Christmas controversies

Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, which, in Western Christian churches, is held annually on 25 December. For centuries, it has been the subject of several reformations, both religious and secular.

In the 17th century, the Puritans had laws forbidding the ecclesiastical celebration of Christmas, unlike the Catholic Church or the Anglican Church, from the latter of which they separated. With the atheistic Cult of Reason in power during the era of the French Revolution, Christian Christmas religious services were banned and the three kings cake was forcibly renamed the "equality cake" under anticlerical government policies. Later, in the 20th century, Christmas celebrations were prohibited under the doctrine of state atheism in the Soviet Union. In Nazi Germany, Christmas celebrations were propagandized so as to serve the ideology of the Nazi party.

Modern-day controversy occurs mainly in China, the United States and to a much lesser extent the United Kingdom. In the US, the generic term "holidays" and avoidance of using the term "Christmas" have been denounced by some figures as being concessions to political correctness, specifically in order to allegedly avoid offending minorities that do not celebrate Christmas, such as American Jews. This often involves objections to government or corporate efforts to acknowledge Christmas in a way that is multiculturally sensitive.