I think the line, "Everything else is custom or adaptation." is carrying a lot of your argument. The Rabbi claiming the holiday isn't important does little to make the day seem less special to the kids getting a bunch of presents. I would argue holidays are almost entirely born of "custom", and whether or not their origin story is still relevant or meaningful in a cultural or religious sense has little to do with how much modern participants value them.
I've also never heard anyone actually get upset by "Merry Christmas" in real life. I've a pretty large sample size of generally liberal folks and literally nobody has ever had a problem with the phrase. Anecdotal of course, but are we sure we're not just confusing Twitter with real life here?
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I think the line, "Everything else is custom or adaptation." is carrying a lot of your argument. The Rabbi claiming the holiday isn't important does little to make the day seem less special to the kids getting a bunch of presents. I would argue holidays are almost entirely born of "custom", and whether or not their origin story is still relevant or meaningful in a cultural or religious sense has little to do with how much modern participants value them.
I've also never heard anyone actually get upset by "Merry Christmas" in real life. I've a pretty large sample size of generally liberal folks and literally nobody has ever had a problem with the phrase. Anecdotal of course, but are we sure we're not just confusing Twitter with real life here?
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