{"id":15006,"date":"2013-12-23T07:00:56","date_gmt":"2013-12-23T12:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/%year%\/%monthnum%\/%day%\/christmas-also-celebrated-by-many-non-christians\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:26:40","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:26:40","slug":"christmas-also-celebrated-by-many-non-christians","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2013\/12\/23\/christmas-also-celebrated-by-many-non-christians\/","title":{"rendered":"Christmas also celebrated by many non-Christians"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nearly all U.S. Christians (96%) say they celebrate Christmas. No big surprise there. But a new Pew Research Center survey<\/a> also finds that 81% of non-Christians in the United States celebrate Christmas, testifying to the holiday\u2019s wide acceptance \u2013 or, at least, its unavoidability \u2013 in American society.<\/p>\n\n

Non-Christians are a diverse group. They include Americans who are religiously unaffiliated (atheists, agnostics and people who describe themselves, religiously, as \u201cnothing in particular\u201d), of whom 87% celebrate Christmas.<\/p>\n\n

They also include people of other faiths. A 2012 Pew Research survey<\/a> found that roughly three-quarters of Asian-American Buddhists (76%) and Hindus (73%) celebrate Christmas. In addition, our recent survey of U.S. Jews<\/a> found that about a third (32%) had a Christmas tree in their home last year. And some American Muslims celebrate both the religious and cultural aspects<\/a> of Christmas, according to news reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

Although Christians and non-Christians alike celebrate Christmas, the new survey<\/a> shows they have differing views of the holiday. Two-thirds of Christians (65%) say Christmas is mostly a religious holiday, while most non-Christians see the holiday as more of a \u201ccultural\u201d event than a religious occasion.<\/p>\n\n

Overall, the American religious landscape has become more diverse<\/a> in recent years. Christians have dropped from 78% of U.S. adults in 2007 to 73% in 2012. Over the same five-year period, the proportion of adults who identify with non-Christian faiths has increased by about half (from 4% to 6% of all U.S. adults) and the ranks of the unaffiliated (sometimes called the \u201cnones\u201d) have increased by a third (from 15% to 20% of all adults).<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About eight-in-ten non-Christians in the U.S. celebrate Christmas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":69,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"sub_headline":null,"sub_title":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"apple_news_api_pending":"1713063917","relatedPosts":[],"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0},"categories":[],"bylines":[922],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[467],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[515],"research-teams":[517],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-15006","short-read","type-short-read","status-publish","hentry","bylines-besheer-mohamed","formats-short-read","regions-countries-united-states","research-teams-religion"],"label":"Short 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