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This article was nominated for deletion on 25/8/2006. The result of the discussion was merge and redirect.

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This article used to have a lot of references to Bill O'Reilly's allegations about various groups that were committing offenses against Christmas. As it turns out, most of his claims were spurious, and that's probably why they've been removed. But the fact that BO'R made all these claims seems germane to the article, yes? Ethan Mitchell (talk) 12:51, 20 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

How do we do that without the claims? I find this funny: [2] and [3] - Fox News, his employers, use "Happy Holidays" as their greeting it seems. Dougweller (talk) 13:25, 20 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, we had the claims here earlier, so presumably they're in the archives. Give me awhile. Ethan Mitchell (talk) 03:48, 27 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In a good effort to address a concern that I'd raised about sourcing and statements in the opening, User:Mistercontributer edit the sentence to read:

In the past, Christmas-related controversy was mainly restricted to concerns of a public focus on secular Christmas themes such as Santa Claus and gift-giving, rather than what is seen by the majority of Christians as the real reason for Christmas - the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ.

and sourced it to this Pew poll. This has several problems:

1. By placement, it looks like it is sourcing the whole sentence, but the poll says nothing about the history of Christmas controversies.
2. The poll is of Americans only, and thus not appropriate source for talking about "the majority of Christians" in this portion of the article, which is not US-specific.
3. The poll does not ask the question of whether they see the birth of Jesus as the reason for the holiday, merely if they see the holiday as a religious one.

Still, this is a much better source than what was there earlier. --Nat Gertler (talk) 18:01, 27 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree the Pew study reference does not support every part that sentence, but you removed the other references which did support the other parts of that sentence. I will search for additional references for that sentence from other reliable sources. In my opinion (and I realize everyone has one), that sentence is critical, since that sentence explains one key aspect of the "Christmas controversy." Mistercontributer (talk) 18:30, 27 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Even those sources didn't address the first half of the sentence at all, and I hope you can understand that the statements of one ministry and one columnist cannot be presumed to speak for the vast array of Christians as a whole. --Nat Gertler (talk) 19:23, 27 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And I hope you can understand when you remove references you should either add replacement references which support the sentence, or remove the sentence entirely, or add "citation needed" tag, instead of modifying the sentence to fit your view point. Mistercontributer (talk) 19:32, 27 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In this case, I removed the references and the claim that they were apparently supposed to support. That the sentence and indeed the whole article that remains has claims not appropriately referenced is something that I might have addressed had I infinite time, but I do not. --Nat Gertler (talk) 21:20, 27 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This article appears to be lumping together a range of individual controversies under a single umbrella and inventing a term for it. While searching certainly finds some examples of folks using the term "Christmas controversy" (although very few compared to a term like "War on Christmas"), these invocations generally seem to be referring to an individual controversy rather than some blanket situation, and in some cases to controversies that seem an ill fit to this article (such as this, or, even more so, this). Unless we find some external, significant, reliable source defining this term in such a way that matches our definition, I suggest we move away from the title and opening we are using now. The title should be some plural to be clear we are talking about a range of controversies (such as Christmas controversies or Controversies regarding Christmas) and the opening should not talk about the term, but merely that there are and have been controversies regarding the holiday of Christmas and the way in which public and private organizations choose to recognize and refer to it and involve people in Christmas-related activities. --Nat Gertler (talk) 20:54, 28 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest you read the talk page archives for this article since the title issue was previously discussed and addressed. However, I agree the opening can be improved. This article is obviously a mess for the reasons stated above, but this article does serve a purpose, since it attempts to address a controversial subject from a neutral point of view. - Mistercontributer (talk) 02:56, 29 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I actually have scanned through the archives going back to 2006 when this article took on this title (searching on the word "controversy"), and while I see objections to that title similar to what I have voiced, I find no justification for the claim that this is a term. Can you point me to what I missed? And far from being neutral, the title and structure of this article take the point of view that all of these disparate public incidents and discussions are a single issue. Absent any neutral source stating that it is so, this looks like POV... and absent any source connecting these various issues, it looks like original research. --Nat Gertler (talk) 03:37, 29 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to agree with NatGertler's analysis. There is little connecting tissue among the diverse instances cited in this article, unless it would be a general wrangling about what Christmas "really" is. The "controversy" is about religion, and differing viewpoints of it, and how those views play out in larger society - essentially about what the place of religion is in society. The fact that all sides are POV does not bother me much, because the main purpose of WP:NPOV is to provide the means by which viewpoint can be presented and discussed neutrally in articles. A true adherence to that principle can indeed provide a beneficial contribution to WP. But "Christmas" represents only one point around which such contentions occur, so it is not surprising either that "Christmas controversy" does not much appear as a separate term. Title aside, there is only one way to knit the subject together in the article, and that is to stop treating it simply as a collection of news items. Those things are examples. But it is unifying research that can put them into perspective. It is therefore not surprising that the article has sometimes taken on an impression of WP:OR, but that only means that it is lacking the WP:RS research sources that will make this into a real article. Evensteven (talk) 07:05, 29 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Based on this article's talk page archives, the title of this article was changed from "War on Christmas" to "Christmas Controversy" due to POV concerns with previous title. However, I would not have any objections to changing the title of this article again to "Christmas Controversies" to more accurately reflect the content of this article. Again, I agree this article is a mess due to concerns described above, but I would prefer to see these concerns addressed by improving this article instead of removing this article from Wikipedia. This article at least attempts to summarize the controversies surrounding the celebration of Christmas from neutral point of view, which I believe is a valid subject for a Wikipedia article. Mistercontributer (talk) 16:35, 29 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

We'd have to include the date controversy also of course. Dougweller (talk) 18:31, 29 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I quite agree with these comments as well. I see no reason for an AfD, but an appropriate rename would be desirable. I tend to prefer NatGertler's "Controversies regarding Christmas" to "Christmas Controversies" as a clearer description of the topic, though I can't quite conjure a title I would really consider to be of the essence. Btw, I agree with the 2005 opinion that "War on Christmas" can be considered POV. But I do have to wonder if that is not really the term by which this set of controversies is named out there. The world does not obey WP:NPOV (nor does it have to), and the title is meant to direct the WP reader to a subject in the most natural way possible. Is POV really the policy that should be held highest? But perhaps all that has been argued before. As for content, if it's a controversy connected with Christmas, I'd say it falls within the article's scope, and that would include the date too, if anyone wants to add it.

So assuming we now have dispatched these fundamental considerations, I would ask if anyone knows of actual WP:RS researched sources that consider and analyze and weigh the new items and blogs and shouts that get so much attention. The article is in so much need of actual research (instead of reporting) that editors may be sorely tempted to supply some. Good research is in fact what is needed. It's just that OR from editors cannot possibly be allowed to supply that lack. So where is it to be found? If I knew, I'd supply some. But perhaps it is worth asking whether or not there really is any good research on this. If not, a good article will not be possible, however desirable it might be. However much we might want one, if an article is impracticable, we might as well close up shop and consider AfD again. I confess that I find it dismaying that an article of 10+ years' standing has yet to produce a more solid foundation for its existence. I do have to question the viability of an article that, despite attention, remains in such lowly condition. There does come a time to cut dead weight loose. I suggest this comment for consideration, but with all due regard for the limits of my perspective here. Evensteven (talk) 21:49, 29 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

An editor recently deleted some reference to Christians who do not observe Christmas, with an edit comment that suggested that such a thing did not exist. The edit has been appropriately reverted, but to stave off a recurrence, allow me to point any interested editor to this Jehovah's Witnesses article where it is explained why various Christians do not observe the holiday on any date. --Nat Gertler (talk) 05:16, 20 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

With such things in mind, I have also revised the article text a little in order to neutralize (somewhat) the overly-bald statement that may have caused the original objection. Evensteven (talk) 14:26, 6 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think that, far from neutralizing it, your edit had just the other effect. At no point in this article do we refer to Christians who celebrate Christmas as anything but "Christians"; putting those who do not celebrate into a category for merely being people who acknowledge themselves to be Christians is granting their Christianity less certainty. (And if anyone wants to argue that other people who deem themselves Christians might not see them as Christians, the mere existence of at least two groups that deem themselves the One True Church ensures that is true for every Christian.) I am reverting that change. --Nat Gertler (talk) 14:55, 6 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think that, far from making remarks about who we think Christians are, that their self-profession as Christians is the most neutral thing that can be used. It is true that some other Christians may disagree about who is included in the category of "Christians", and that is why the original commenter (in the article) objected in the first place. I, as an Orthodox Christian, don't happen to think it is my responsibility to go around pointing fingers at who is Christian and who is not. In fact, that attitude is directly and forcefully opposed by Orthodox teaching as being judgmental, so please cast no aspersions. I am very definitely in the camp who wishes to preserve maximum neutrality here. I just don't agree with you that there is a "category for merely being people who acknowledge themselves to be Christians". There is no "merely" about it. Jehovah's Witnesses do not "merely" acknowledge themselves as Christians, and neither do I. That self-acknowledgement is important to all of us, and it is the only way we have of neutrally identifying Christians here on WP. Otherwise, there will always be some other "authority" defining who Christians are, and we both know how that won't work. The article text as it was has a neutrality problem, as evidenced by the commenter. As I changed it to be, I addressed that problem. If you have an alternate solution you think would work better, I'd like to see it in an edit, or perhaps in discussion. But I'd very much like to try (with you) to find something better than what the article used to say, for that was still problematic. Evensteven (talk) 15:21, 6 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Under that logic, we cannot refer to anyone or anything as "Christian". If you need reliable sources that say that the JWs or any of the many other groups we list are "Christian" groups, I would have no problem providing them in droves, and referring to them simply as "Christian" fits in with WP:self-identification. That one IP editor was apparently ignorant of the facts is not a reason for this POV change. (As for whether it's POV, how would you feel if Orthodox Christians and only Orthodox Christians were referred to as "people who claim to be Christians"?) --Nat Gertler (talk) 16:17, 6 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've reverted Evensteven, that just looks awful - as though Wikipedia were saying "they aren't really Christians, they just call themselves Christians". Dougweller (talk) 18:07, 6 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@NatGertler, you still seem to be under a mistaken impression about Orthodoxy. Please let me try to correct the notion that I have any problem with JWs calling themselves Christians, or that I have any intention of saying that only Orthodox are Christians. The latter is a misconstrual of what the Orthodox mean when they call Orthodoxy the One True Church, and in particular is an improper assumption - an extension of effect because some people do say "this person or group is Christian" and "another is not". The Orthodox Church does not do that by way of denigration. If some Orthodox do, it is to their own shame; it is nevertheless the nature of people to err. Please recognize it as erring, not as something accepted as proper by Orthodoxy.

@Dougweller, both you and Nat seem to dislike strongly what I wrote, so I'll withdraw it. I still think the article reads with a subtle jab at (all) Christians because some of them do not celebrate Christmas. I can't say, Nat, what the original commenter thought, but I can say that I am not in the least uninformed about JW beliefs in this matter and it still reads with a jab. Nor do I blame JWs for not celebrating it; I would think that, believing as they do about Jesus, that it would be consistent with their faith not to celebrate Christmas, at least as it is currently manifested, both secularly and religiously. In that matter, they are remaining true to their faith. I think you are both reading other things into what I wrote. However, I also think there are many reasons for that predisposition to be there, and I take your shared dislike as a sign that many other people would probably take it wrongly too. So I withdraw my edit. I don't think it was mistaken (inherently), but I do think it doesn't get the idea across. To call any of this issue a matter of POV is going beyond where I would go. Still, I would prefer a different language in the article that is more neutral than the status quo. It is not perfect. If either of you has a different approach, I'd love to be able to support it. Evensteven (talk) 18:54, 6 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. As I presume you know, historically there have been and still are devout groups of Christians who don't celebrate Christmas, eg the Churches of Christ. And see Christmas in Puritan New England. I never thought of the wording as a jab against Christians and still can't see how it is. Dougweller (talk) 20:49, 6 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, thanks, I do know that. Even the early Christians didn't celebrate it, and it only grew gradually into an observance within Christianity (i.e., with church services) at all. It was never considered a prominent feast day until it became a pairing with the Theophany (Epiphany) on January 6th, the two both being observances of the incarnation. As to the jab, I just hope most others look at it that way. If no one is trying to be testy with it, then there is no jab. Perhaps I was looking at it suspiciously because this is an article where some might like to take a pot shot. And I don't like those, whichever direction they come from. Evensteven (talk) 23:30, 6 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I was surprised to see TWoC redirected to this article because TWoC is a term often used in recent years to describe the CC. Having an article of that name is not POV as there are plenty of RS using the phrase, not as a claim there is an actual war on Christmas, but because the subjects the sources cover use that term. WP:COMMONNAME is the applicable guideline. I think this is very similar to The War On Women, for which we do have an article.Two kinds of pork^Makin'_Bacon 06:14, 22 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose: The "war" title may be common enough out there for some things that fall into this article's purview, but I think it describes a narrower topic area, not the current one. Evensteven (talk) 10:02, 22 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Are you thinking of something along the lines of "The War on Women?"Two kinds of pork^Makin'_Bacon 23:31, 24 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for the revert, Nat. I wouldn't question the edit in another part of the article, but it's the lead sentence, and it seems to go against the (preferred) guidance of WP:LEADSENTENCE. Even then, such a departure from the norm is possible, but I don't see the talk page discussion mentioned in the edit comment. Perhaps I've missed something, but I'd like to be sure there is full consensus before we'd go ahead. In fact, I have no objection to the wording itself, and do not offer opposition to the idea of making this change. It might be best though, to try harder to find an acceptable way to stick with the normal form before departing from it. Evensteven (talk) 08:12, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The talk discussion is "Problems with title and opening", a couple above this one, where multiple people concurred with my analysis and none disagreed. The version of the opening that you have just reinserted basically invents a phrase to hang the article on, and makes the claim without support that this is a phrase that is in use. At best, it's merely a descriptive term, and thus falls under "However, if the article title is merely descriptive—such as Electrical characteristics of dynamic loudspeakers—the title does not need to appear verbatim in the main text." in WP:LEADSENTENCE. --Nat Gertler (talk) 14:34, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I will also note that "Christmas controversy" is not a term we need to invent because we really aren't using it in the article. It appears three times in the article - the opening sentence where we define it, the sentence that starts The first documented Christmas controversy (the usage of which is not in accord with the opening sentence claim that this is all one controversy), and This remains a controversial example of "Christmas controversy", with critics attacking the use of the word "Winterval" as being political correctness gone mad, accusing council officials of trying to take the Christ out of Christmas, which is an unsourced claim (the source given at the end of the sentence is contemporaneous with the over-a-decade-past event, so it doesn't show anything about it remaining controversial) and, despite the quoting, the word "controversy" appears nowhere in the source, much less our invented phrase. --Nat Gertler (talk) 16:01, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, reasonable points. Lead sentences can be touchy, and I just wanted to be sure there was oversight before using a less common alternate form. The discussion looks good enough to call it a consensus, and I have no problems with your text, which I have restored to the article. Evensteven (talk) 23:04, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There seems to be an implication that atheists don't say Merry Christmas. That's true I'm sure of some but not all. The Times Square 2012 billboard[4] said "Keep the Merry, dump the myth" with a picture of Santa Claus. Christmas is an unusual holiday. As a child I remember nearby Jewish homes with Christmas trees. Some Hindus and Sikhs celebrate it[5] and even some Muslims[6] celebrate it. I wonder if [7] should be an EL? Dougweller (talk) 20:17, 9 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The section about Germany isn't correct. See this article by German media watchblog de:Bildblog. The district of Kreuzberg didn't rename those markets, the names were chosen entirely by the organizers themselves without any influence by local authorities. And there are still several christmas markets even in that district named "Weihnachtsmarkt" (christmas market). Essentially, Germany's biggest tabloid, Bild, took a quote by local administration about not giving permissions for public religious ceremonies in non-private spaces out of context and combined it with the differing name of this particular market, turning it into a newsstory about some kind of "war on christmas". They even included a quote from the local administration that explicitly said that christmas markets can be named whatever the organizers like. Unfortunately, other newspapers and media just ran with this story without factchecking it first. --95.90.51.227 (talk) 19:19, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, it happens, everywhere. We should be cautious about using any "news" or media sources on WP. Reliability is decreasing in general, and fact checking costs time and money, which is why the journalistic rush to get a story out there is often at odds with it. If a source is not a major organization capable of mounting that effort, we should be rather averse to using them as sources here. Also if they are capable but have flawed records, like many tabloids. This is not a particularly new thought (see WP:OTTO). I'd welcome the removal of such sources and info anywhere on WP. Evensteven (talk) 20:21, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Given it is an opinion piece, I think it is overused at best.

"In recent decades in the United States, public, corporate, and the federal government mention of the term "Christmas" during the Christmas and holiday season has declined and been replaced with a generic term, usually "holiday" or "holidays," to avoid referring to Christmas by name and/or to be inclusive of other end-of-year observances such as Hanukkah and Kwanzaa" I'm unsure if it is reliable for such a statement being made in Wikipedia's voice. --Ronz (talk) 18:24, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You're right, it didn't even make the claim it was being cited for, and it would not be a reliable source for that if it did. I deleted that line, and corrected the name of the opinionista in another citation of the same piece. --Nat Gertler (talk) 20:13, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]