"riverman" wrote in message
ups.com...

...The midwinter festival has a 4000+ year old history in the
rest of the world, diverse roots, multiple religious origins and many
different traditions. Identifying it as a Christian religion was even
outlawed for a brief time in a Christian country, yet the US insists
that its own cultural identification of the Christmas story is the
right one, while the associations the rest of the world has with this
worldwide event, which they originated, are 'beside the point'....

Can't argue with the exposition of Christmas as celebrated here being a
multicultural stew, but I'm curious about this notion of American insistence
on its own correct version. To be sure, there will always be short-sighted
and dim-witted cultural chauvinists who believe their way is the only way,
but I don't recall seeing much evidence of a widespread belief among
Americans that our own Christmas traditions are any more right than anyone
else's. Quite the contrary, we are all taught as children that various bits
of our way of celebrating Christmas come from other places. Beyond that,
there doesn't seem to be much indication that people here think about
comparative Christmases at all.

Indifference is not the same thing as chauvinism.

Wolfgang