Christmas as Religion: Rethinking Santa, the Secular, and the Sacred

Provides a new take on established literature on the relationship between Christmas and religion, including a revisiting of the way Durkheim and Eliade have understood the location of the sacred-profane interface.

Argues that we need to move away from conventional binary language in order to develop a more sophisticated and realistic understanding of where religion can be encountered, and it draws on the category of Implicit Religion to achieve this reconceptualization.

Offers critical discussion of the relationship between Jesus and Santa where it is argued that it is their separation from one another which, paradoxically, makes them complementary figures who exist independently yet without conflict as no one (including Christians) has to choose between them.