It is the summer of the soul in December
Click to viewOver in Customers_Suck, someone (the customer who sucked) complained about being wished 'happy holidays', and I ended up writing this comment;
I was reading Folklore of the Discworld the other day, and a whole thing came up about Winter festivals. Most countries have some kind of winter ceremony, purely because it made so much sense to slaughter most of the male cattle/pigs/rams rather than feed them through the winter. You only need one of each to impregnate the females. So, everyone can have as much fresh meat as they like. Plus, it was dark and cold outside, and it would be nice to get together and have fun and a feast.
The birth of Christ is believed by some people to have occurred in spring, rather than winter, the date simply being moved back to coincide with feasts that existed already. And we have halloween, and bonfire night, and the lights concert (in Birmingham; we have a big free concert to celebrate our christmas lights being turned on - I gather we do something similar for Diwali), and Eid (usually), and Diwali, and Hanukkah...
Winter is a lovely season.:D Summer is good, but winter has more cosiness and sparkly lights (well, in America you have the 4th of July, but I bet the fireworks show up better in the dark), and silly movies on TV. The old comfy ones like the Grinch and all the different versions of a Christmas carol. I'm going to steal a line from one of them; It is the summer of the soul in December.
I guess what I mean is, 'holidays' is one thing. It encompasses all of the above.:D Christmas is another, which is also good, if one celebrates it. I don't think it's important to be pedantic about that - there are so many good meanings to choose from.