What Does God Have To Do With It?

I was at lunch with some folks and we got to talking about Christmas and New Year’s celebrations. One of them was Scottish and he was saying that years ago, his father got more time off of work for New Year in Scotland than in Christmas but over the years, it has evened out. As we talked on and on about Christmas I said to them that I was surprised how Christmas-centric it seemed to be. They all looked at me kind of funny. I explained that what I meant was that the London area is very multi-cultural and therefore I would imagine a lot if not more than half of the population didn’t celebrate Christmas and it seemed a bit insensitive to be going on and on about it. They all agreed that Christmas in England only has a religious connotation to a small number of people and it’s more the commercial, Charles Dickens kind of Christmas that they celebrate. They all knew people that were not Christian that celebrated the holiday. They all seemed taken aback that I would think that their celebrating of Christmas had anything to do with a religious affiliation.