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Santa Clausmas: Difference between revisions
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== Literature ==
* The Whos from ''[[How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (novel)|How the Grinch Stole Christmas]]'' celebrate a non-religious, albeit warm, caring and good-natured, version of Christmas.
* [[C. S. Lewis|CS Lewis]] wrote a couple of essays highlighting the commercialization of Christmas [[Older Than They Think|in the 1950s]]. In fact, this problem became a subject for concern very soon after the "old-fashioned" Christmas-as-we-know-it was invented in the 19th century.
** [[Nostalgia Filter|Which was still better than the older Christmas traditions of 'get drunk off your ass and burn shit'.]] The main reason for the commercialization was to avoid property destruction that the holiday caused before.
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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 -- 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''.
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* [[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--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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