Everyone Is Christian At Christmas

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"The only reason you'd need to come up with a universal, secularized, entirely inoffensive version of Christmas that is really about telling the people you love that you love them is that the actual, Christian version of Christmas is so firmly entrenched in your culture that it can never be removed, and the only way to accommodate the people in your society who don't celebrate it is to turn it into something it isn't."
—Abigail Nussbaum

Shows that have characters who are conspicuously Jewish (or otherwise not Christian) the rest of the year, usually flat out ignore this fact during the required Christmas Episode, or barely mention it in a very token sort of way. Santa Clausmas comes up frequently.

Examples of Everyone Is Christian At Christmas include:

Live-Action TV

  • Community has both subverted and played this trope straight. In the show's first-season episode "Comparative Religion", it was revealed that every single one of the study group members practiced a different religion or was agnostic/atheist, and they all came together to celebrate their differences. In the second-season episode "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas", on the other hand, it was retconned that both Annie (previously Jewish) and Abed (previously Muslim) were half Christian, and the entire episode was about celebrating Christmas. Everyone else's religious differences were totally ignored.
  • On Glee, "A Very Glee Christmas" has Rachel tokenly mention her Jewishness as a reason for why she doesn't normally give Christmas presents, but dressing up, decking the halls and singing Christmas carols, on the other hand, are totally fine. Puck, who also likes to conspicuously mention his Judaism, never says anything about it in the episode.
  • The "Secret Santa" episode of Warehouse 13 puts a dreidel by the name of Saul Rubinek (the actor playing Artie) in the credits, and Claudia does give a Jewish prayer at the end of the episode. But most of Artie and Claudia's plotline in the episode revolves around the Christmas present she is trying to get him (which ends up being both a musical instrument and a reunion with his father).
  • The Nanny, a show that had a Jewish main character, and her Jewishness came up in most episodes, had an animated Christmas special.
    • Another Christmas Episode was quite ecumenical: It shows Fran praying together with a (Christian) nun, and the Christmas Miracle that saves Maxwell, Gracie and C.C. was intentionally similar to the miracle in the Hanukkah story.
  • On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Willow once mentioned that her dad didn't like her watching Christmas specials on television and she had to sneak over to Xander's house to do it. She also mentions her religion both times it's Christmas in the series ("Amends" and a flashback in "The Body"), but in the latter still has a big holiday feast with everybody else.
  • Inverted, or at least exported on Sports Night. Dan gets the crew together for a Passover Seder despite the fact that he and Jeremy are the only Jewish characters.
  • Pretty much every show in the early days of television had an elaborate Christmas episode, with Christmas carols and everything. This can sometimes seem weird with obviously Jewish comedians like Eddie Cantor. When you think about it, it seems odd even with less stereotypical Jewish comedians, like Jack Benny and George Burns (he was Jewish, but Gracie Allen was Catholic).
  • In one Christmas episode of House, someone had to remind Wilson that he's Jewish. It didn't stop him from celebrating Christmas with vocal atheist House.
  • In an early 3rd Rock from the Sun episode, the aliens tried to figure out what ethnicity they should be, eventually settling on Jewish. Their supposedly being Jewish was occasionally mentioned in subsequent episode, but was not mentioned at all in the Christmas episode.

Religion and Mythology

  • Depending on country or location, it may not be uncommon for both non-religious people and non-Christians to also celebrate Christmas.
    • Non-religious people often say they are taking Christmas back. It was originally a pagan celebration of the winter solstice, co-opted by the church for easier conversion. The same goes for Easter.

Video games

  • Averted if not defied in The Horrorday Gang Story CC Pack for The Sims 4 by Dozerfleet Labs. As much as Rob and Anton would love nothing more than to celebrate the birth of Christ in peace; they're far too busy saving Rob's family (and themselves) from the insanely corrupt CPS agent Wilma Menka (a literal Wicked Witch) and from the equally insane and corrupt Dickey County sheriff Chad Estahm. Estahm has grandiose ambitions of rounding up an entire village (including Rob's family) to slaughter in satanic ritual abuse, in the hopes of using their adrenochrome in a spell to create a new Abdygalis Shard - to replace the ones destroyed by Nanaouk Kunuk and Boris Heminski.
    • This gets even more dark and twisted when the sheriff kidnaps Krampus - to try to use him as a one-monster Suicide Squad knockoff, to go after Anton with. All because Anton threatened to expose the sheriff to a militia known as the Navyropes.
    • In kidnapping the monster, however, the sheriff starts a war with the Church of Krampus, which has commandeered a large portion of northern Greenland as a sovereign kingdom dubbed "Nordreichdun" (Dark Kingdom of the North) to house its deranged cult.
    • To save his family (and any good folks that are left,) Rob must first save Krampus, then help assemble the Horrorday Gang - to initiate a showdown in North Dakota of Evil vs. Evil.

Web Original

  • DC Nation works with this yearly with the annual compromise at the Dibny household. Ralph gets to decorate (copious amounts of purple are involved), and he gets to be a big, stretchy kid. (This has been amplified since their daughter came into the picture) Topping the tree is a "only a good idea in the 50's" electric menorah with bright purple lights. Sue just stands back and lets him because she thinks it's side-splittingly funny to watch her hubby and daughter literally bounce around the house.

Western Animation

  • In Kim Possible, Ron is shown in previous episodes to be Jewish. This doesn't stop him from having an unbridled and passionate love for celebrating Christmas.
  • Lampshaded on Danny Phantom, when Sam notes that she loves Christmas despite not even celebrating it. (Notably, the Hanukkah scene later in the episode is the only indication she's Jewish in the entire series.)
  • Kind of lampshaded in a Simpsons episode where Kent Brockman, hosting the Springfield Christmas Parade, extols the holiday as a wonderful season "whether you're Christian, or simply not Jewish."
  • The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy spends its whole Christmas Episode with Billy an obsessed lover of Christmas, only to offhandedly mention in The Stinger that he actually celebrates Hanukkah.
  • On Phineas and Ferb the cast are all lamenting the fact that Santa isn't coming, when Phineas asks Isabella if there's a special Christmas gift she's worried about not getting. Despite having participated fully in the Christmas Episode so far she admits that her family doesn't celebrate Christmas, so it really doesn't matter to her.

"But I got the coolest gifts for Hanukkah! Eight straight days of dreams come true! ...I mean, I'm with you guys. Boo, no Christmas."

  • Rugrats has Tommy's family celebrating both Hannukah and Christmas.
    • Justified by the implication that Didi is Jewish but Stu isn't. Sort of Inverted, actually, since non-Jewish characters take part in the Hanukkah and Passover specials.
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