true story! a few years ago i was working at both ol*ve g*rden and tj m*xx, and both of the following happened within the same several weeks:
at ol*ve g*rden, they'd put up a christmas tree in the lobby and had the employees each decorate a snowflake ornament to hang on it. i asked the general manager (mostly as a joke tbh) if i could bring in a menorah to display for chanukkah
and the gm is like, "well we're not allowed to display any religious imagery in the restaurant. it's a rule from corporate."
to which i said, "you are standing in front of a christmas tree as we speak."
and i shit you not, she goes "oh, but that's not really religious! that's just festive, you know, for the holidays." and would not hear another word about it
then a few weeks later at tj, probably once we were firmly into december but idr for sure, they start breaking out the "holiday" aprons for the employees to wear (all red, of course), and santa hats, and these fucking elf ear and reindeer antler headbands.
and one of my managers sees that i'm not wearing anything except the apron, and she asks me to put one on. and i was like "i'm not really comfortable with wearing any of those, since i don't celebrate christmas." (also i just really didn't want to wear one bc they looked stupid and they made my ears and head hurt, but still)
and she ALSO says, "oh, it's not christmas, it's just festive for winter. also corporate wants every sales associate to wear one"
which actually just made me more uncomfortable bc now she's trying to MAKE me wear one anyway
i was like "yeah, no that's definitely all christmas stuff and i'm really not comfortable with that"
so she let it go with a lot of huffing and eye-rolling, and then goes on the walkie to tell the entire staff "oh by the way guys, i forgot to tell you, but corporate FINALLY said we're allowed to say merry christmas to the customers this year!" and everyone up at the registers w me was like NICE! YES!
so like, that's what we mean when we say that xtianity is so pervasive in our culture that a lot of people genuinely believe xmas things are secular, even though they AREN'T
