings or putting out shoes, eagerly awaiting gifts from Saint Nicholas. Sometimes the story is told with gold balls instead of bags of gold. That is why three gold balls, sometimes represented as oranges, are one of the symbols for St. Nicholas. And so St. Nicholas is a gift-giver.
It can be really interesting to trace the icon of Santa Clause back to its hundreds of different roots, only a few of which are Christian. Maybe I'll find some good links and post them here (assuming I find the time
).
All that said... Man, I don't know where to go on this.
America is torn between celebrating Christmas as a religious holiday and a secular one. It's been this way, one way or another, ever since the 1820s. The secular influence has been really important to our nation's economic bottom line, so it's gained popular support in the establishment the most likely to benefit from it: retailers. Because of this, Christmas seems to start some time about 1:30am on November 1st.
But it's not just the omnipresent retail imagery that's the problem here. I mean, no one can really argue that the retailers have gone overboard. Starting into "Jingle Bells" and putting up Currier and Ives inspired Christmas tableaus before Halloween is over is so nakedly an attempt to sell stuff that it's hard to defend. But when you get into celebrating the holiday itself, it's a virtual minefield.
* If you go to church, put up a nativity, and emphasize the religious aspect, you're a right wing zealot who shoves your religion down someone's throat.
* If celebrate it as a secular holiday of the family, you're a rampant materialist who steals from Mother Earth, and should be
ashamed of what Christmas is turning into, thanks to greedy capitalists like you.
* If you're not Christian and complain about its omnipresence, you're being overly sensitive and using your minority status to ruin the Holiday Season for everyone.
* If you don't celebrate it at all, you're some Scrooge-like bitter nutball that kicks puppies and snarls an anyone who smiles. Or, worse, you're a nasty-ol communist who's trying to rescind Christmas and destroy the joy of children everywhere.
It's like there's no middle ground on this issue. Christmas has become as polarized as such hot-button topics as abortion or politics. No matter how you celebrate, or don't celebrate, you're going to piss someone off and be seen as a monster.
I have to go along with Bunny on the aspect of who to give secular greetings, and who to give religious ones. Unless you're in an obviously religious business (i.e. the Salvation Army or St. Vladimir's Press), or a business so small that you personally know every customer like they were family, it's much more professional to wish someone joy, peace, and happiness rather than "Rejoice, for He is born". Religion is a very intimate thing, and shouldn't be explicit in a formal business relationship.
The school one is so tricky, for one reason: most of the really cool Choral works have a religious base. They were written for the great choirs of Europe, and it can be hard to find complex, gorgeous stuff that is purely secular. It's easy to
not put up a nativity scene in a public school, and easy to concentrate on the Santa Clause/ Season's Greetings stuff for decorations. But when it comes to singing, things get convoluted.
When I was in High school, we did religious songs just because they were the only classic songs of that kind. There was a whole slew of new stuff that's secular, and a few classics or madrigals were love songs instead of Catholic psalms, but you couldn't fill an entire repetoire with them and not sound like muzak. (This was the large concert choir, by the way: Jazz choir was a different story entirely.) I don't know what has been written in the past 20 years, so maybe things are different now, but still, despite my extreme defense of church/state separation, I'm inclined to give the music department a break on this. It's... well... just the reality of classical music that the original choirs were for churches. Even now, outside of schools, there aren't many secular choirs when compared with religious ones.
Also, as with KurtWagner2k, my choir instructor made it clear that if any of these songs went against your religious beliefs, you were under no orders to sing them. But she also warned up-front that the majority of the classics were written for church choirs, and that there would be Christian influences prevalent through them. When it came to Christmas carols, one of the Altos didn't sing them because she and her family were aethiests, and it made her uncomfortable. Though she wasn't in the Christmas recital, I never heard about her grade suffering for it, and she was very understanding about the rest of the classical stuff.
A last bit: I have a friend who is distinctly Pagan, and she also has a problem with the omnipresence of Christmas, and the societal pressure to BE MERRY, GODDAMN IT!! CELEBRATE!! WHAT ARE YOU, SOME SORT OF WACKO?! In her case, I think it's more that "enforcement" that bothers her than the presence of religious imagery. And that societal enforcement can get pretty bothersome indeed. In that, I agree with her. Being told "It's Christmas, therefore you MUST be happy! Otherwise you're ruining it, you old meanie!" is just as dictatorial as anything else.