By Donald H. Harrison in San Diego
My usual governmental and political sources are shuttered today in celebration of Christmas so barring tragedies like the one in which 15 people were killed at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, or today’s bombing of a vehicle owned but thankfully not occupied by a Chabadnik in Melbourne, Australia, it’s bound to be a slow news day in the United States.
Which got me to wondering how Christmas, a foundational holiday celebrating the birth of Jesus, squares with the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
I did an Internet search on the question, and the most salient answer to my query came from usconstitution.net, which reported: “In 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant signed legislation creating the first federal holidays. The bill specifically designated ‘the twenty-fifth day of December, commonly called Christmas Day’ as a holiday for federal workers in Washington, D.C. Notice the careful phrasing – the statute used the date rather than leading with ‘Christmas,’ adding the religious name almost as an afterthought.”
Officially, we don’t close the federal government for Christmas, which is a religious holiday. We close federal offices in celebration of December 25th.
The website adds, “That linguistic sleight of hand has allowed Christmas to survive constitutional challenges for over 150 years. Courts treat it as a secular celebration that happens to fall on a Christian holy day, rather than as government endorsement of Christianity.”
Personally, that’s okay with me. I like the hoopla around Christmas. I have a neighbor whose annual Christmas display substitutes a six-pointed Magen David for the traditional five-pointed Christmas star.
I enjoy hearing Christmas songs, including some that are the products of Jewish composers like Irving Berlin (“White Christmas”), Johnny Marks (“A Holly Jolly Christmas,” “Rockin’Around the Christmas Tree” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer;” Robert Wells and Mel Tormé (“The Christmas Song: [Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire”]) and Edward Pola and George Wyle (It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.”) There are more, but I believe that will suffice.
I found myself regretting that I wasn’t born earlier or that U.S. Grant Jr. (who built the San Diego hotel named for his father, the nation’s 18th President) didn’t live longer (he died in 1929), so that I might have interviewed him about his father’s Christmas legacy.)
Our 45th and 47th President Donald J. Trump has signed an executive order extending the December 25th federal holiday backwards and forwards so that federal employees in this year only had/ have Christmas Eve (er, the eve of December 25th) and December 26th as holidays as well. The Constitution says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;” it is silent about temporary executive orders. If Trump plans to make the extended Christmas holiday permanent, Congress must enact legislation for him to sign. That procedure was utilized by our 44th President, Barack Obama, when Juneteenth was added to the roster of federal holidays.
If you are confused about how governments can and cannot celebrate Christmas or any other religious holiday, I refer you to a Q&A by The Rutherford Institute whose motto is “Together, We Will Make America Free Again.”
Basically, its “Twelve Rules of Christmas,” are if the celebration of the holiday isn’t forced on non-Christians, it’s permissible.
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Donald H. Harrison is publisher and editor of San Diego Jewish World.
The car bombed in Melbourne was the car of a Rabbi who is , was in Washington DC when it happened. His wife and children were in their home beside the car when the incident happened. Here in New Zealand and in the Uk, Australia we have a second holiday on December 26 called Boxing Day. I always need a day to recover from Christmas Day. Too much food and booze on the 25th.
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Note from Editor Donald H. Harrison: Hi John, here is a link to a Wikipedia article about Boxing Day: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxing_Day