Why is Christmas so appealing to a world that is predominantly non-Christian?
As of 13 December, the world population is approximately 8.3 billion, according to Worldmeter trackers. Admittedly, there are 2.4-2.6 billion people who identify as Christians, which makes roughly 30 per cent of the population. The vast majority of non-Christians celebrate Christmas.
The universality of Christmas grows more popular each year, seduced by its irresistible charm, notwithstanding the mention of Jesus Christ. Non-Christians view it as a cultural event rather than a religious one, with even higher rates among the religiously unaffiliated.
Hindus, Buddhists, and other faiths celebrate Christmas in India, China, Japan. Even primarily Muslim countries like Pakistan, Indonesia, and even Iran enjoy the lights and decorations that delight at Christmas time.
Many seize the event for commercial reasons, especially in Asia and North African nations, but the appeal of Christmas extends beyond commercialism, focusing on the universal source of joy and connection. Undoubtedly, Christmas is big business — the biggest.
It is a global economic engine that keeps giving. Christmas spending is massive, exceeding $2.5 trillion annually, with the US leading, followed by Europe, UK, Canada, Australia, and Japan.
The ability to bring people together, regardless of cultural or religious backgrounds, is the magic of Christmas. It is simply a message of joy.
This blend of secular and spiritual themes—hope, generosity, and family traditions — creates a shared cultural moment of goodwill, offering a secular celebration of light amid winter’s darkness.
The exact date of Christmas is unknown, why do we opt to celebrate it in mid-winter? Christmas coincides with the winter solstice. What is the winter solstice? It is the shortest day and longest night of the year, when Earth’s tilted axis points farthest from the sun. This marks the turning point, beginning of longer days and shorter nights, for this hemisphere. Is that not worth a worldwide celebration, symbolising a new birth?
Christmas simply adopted the solstice’s timing and its many themes of light and renewal. Centuries before the establishment of Christmas, various pagan cultures held festivals around the winter solstice to celebrate the return of longer days, usually 21 or 22 December. Christmas roughly coincides with the winter solstice, adopting its ancient roots with their festive lights symbolizing life, renewal and immortality.
Why is New Year’s celebrated within days after Christmas? Christmas and New year’s share qualities because they are both winter holidays evolved from ancient winter solstice celebrations like the Romans of Saturnalia and the Norse of Yule that marked the darkest part of the year. Germanic people celebrated Yule with feasts, burning large yule logs, while the mistletoe plant signifies fertility and vitality, celebrating the return of the sun. Hence the tradition of kissing under the mistletoe is seen as a sign of peace and reconciliation.
Both Christmas and New year’s mark beginnings and endings: The birth of Christmas, gives the New Year a new calendar and serve as times for reflection and hope, making them culturally intertwined, with celebrations fellowship and togetherness.
The lights overcome darkness with the New Year, making a fresh start, embodying hope for the new year.
Christmas was strategically near the winter solstice, 25 December, to align with pagan celebrations of the sun’s return, much like the ancient New Year festivals.
The world is never brighter, with lights, bright colours, feastings are all but common traditions of warding winter darkness.
The comparison highlights how secular traditions blend with religious holidays as Christmas absorbed elements from pagan winter solstice. Even they liked feasting and gift-giving.
Modern day secularism is widely popular, observed by Christians and non-Christians, much as they did by early Christians and pre-Christians, adopting and adapting the traditions that bring us joy. It is little wonder that Christmas has become a cultural phenomenon that evolved since the early 20th century.
People of diverse beliefs join in the secular aspects like ornaments, decorations, greenery and lights, incorporating existing themes into their celebrations of Jesus Christ.
From a religious feast Christmas has largely become distinct from its original spiritual significance, yet it shares themes of love, grace, and redemption. Its core is a story that deeply resonates across cultures, inspiring charity, togetherness, a chance for renewal, as so finely expressed in Charles Dickens’ story of Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. If a cold-hearted, miserly old man filled with hatred can be transformed by the grace of a Christmas day from a villain to a hero, any sinner can find redemption.
A little magic is often performed at Christmastime. Could it be an overflow of love of man to his fellow man?
Yes, we need a Christmas, no matter what we call it. Our insightful perspective on the human condition and the universal need for ritual and communal celebration, makes Christmas imperative.
While it is specifically a Christian festival, celebrating the birth of Jesus, Christmas blends perfectly as a secular feast, capturing the description of universal themes — of renewal, gratitude, community, and charity — diversified cultures and belief systems, observe by wide-ranging holidays throughout the year.
These celebrations regardless of their specific origins often serve the essential human need, somehow a structured opportunity to pause and reflect on the past year, connect with others, and look forward with hope and renewed spirit.
Christmas is truly the universal holiday of all mankind, when all of us dedicate ourselves to do more for others than of ourselves.
The Bible said: “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
“Christmas waves a magic wand over this world and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.”
Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993)
* A version of this article appears in print in the 18 December, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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