MIN READDec 25, 2019 | 10:00 GMT

Whether and how people celebrate Christmas is clearly a complicated affair, bearing only a subtle relationship to Christianity itself.

(MUSTAFA OZER/AFP/Getty Images)

Whether and how people celebrate Christmas is clearly a complicated affair, bearing only a subtle relationship to Christianity itself. The contemporary, increasingly international version of Christmas is less a religious festival than a celebration of affluence, modernity, and above all Westernness. Without anyone willing it, Christmas has become part of a package of Western soft power....