Christmas in New York is just a decorated tree

Christmas in New York, as in other major world metropolises, has almost completely lost its original religious meaning and has been reduced to little more than a pine tree decorated with irrelevant figurines and lights, as well as wreaths of plants, although in this city political correctness reaches slightly unusual extremes.

Here’s an example: movies like “Home Alone” or “Christmas Cabin Fever,” from the Wimpy Kid saga, no longer pass the filter of what’s acceptable in a New York public school, where both students and teachers come from different backgrounds and religions.

And although they are anecdotal in “Home alone” Christian references to Christmasthe administration of this school on the Upper West Side believes that “it can hurt religious feelings” from some students and vetoed those who might be considered as Christmas moviesaccording to the testimony of a student collected by EFE.

‘Happy Holidays’ sounds better than ‘Merry Christmas’

The traditional greeting “Merry Christmas” has already fallen out of use: in this city populated by people of all kinds breeds and religions the most neutral was chosen a long time ago “Happy Holidays”and schools no longer give “Christmas holidays”, but “Winter break”.

In the English language, the word “Christmas” (Christ’s Mass, in its origin) necessarily refers to the figure Jesus Christsame as in Spanish Christmas means date birth (birth) of Jesusa celebration many New Yorkers may not relate to.

It is estimated that in NY they live 1.6 million Jews, 800,000 Muslims and 400,000 Hindusand at least in these last two cases, we are talking about populations with exponential growth in the coming years, although they can hardly threaten the Christian majority of 4.8 million people.

The phenomenon is not exclusively New York, because something similar is also happening in London, Paris or any other large city that has been fundamentally Christian for centuries and now has large communities of other faiths, while Christian –Catholic the same as the Protestants – they live a growing process of religious detachment.’

There are an estimated 1.6 million Jews, 800,000 Muslims, and 400,000 Hindus living in New York, and at least in the latter two cases, it is a population that will grow exponentially in the coming years.

Christmas trees and Jewish Hanukkah

The date of Christmas usually coincides in the calendar with Jewish Hanukkah – at the beginning of December – which is evident in the exhibition in New York menoraha candelabra with seven branches that become nine on those dates.

Menorahs can be seen in many places in New York, next to Christmas trees, but even those trees have lost theirs Christian symbolismand among his lights and dolls it is difficult to find anything related to the birth of Jesus, whether it be his own Child JesusVirgin Mary, animals in the manger or even Belen star.

It is true that New York, a city founded by Dutch Protestants, is generally alien to the Christian image associated with Catholicism, and therefore only in some Italian or Latin districts can births be found –Saint Joseph and the Virginhe an ox and a mulethe Kings Wizards… – in public places, almost always next to churches.

But even more characters “neutral” as Santa Claus (“Santa Claus“in English, from Santa Claus) have lost their public presence in the city in favor of symbols increasingly aseptic, so much so that it seems that Christmas is just a synonym for winter and cold.

And so, the Christmas figures hang with trees or from crowns of vegetables There are only ice stars at the door, snowmenshiny baubles or figures of reindeer, along with thousands of LED bulbs, while Santa Claus little by little loses the ground won by the tin soldiers.