Santa Clausmas: Difference between revisions

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A religious holiday episode which only mentions the not-overtly-religious trappings of the holiday, without the religion. Religion doesn't even crop up casually. This applies to all of the big Christian holidays.
 
This does reflect real life somewhat, as these days there are plenty of people from Christian backgrounds who are not particularly religious but still celebrate Christmas and Easter with parties and gifts and chocolate, as well as some who aren't Christian at all but do the same. After all, few say no to free presents. Or [[Everything's Better with Chocolate|chocolate]]. <ref>Except people who are allergic to chocolate, paranoid about bombs or not from regions where christmas is practiced drinking hot chocolate.</ref>
 
Contrast with [[Do They Know It's Christmas Time?]].
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== Western Animation ==
* The ''[[Peanuts]]'' special ''It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown'' is an actual Easter example. ''[[A Charlie Brown Christmas]]'' nicely subverts this: Snoopy is only concerned with winning a house decoration contest, Lucy is more concerned with getting a nice tree than with the Christmas pageant, and Charlie angsts about how commercialized Christmas has become (in [[The Sixties]], mind you). Later on, Linus reminds the whole gang about the holiday's true meaning by [[The Bible|reciting part of the second chapter of Luke]], in which the shepherds learn of Jesus's birth. This is actually what makes the show a classic -- byclassic—by going back to the real meaning of Christmas, it stood out in an increasingly commercialized world.
** [[Irony|Ironically]], it's now possible to decorate your house entirely with Peanuts-themed Christmas merchandise, including an entire line of plastic figures recreating the deeply spiritual moments of the special, and even a [[Comically Missing the Point|plastic replica of the tree]] that Charlie Brown picked out specifically because it was the [[Aluminum Christmas Trees|only real tree in the lot]].
** The later Christmas-set ''Peanuts'' specials of [[The Nineties]] and the [[Turn of the Millennium]] are more focused on gift-giving, general winter activities, etc., but do acknowledge the religious side of the holiday. Two of them have the characters participating in Nativity plays/assemblies, and Sally wants to know who "the star" was that the Wise Men followed in ''Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales''.
* ''[[The Fairly Odd ParentsOddParents]]'' paint the Easter Bunny as a disgruntled "hard-boiled" figure who is envious of the big guy's popularity.
** As in Jesus?
* ''[[South Park]]'' plays this straight by making Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo, a Christmas Spirit in the vein of [[Frosty the Snowman]]. There is an Easter Episode wherein the secret message behind the Easter Bunny, hidden from you by [[Corrupt Church|the eeevul Vatican]], is uncovered.
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* In the ''[[Futurama]]'' universe, Christmas (pronounced X-Mas) is less about religion and more about finding a good hiding spot from the killer robotic Santa who judges everyone to be naughty due to his standards being set too high.
* [[Rugrats]]' first Christmas special does this, focusing on Santa, but the second [[Averted Trope|averts]] it: the babies stumble across a nativity scene and don't understand what it is, but decide to [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|give presents to the baby Jesus]]. (Of course, they never refer to him or the scene by name, so arguably this is more [[Playing with a Trope]].)
** Also [[Played With]] during the show's Passover and Hanukkah episodes: the Biblical stories are recounted, but [[God]] is never directly mentioned, even though the various miracles occur. (Non-fatally, in the Passover example--aexample—a mysterious force is going to "[[Never Say "Die"|take away]]" the firstborn.) There was a normal episode of the show based on Noah's Ark that did the same thing, claiming that Noah was just "told by the Heavens" (or something) of the coming Flood.
* On ''[[Family Guy]],'' when Lois discovers that she's Jewish and wants to put on a seder, Peter objects because it's Easter.
{{quote|"In this house we believe in the Easter Bunny! He died for our sins in that helicopter crash..."}}
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== Real Life ==
* Japan at large practices the commercial holiday of Christmas, but only 2 percent of the population is Christian. Of course, they practice it [[Christmas in Japan|somewhat differently than everyone else]]; one of their Christmas Traditions is eating Kentucky Fried Chicken, which is treated as something of a "special event" delicacy in Japan thanks to KFC's marketing and Japan's lack of turkeys.
** [[Urban Legend]] has it that [[The Theme Park Version|the image of Santa Claus nailed to a cross]], like that [https://web.archive.org/web/20110715160144/http://www.rcenedellagallery.com/slideshow.php?theme=Commentary&i=5 depicted by Robert Cenedella], has been witnessed in Japan at Christmastime unironically.
 
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Christmas Tropes]]
[[Category:Santa Clausmas{{PAGENAME}}]]