Should Christmas be a national holiday?

[Palefire]

December 25th was selected to be Christmas by the church because it was the same day as two previously existing non-Christian holidays - natalis solis invicti and the birthday of Mithras. The same is true of just about every Christian holiday. People need their holidays: so I say give it to them. The reality is that we celebrate them differently. Let the religious folks go be religious and let the non-religious folks and people of other religions do what they will. They certainly do not need to be recognized as religious affairs by the government for religious folks to go be religious. Why they are there and celebrated on the dates that they are is mostly irrelevant. The church really made the dates irrelevant to Christianity when they decided to use their holy days to try and wipe out the holy days of other beliefs. Roman sun worshippers and Iranian followers of the Son of Righteousness have more reasons to celebrate on December 25th than Christians do. Heck, Christmas in American is basically a non-religious celebration of materialism, even for the folks that want to pretend they are unspeakably devoted to God. And you know what, how different people want to spend their time off really doesn't effect you or me - so what the hell does it matter?