Practicing Christians should not be invited to participate in our traditional seasonal festivities

You make some interesting points. Just for the record, I am a practicing Armenian Orthodox Christian (a member of the Oriental Orthodox branch), and my church officially celebrates Christmas on January 6th. Personally, I do celebrate Christmas on December 25th. Lastly, I am U.S.-based. I believe you are UK-based, so for this round, I may make factually incorrect statements about your country. Please feel free to correct me. In addition, I will be working from these assumptions: a. Christmas has two facets; a religious celebration, celebrating the birth of Christ, and a secular celebration, celebrating nothing in particular, but often resulting in family togetherness, the exchange of gifts, certain traditions (decorating houses with lights, putting up a Christmas tree, singing traditional songs, etc.), and general goodwill and high spirits. b. You propose that the secular holiday separate from the religious holiday, with the secular holiday turning into the festival of Yule. c. You propose that the religious holiday would be moved back to its original date, and believers would follow traditions that are solely Christian in nature. d. You believe Christians should not celebrate non-Christian festivals, as they are "not for them." e. Your argument for (d.) is justified because Christians "have their own festivals which non-adherents of their faiths are not welcome to participate in." I posit that it is first of all, unnecessary to move Christmas back to its original date. Much of what is actually practiced and believed by all Christians is not written in the Bible. There is a huge amount of dogmatic nuances, from the Church calendar, to the vestments the priests wear, that are carried on solely through Church traditions. The date Christmas is celebrated on for Catholics, Protestants, and Eastern Orthodox Churches is one of those traditions. There is no legitimate reason, other than to piss off Christians, to change the Church traditions. Religious festivals are allowed to fall on the same day. Every few years, one of the nights of Hanukkah will fall on the 25th. Every once in a while, Passover will fall on Easter. There's no issue. Which brings me to my next point; The exclusion of Christians from Yuletide festivities. In America, and I can only assume it is the same way in the UK, a secularized society combined with a doctrine to spread the faith has resulted in Christians practically begging people of other faiths to come to their Church and celebrate the liturgy with them. It is like this for many religious events and festivals, for multiple religions. A Jewish child will invite their friends to their Bar/Bat Mitzvah. The (mostly Christian) group of children will sit patiently in the Temple as the child reads from the Torah in a language none of them understand. Weddings, holy events, one of the seven sacraments in Catholic and Orthodox Churches, and of great religious importance in most other religions, are attended by people of all faiths. Baptisms are usually limited to close friends and family, but if an atheist friend wanted to come, no one would deny him. Jews often open up their homes to Jews and Gentiles alike for Seders. Finally, of course, there's Christmas. It's the second most holy day of the year, and it's celebrated by most of the secular world. But I'll allow that the Christmas celebrated by the general populace is the secular holiday, not the religious one. You would have Yule be exclusive though? To whom? Adherents to the Pagan faiths who originally celebrated it? There is still considerable debate over what the religious meaning of Yule actually is. And in your argument, you stated that everybody but Christians should celebrate Yule, including devoted Jews, Muslims, and Hindus. Why the arbitrary line? Because you don't like Christians? If you truly want to separate the secular holiday from the religious holiday, you cannot exclude a religion. It's similar to saying that Christians must work on Labor Day (or any random day you get off of work over there). Next, you believe that Christians should revert to traditional Christian traditions, while Yule retains the trappings of Yule. Again, you're saying that Christians are not allowed to appropriate other culture's traditions, as they did not develop them, and they mean nothing to them. What does Yule mean to you? What will it mean to every non-Christian across the world who celebrates it? Surely not what it meant to the Germanic tribes who celebrated it before Christianity came. If Christians must stick to their own traditions, there's no reason why you must not as well. That means no using the name "Yule" and none of the traditions you mentioned above, just some pure, secular, new ones. Finally, and perhaps most distressing to me, was the food Christians would be forced to eat. Just traditional, bland sounding food? Awful! Except whose tradition is that food? Was it traditional because the food has special meaning, or mainly out of necessity? Those all look like foods that may have been eaten by British Christians, but what about Christians in Italy? Would they have to give up the Feast of the Seven Fishes, their traditional Christmas Eve meal? I would say not. Armenia was the first Christian nation, converted in 301 AD, and traditional Christmas dinner involves none of those things. Rather, a Mediterranean spread is prepared, mixing in Turkish, Greek, and Middle Eastern cuisine. I don't see why I would have to give that up because Englishmen didn't know how to cook in ancient times. So the next time some pious Christian tries to chastise you for not going to church on December 25th, tell them that, even though that's the official day Christmas is celebrated in their religion, you can take responsibility for you own soul, but thank them for the concern. Again, for the record, I'm a very liberal Oriental Orthodox Christian, who does celebrate the religious holiday on December 6th, the secular holiday on December 25th, and I go to Church every Christmas eve for Christmas carol singing. The Church may not officially believe it's Christmas eve, but it's still a very nice thing they do.