Credits: STUART DRYDEN/CALGARY SUN/QMI AGENCY There are two
Christmases. One is the Christian holy day, the other a Western
cultural celebration full of snowmen, chestnuts, bright lights,
eggnog, warm fires, giftwrap, pop songs and cheer. There's no
denying the cultural event has its origins in the Christian
holiday. Still, the cultural side is no longer inextricably
bound to the religious side, if it ever was. Within Christianity
there has long been tension between the spiritual meaning of the
day and its secular celebration. To this day, there are
Christians who worry the commercial and cultural elements that
have attached themselves to the holiday represent a re-emergence
of the day's pagan origins as a winter solstice ritual to coax
back the disappearing sun. Most of our cultural Christmas
traditions date only to 19th-century Victorian England. The
greeting "Merry Christmas," which has become so controversial on
public signs and on the lips of government clerks and store
cashiers, was popularized in the 1