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Even if the Christmas Special is widely used, a few writers catch on that some stories take place in a setting where certain holidays and celebrations shouldn't exist in the original sense. So the characters celebrate a holiday that's (hopefully) just coincidentally similar enough to have the audience roll their eyes.
Naturally, these episodes are aired around the holiday they're really trying to depict, and sometimes may receive a name change in order to comment on them without raising the ire of Media Watchdog.
Occasionally, they use a real holiday that would make sense in the world of the series but isn't really around nowadays commonly celebrated among most of the target audience. For instance, the second-season Xena Warrior Princess episode "A Solstice Carol".
Note that this trope only covers the use (or abuse) of Christmas or 'Christmas-ish' holidays in fictional, fantastical, or historical settings where it makes little or no sense for such a celebration to exist; random other terms used for the holidays in modern settings should not be listed here.
This trope is named after the Christmas Special of Futurama, in which Santa is actually an evil robot that kills everyone because he judges everything as naughty. The letter X (coming from the Greek letter "chi") has been used as an abbreviation for "Christ" for centuries, but in modern times the spelling "Xmas" is sometimes seen as part of the supposed "War on Christmas" to secularize the holiday, literally "taking the 'Christ' out of 'Christmas.'"
Examples
Anime
- One of the Tenchi Muyo films depicts a Juraian holiday called "Startika" which bears a suspicious resemblance to Christmas, at least as it is celebrated by the Japanese. Somewhat subverted because actual Christmas is also celebrated in the same story.
- Startika is more their version of Summer Solstice, as it is celebrated in the middle of June, and has nothing to do with exchanging gifts, if I remember correctly from the second movie. The big celebration is that they eat 'shou-jen' for the night (vegetarian)...
- The Big O episode "Daemonseed" introduced "Heaven's Day", and had the Humongous Mecha beaten by a mutant Christmas tree! Subverted at the very end of the episode, where Alex Rosewater remarks on how mutated Heaven's Day had become, and how nobody remembers that its origins were to celebrate the birth of God's Son—although Alex is ego maniacal to the point that he could be referring to himself. Another possibility is that this is to illustrate that Alex has recovered memories from before "40 years ago", which would logically include the significance of the holiday.
Comic Books
- In DC's Star Trek The Next Generation comic book, "Spirit in the Sky" (the story in issue #88) had a Christmas theme, complete with an energy being based on Santa Claus.
- The UK Thundercats comics introduced Rammastide, which while technically celebrates when Third Earth was liberated from Mumm-ra, is basically Christmas in blue and gold (if I remember correctly). It also has the bad luck of being the day the Metokangmi walks around mourning it's dead mate. And it's preferred path happens to be right through the Cats' Lair, which ends up working out because the Metokangmi is basically a gigantic feline yeti.
Film
- The Movie version of Hogfather mentions that Hogswatchnight bears "a remarkable resemblance to your Christmas."
Literature
- Older Than Television: C. S. Lewis wrote a text called Xmas and Christmas: A Lost Chapter from Herodotus
 In which the people of Niatirb celebrate two holidays: A secular one with parties and gifts and a religious one in temples
- Hogswatchnight, along with its patron spirit the Hogfather, from Terry Pratchett's Discworld books, though this is used more to examine and comment on Christmas and winter solstice holidays in general.
- The name is derived from the Scottish celebration of Hogmannie on the New Year; it is also on the Discworld (at least around the Circle Sea) the culmination of the pig-slaughtering season.
- It has other equivalents, too; for instance, the Soul Cake Days are a mix of Halloween ("trickle-treating" is mentioned by a small girl in Reaper Man) and Easter (there's a "Soul Cake Duck" who lays chocolate eggs).
- Winterfair on the planet Barrayar in Lois Mc Master Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan books, which involves gift-giving and family get-togethers. The Barrayarans are non-theists (if a bit superstitious) and there's no spiritual aspect. The Emperor's birthday celebrations are at roughly the Thanksgiving time of year, also - at least for the current emperor.
- Another example is Erastide, winter solstice festival and the most important holiday in The Belgariad. It includes a
Christmas pageant Erastide play, with masked family members reenacting the roles of the Seven Gods.
- The Heralds Of Valdemar series by Mercedes Lackey has a "Midwinter Festival" in which all students get a week off from school, go home to their families, exchange presents, etc. There is no corresponding "Midsummer Festival", however.
- Anne Bishop's Black Jewels Trilogy has Winsol (presumably meaning "winter solstice"), an obvious stand-in for Christmas, complete with tree and gifts.
- Notably averted in Narnia, specifically The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which has Father Christmas - the old-fashioned, bad ass half-pagan-nature-god version - and the White Witch's rule is said to lead to Narnia forever being in a state of 'always winter, and never Christmas'. It has been pointed out that this does not make sense, given that even if Aslan is the same entity as Jesus Christ under another name, the Narnians would presumably call it Aslan-mas or something - but perhaps it can be justified by saying that the name Christmas was introduced by King Frank and his descendants.
- Arguably, Aslanmas - Aslan's Mass - would require King Frank to have known that the lion singing the world into existence was called Aslan. Plus, he had been calling it Christmas for years before his coronation, so...
- Many of the Expanded Universe novels in the Warhammer 40k universe mention a holiday known as "Emperor's Day" that appears very similar to Christmas. Of course, considering the Emperor has supposedly been several influential people throughout history, there's a reasonable chance it actually is Christmas.
- A fairly common substitute in fantasy novels is some variety of midwinter or solstice festival. The Tortall books by Tamora Pierce feature feasting and gift-giving at midwinter and the Kushiel's Legacy books by Jacqueline Carey have masked balls on the Longest Night - which are lampshaded in the first book by saying that the tradition pre-dates the coming of Elua, who found it so charming and amusing that he kept it around.
- This Perfect Day by Ira Levin features Christmas...in a future dystopia where literally no one is religious. Of course, they also celebrate Marxmas on Karl Marx's birthday. Both are basically just rare excuses for the supercomputer that rules the world to let the human workers have an extra day off work. They also celebrate Unification Day on New Year's.
- The Deptford Mice - from the Robin Jarvis trilogy of that name - celebrate "Yule" in the winter.
Live Action TV
- The Star Wars Holiday Special is rather infamous for its "Life Day." Among other things.
- In the Seinfeld episode "The Strike" George Costanza, in a miserly effort to avoid giving Christmas gifts at the office, celebrates Festivus. A holiday previously created by George's father, Festivus was a response to the over-commercialization of Christmas.
- Star Trek has carefully avoided Earth holidays over the years, with the notable exception of Star Trek Generations. Aliens can get away with it, though — Voyager had an episode involving the suspiciously Christmas-like Talaxian holiday of Prixin.
- They were less careful at first...in "Charlie X", Kirk mentions that today is Thanksgiving on Earth, and "Dagger of the Mind" features a few references to last year's Christmas party.
- The Original Series episode Catspaw was also a Halloween episode.
- Also, an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation mentioned the Enterprise (or some of it, anyway) observing the Hindu Festival of Light in passing. And there was a Bajoran "Gratitude Festival" in Star Trek Deep Space Nine - they stopped short of eating turkey, although there is a reference in one episode to a Thanksgiving dinner Sisko served, which did include turkey and stuffing.
- The OC featured resident Deadpan Snarker Seth Cohen inventing "Chrismukkah" to cope with having a Jewish father and a Christian mother.
- The second season of LazyTown had a winter episode with no holiday at all, but featured a relyricked version of a song from the Icelandic forerunner's Christmas album as the episode's song.
- As mentioned above, Xena has "A Solstice Carol". This episode features orphans about to be evicted on Solstice eve, a solstice tree, a toy maker named Senticles who disguises himself with a red suit and a white beard and falls down a chimney, A king who hates the Solstice and has banned it, Xena and Gabrielle sneaking into his bedchamber to pretend to be the Fates and ghosts of past, present, future and convincing him to mend his evil ways. To top it all off, Gabrielle gives her donkey to a married couple with a child who look suspiciously like a few religious figures that will remain nameless, while a bright star hangs in the sky above. Seriously. Of course, fans of the show will tell you that this trope was just made for this show.
- Hercules The Legendary Journeys features a thinly-veiled Nativity story in the episode "A Star to Guide Them".
- In Quark, Christmas has become "Holiday Number 11." The last episode focused on Obstructive Bureaucrat Palindrome giving The Captain Quark a murderous computer as a Number 11 gift.
- Dinosaurs has its own uncannily parallel holiday from 60 million years in the past: Refrigerator Day.
- Yet The Flintstones have not one, but
two five Christmas specials. How is that possible?
- The "it's just a cartoon" explanation aside, maybe semi-justifiable in that festive gift-giving holidays held around the winter solstice well predate Christianity...
- Fraggle Rock has the "Festival of the Bells".
Video Games
- Azeroth of World Of Warcraft holds the "Feast of Winter Veil" every December. This is apparently universal among the disparate cultures, and comes with people who think the holiday is being overcommercialized, and its own version of Santa Claus: Greatfather Winter (whose name could be based on Grandfather Frost, the Eastern Slavic equivalent of Santa).
- World Of Warcraft also includes renamed versions of Halloween (Hallow's End), Easter (Noble Garden), Valentine's Day (Love is in the Air), Midsummer Solstice (Lunar Festival), Fourth of July Midsummer Fire Festival), and the Chinese New Year in the game. October 2007 even saw the introduction of an Oktoberfest analogue, Brewfest.
- The online game Kingdom Of Loathing has "Crimbo", complete with Crimbo Elves and Uncle Crimbo himself. Also, Hannukkah is replaced with "Hannukimbo", Thanksgiving with "The Feast of Boris", St. Patrick's Day with "St. Sneaky Pete's Day",and Easter with "Oyster Egg Day" (during which players can hunt for "oyster eggs" left behind by a Magical Flying Oyster). They even have a holiday called "Dependence Day", during which the citizens of Loathing set off fireworks. Oddly, Halloween and Valentine's Day are in the game unchanged.
- There's also the somewhat less subtle examples of "Arrrbor Day" (it involves pirates planting trees), "Labór Day" (celebrating the definitely accidental death of Manuel Labór) and "El Dia de Los Muertos Borrachos" (Exactly What It Says On The Tin, provided you speak Spanish)
- It is perhaps worth noting that "Crimbo" is used as slang for Christmas in some parts of Britain, although it does not extend to "Crimbo Elves".
- Final Fantasy XI has substitute holidays for many Western and Eastern celebrations alike. The "X-mas" is called the Starlight Festival, and of course involves people in Santa hats and coats called "smilebringers" giving presents to children. Interestingly, it's suggested that the smilebringer tradition may have been started by goblins, who are an enemy race in the game. Oddly enough, despite the presence of a goddess whose worship is sometimes reminiscent of Christianity, neither the Starlight Festival nor any of the other holidays seem to have any relation to any in-game religious practice whatsoever. Wishing on stars is as close as it gets.
- It should also be noted that every holiday event is celebrated in Japan, always. St. Patrick's Day? Nope. April Fool's? Not a chance. Boxing Day? Oh, never. Writing haiku and placing them on bamboo stalks? Sure Why Not? Considering the international playerbase, it's kind of odd. While the developers are Japanese, you'd think they could just Google up some holidays...
- Toy Day and other real-world holidays in Animal Crossing for Game Cube. A reindeer (the only deer in the game) brings toys on a day in late December. This event, along with most other real-world holidays, were taken out of Wild World, probably because of the online nature of the game. Toy Day and other theme park'd holidays were added back to City Folk, and the issue of having single-region holidays was fixed by giving region its own holidays; if a Japanese player wants to come to Explorer's Day (Columbus Day), they have to make an American friend, for example.
- In the The Elder Scrolls game series, the Saturalia festival is a holiday that happens right on the 25th of December, and is even explicitly described as a 'time of gift giving'.
- Bloodmoon even includes a Santa Claus figure named Uncle Sweetshare, though he has no connections to Saturalia. The game's files include an unused version of Sweetshare named Grandfather Frost, who was even more Santa-like. Supposedly he was replaced for being too much like Santa.
- Only instead of presents, he gives you drugs. (No, really).
- Failed MMORPG Star Wars: Galaxies ran with the ball The Star Wars Holiday Special had handed them and declared December 25th Wookiee Life Day. As we all know (although I'm sure we'd like to forget), Wookiee Life Day is celebrated quite similarly to Christmas.
- In Adventure Quest's world of Lore they celebrate Frostval, a day marked by the Frost Moglins of Frostvale making and delivering presents to the people of Lore. While this is pretty much were the similarity between Frostval and Christmas ends, there are two Santa Claus-themed monsters: a mutant crab named Sandy Claws and a skeleton in a Santa suit named Gris Dingle. Quests around this time generally involve the holiday being held up by a war against a powerful Ice Dragon and the players having to help deliver the presents before they magically unwrap themselves. Other holidays include Grenwog (Easter) and Hero's Heart Day (Valentine's Day).
- Guild Wars has Wintersday, which is more accurately New Year's Day but celebrated more like Christmas, with a little bit of Groundhog Day – the observation, not the movie nor the trope – thrown in.
- The Harvest Moon series, particularly Friends of Mineral Town, features mostly Japanese Holidays, but (with the exception of New Year's) the real holiday names are never used. Valentine's Day and White Day become "Winter Thanksgiving" and "Spring Thanksgiving". Christmas Eve and Day become "Starry Night" and "Stocking Festival". Oddly enough, there don't seem to be any holidays dedicated to their only obviously-real deity...
- Maple Story. Maplemas. Cue eye rolls.
Web Animation
- The character Blockhead celebrates a holiday called "Ghostmas Day", which he celebrates really whenever he feels like. However the holiday seems closer to Halloween than anything and really is just an excuse for the already batshit insane character to cause more random havoc and more reason to frustrate his Conscience.
- Also Homestar Runner's Decemberween.
Web Comics
- Tales Of MU] has Khersentide, a winter solstice feast that celebrates important events in the life of the local Crystal Dragon Jesus, Lord Khersis. It involves ornaments and presents.
- Lampshaded in this Keychain Of Creation strip; the joke, of course, is that in the Exalted universe where the strip takes place, not only Christmas but the concept of winter would be completely alien to the characters.
Western Animation
- Lloyd In Space portrayed not only a Christmas clone called Droimatz, it even had its own Hannukah clone Thierlap.
- Sealab2021 referenced "Alvistide", the Christmas-like major holiday of the Alvians, more than once. Somewhat atypically, Alvistide was similar to Christmas in its religious aspects (the celebration of the birth of a great prophet, purportedly to a virgin), more than in its secular trappings (which mostly involved revenge, heavy drinking, and firearms). This is an interesting example, as the episode was originally going to involve Christmas itself; the writers were warned off by Standards and Practices.
- Rolie Polie Olie featured "Jingle-Jangle-mas", indistinguishable from Christmas in its secular trappings. Jingle-Jangle-Claus (seriously) even puts in an appearance.
- The Invader Zim episode "The Most Horrible X-Mas" ever was reportedly meant to actually feature "Christmas" in the title, but it wound up changed. Regardless, the holiday is (mostly) referred to as Christmas during the episode, although true to the show's form, its trappings are rather... off.
- "Robot elves? JUST LIKE IN THE STORIES!"
- In Futurama, it is revealed that in the Standard English of the year 3000, the holiday is pronounced "Ex-Mas" (much as "ask" is pronounced "axe", as it is in many neighborhoods today). The spirit of the holiday is markedly different, as people stay inside in fear of the robot Santa Claus who puts almost everyone on his naughty list and then tries to kill them.
- If you pay close enough attention to the show, you'll realize that while death may be a bit over-the-top as a penalty, most of the Futurama cast really do belong on the naughty list.
- The underground mutants seem to celebrate Christmas, however, as they worship their giant missile on that day.
- Clone High had Snowflake Day, an inclusive, non-specific holiday that replaced Christmas, as well as Kwanzaa and Hannukah, a year before the series. The Snowflake Day episode also contained the a scene where Santa Claus tells Snowflake Jake, the holiday's pirate-captain mascot, that he's realized that "a harmless celebration of our religions is oppressive."
- Buzz Lightyear Of Star Command includes a winter celebration wherein people all over the galaxy put up decorated fir trees, exchange presents, and eagerly await the nighttime arrival of Santa Claus. It's only ever referred to as "the holiday."
- Fraggle Rock had an episode titled "The Bells of Fraggle Rock". This invented holiday was surprisingly well-handled. Furthermore, the episode was very thought-provoking for a (de-facto) Christmas Episode: Gobo searched his maps for the location of the legendary Great Bell at the Heart of Fraggle Rock, then set off just before the Festival of the Bells on a quest to find the Great Bell and bring it back to show the other Fraggles and prove that the literal meaning of the holiday is true. The other Fraggles promised to wait for him, so they could ring the bells together, but came to regret this decision as the cold encroached and the Rock began to freeze over. At the end of Gobo's quest, he found a seasonally heartwarming Aesop.
- The Festival of the Bells was also mentioned in the Massive Multiplayer Crossover Muppet Family Christmas, where it was explicitly described as the Fraggles' winter solstice holiday.
- My Gym Partners A Monkey has "Animas". It involves embraces your instincts to know what day is Animus and sniffing out the holiday communal pile of crap so you can add to it.
- Nickelodeon series Chalk Zone has a holiday episode whose final song kind of mishmashes the names of several holidays together.
- On Ed Edd N Eddy, Funny Foreigner Rolf celebrates Christmas just like the other kids of the cul-de-sac... sorta. As revealed in the Christmas Special "Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy's Jingle Jingle Jangle", Christmas in Rolf's Old Country is a bit closer to pagan harvest festivals: his living room is decorated with meats, fish, and cheeses, and instead of receiving presents from Santa, good little boys and girls receive gifts of food from Yeshmiyek, an old bearded witch who lives at the center of the Earth. There's even a song about her, if you dare to listen.
- The PBS kids cartoon Cyberchase had an episode where penguin cyber-citizens celebrated a holiday where penguins used special fairydust to fly around their town and give out presents, including a very corny "Holiday" song.
- That's Starlight Night. Or So I Heard.
- Starlight Night also involved all of Cyberspace celebrating the relighting of Cyberspace's stars (in a fashion similar to the countdown to the midnight balldrop in Times Square on New Year's Eve, complete with a Starlight Night parade grand marshal pulling a switch to relight said stars).
- The Emperors New School (despite being set in the pre-Columbian Incan Empire) features 'Kuzmas' (and other holidays such as 'Kuzcoween').
- The series is ambiguous as to whether it takes place in a Flintstones-like past, or in the present in a Native Mexican village.
- I'm not sure if this counts, but despite the entire series being set during a single summer vacation Ben 10 still managed to have a Christmas Episode. This is accomplished by having our heroes visit a Christmas-themed theme park... that's stuck in a time warp that takes them to a Christmas about fifty years ago when the park was run by a mad scientist who was obsessed with Christmas.
- Blue's Clues had an episode where the characters celebrate
Valentine's Love Day.
- On Chowder Christmas is called "Knishmas" in line with the series' naming everything after food. It involves making large gingerbread houses for Knish Kringle, a large caterpillar like version of Santa that will trash the house if the gingerbread house isn't to his tastes.
- How have we gotten this far without mentioning the Super Mario World episode with "Cave Christmas", which Mario and Luigi actually state is invented by them because the cavepeople don't know what Christmas is?
- Dino Riders had an episode where the Valorians stranded on Earth celebrate "Thanksgiving." Since they are time travelers from the future and know of Earth's prehistoric animals, it is never clear whether they are Human Aliens, or merely humans who settled on Valoria at some point. If the latter, then their celebration may actually be a descendant of the American Thanksgiving holiday. If the former, then it is merely their own home-grown holiday for giving thanks.
- Donkey Kong Country has the characters celebrating a holiday called the Kongo Bongo Festival of Lights, which revolves around presents and visiting loved ones. Oh, and there's also fireworks.
- Watership Down had the Feast of Frith (definitely not in the book) which just happened to fall on December 24.
- An animated Christmas Special based on the comic strip B.C. had the cavemen celebrating X-mas, explaining that they hoped to get "X amount of presents".
Web Original
- Starmen.net has EB no Matsuri (Literally EB Festival), which has Annual Gift Man decent from his base on the moon, where he gives all the good children copies of Earthbound for the SNES, and all the bad children vials of flesh eating virii hidden under their pillow, shoes, etc...
- Subeta and their Luminaire. They are doing it with every other holiday, though.
- Homestar Runner characters celebrate "Decemberweeen"
- "Holiday", observed by the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Real Life
- In Russia, Christmas is only a religious holiday, rarely specially celebrated. But there is an equivalent to Western Christmas, the New Year. It's the New Year that is celebrated with decorated trees, presents and fireworks.
- Russians have good reasons not to celebrate 25th December, because: a) Eastern Orthodox Church uses different calendar than Western Christianity, and b) the atheistic Communists secularized That Winter Holiday, as a part of their fight against the religion ("opiate of the masses"), by moving the gift-giving and The Tree to New Year. And turning gift-giving religious figure (a saint, after all) back into a more secular Grandfather Frost.
- Not even close. New Year celebrations in Russia are known since the end of XV century with official holidays introduced by an order of Peter I in 1700. Christmas in it's contemporary form, with the Tree, emerged in Russia only in a middle of XIX century. In 1916 The Tree was prohibited by Church as "German custom" and that was the middle of Great War. Christmas itself was abandoned in 1927 and The Tree moved to New Year in 1936. The most important thing to know is the it was Russian Church which opposed introduction of The Tree seeing it as symbol of "paganism" not mentioning it's western roots. There were never any secularization of Winter Holiday since there were no single Winter Holiday in Russia. New Year and Christmas in Russia are as separate as they can get. Also not everybody in the world has saints as gift-givers; there are dozens of different guys bringing gifts to people with many of them having no connection to Christianity at all. Grandfather Frost, for example, was a character from pagan myths, who inherited some traits from Saint Nicolas and was officially made a symbol of New Year in late XIX century. And yes, since 1991 Christmas are official state holiday in Russia.
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