There is more than one inspiration for the Christmas holiday, and the biggest by far is the economy-fueling commercial bonanza best exemplified by 3am lines outside Best Buy on Black Friday.
The Prophet Santa Claus leads the Hallmark Holiday to end all others. In the US, certainly, Christmas is a transcendental annual economic gold rush, and Jesus Christ has very little to do with it.
There was no red-letter day when we passed that spiritual/commercial tipping point, but... thank God for that change. Frankincense and myrrh (you don’t know what they are, either) may be traditional gifts, but an XBox has a bigger impact on American GDP.
I’m not sure exactly who gets credit for coming up with the Jesus Christ/superhero concept but they deserve one of the seven-figure bonuses Wall Street is still handing out. Did you know there are actually billions of people, most of them adults, who think about 2,000 years ago God made a Jewish virgin pregnant with His (Really?!?! We gave God a gender!? So God has a penis?!) child? And now billions of people, many of them high school graduates, genuinely believe a specific benevolent (depending on your interpretation of benevolence) deity has domain over all celestial existence? Which led directly to most people having Friday off from work.
You know who I don’t want to be? I don’t want to be the diplomat meeting with an intelligent life form that finds its way to Earth. At least not when it comes time to explain religion ("So, Earthling, this man, Noah, he took two of every animal? From all over the planet? But, he forgot about the unicorns?"). Or at least trying to justify it to our visitors ("So thousands died, but this God, the altruistic one, he was on your side the whole time?"). I can’t help but imagine Barack Obama standing with a vaguely hominid figure outside the White House, continually repeating himself ("No, no, no, the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus aren’t for real, that’s for kids.... No-no-no, Adam and Eve, that part was true.... No, I’m not sure why Jesus didn’t come to your galaxy... No, this is the White House Rose Garden, I can’t take you to visit my Garden of Eden").
Let’s close our eyes and ears for a moment and assume a sort of Judeo-Christian-Islamic God does exist. And maybe He finds time for an appearance on The Daily Show, where Jon Stewart queries which specific sect and religion He wants mankind to practice. I am comfortable and confident God would lean back, stroking the flowing white beard He doesn’t have, and scowl.
"Jon. You guys fail, miserably, at religion. At this point I’m asking, no begging, that all ya’ll give atheism a try. I could not care less about your diet, and I am a secure supreme being. Eat pork and shellfish all week long, and then watch football on Sunday. That, really, isn’t how I judge any of you."