Christmas is a holiday of peace and goodwill. Families come together, angry friends forgive each other, everyone celebrates with a combination of happiness, champagne, and melancholy, and all those things we see in Frank Capra movies. It is difficult for anyone of any religion, or even an agnostic, to be offended by this celebration. But what I find puzzling is that celebrating the holiday with lights and Christmas motifs is now becoming frowned upon not, as one might expect, in Karachi or Mogadishu, but in the heart of Old Europe.

The gradual cancellation of Christmas in countries such as France, Spain, the United Kingdom or Germany is perhaps the most worrying symptom of the West’s renunciation of its Judeo-Christian cultural identity. It is happening at all levels: from governments and city councils to schools and associations. As ever, it’s the secularists of the socialist left, behind the facade of “inclusivity,” who are the most determined to cancel Christmas, which for centuries has been celebrated in style throughout the continent. Indeed, it has been celebrated as a festivity of the union, not segregation, between different peoples. What Ronald Reagan explained simply and in his own unique way, that “Christmas is a holiday that we celebrate not as individuals nor as a nation, but as a human family,” now appears entirely incomprehensible.

Let’s look at some examples of what is happening in Europe. In November, the head teacher of Wherwell Primary School, in Andover, England, informed parents that there would be no reference to Christmas in the school’s traditional festive pantomime, in order to be “inclusive.” Since “Christmas songs were included in the performance,” and some parents usually prevent their children from attending on religious grounds, the head teacher wrote, “We have requested that the show contain no reference to Christmas.” According to the 2021 census, 62.4% of Andover’s then-50,887 residents identified as Christian, compared with 0.6% who are Muslim.

The trend of canceling Christmas in European schools didn’t start this year, it simply spreads from one December to the next like an oil slick at sea. The first major controversy occurred in 2011, when kindergartens and schools in Denmark canceled their traditional Christmas celebrations so as not to offend Muslims, who are already the second-largest religion in the country, and who are densely concentrated in ghettos in large cities.