No, my friend, I don't have it backward: The bumper stickers do. By thousands of years. In the northern hemisphere, around this time of year, there has been a popular holiday since long before anyone ever heard of Jesus Christ. Evangelical Christians who try to claim this season as their private property do a discredit to Jesus and to their religion, not to mention the U.S. Constitution. I want to respect and honor Christians and Christianity; those who demand a suspension of rational thinking make that difficult.
As you almost certainly know, there is disagreement among scholars as to just how much of the Bible is literally true. In my own experience, I've noticed that those who claim to believe that every word in the Bible is the literal and unerring word of God still "rewrite" here and there to suit their own beliefs: "Well, Jesus didn't really mean that!" The New Testament in particular is laced with contradictions and paradoxes. But for the sake of argument, let's accept hypothetically that there was a great person named Y'shua (Jesus in Greek) born about two thousand years ago, and that he (or He, if you prefer) was either a prophet (son of man, as he called himself), a learned teacher (rabbi, as his followers called him), or a divine being (as he came to be known, The Son of God, not a son of God, as angels were known). Let's further accept that his birth occurred more as less as described. If shepherds were out tending their flocks at night, it wasn't anywhere around the winter solstice. Various sources have dated it from spring to early fall.
What was happening around the time of the winter solstice was that Vikings were celebrating a holiday called Yule, burning a giant log that was believed to have the magic power of making the sun shine more brightly, and getting sloshed on mead. In the same geographic neighborhood Druid priests were cutting sprigs of mistletoe to hand out to followers and people were kissing under their mistletoe sprigs as pledges of friendship. This was a time of year the Romans called the Birthday of the Unconquered Sun which they celebrated with the holiday of Saturnalia. Some aspects of Saturnalia were much like modern office holiday parties. Same with the feast of the Son of Isis on December 25 in Ancient Babylon: Wild parties, excessive eating and drinking, and gift giving. Like today. These are only four examples. If you have the time and interest, you can find dozens more.
The collective mindset around the winter solstice was one or more of the following:
Baby it's cold outside. Let's huddle together and keep warm;
The sun forgot about us. Let's throw a big party and light a bunch of lights so he knows we want him back;
We're at the darkest time of year, the calendar tells us, and now it's going to get lighter, so what the hell! Let's throw a party;
or
Hey guys, if we get all the women pregnant now, the kids will come when it's not so freaking cold, and we don't know squat about obstetrics yet.
There was kindness and generosity, and wild revelry, and hope for the future, and community bonding. Just like Christmas today in places like Germany, with a strong Christian tradition, or Japan, where Christmas is widely celebrated but there is almost no Christian tradition.
In the year 350, Pope Julius I declared that Jesus' birth would be celebrated with Christ Mass on December 25. Pagan Romans were still a majority, and converting them would be easier if they didn't have to give up their holidays! After the Reformation, protestants objected to the revelry associated with Christmas and in 1647 the English parlliament abolished Christmas altogether. When it was brought back to English life later, it was mostly as a time of merrymaking with little religious observance. Since then, various churches in various places at various times have abandoned Christmas observance altogether.
Recently, with the politicizing of religion and theocratizing (if that wasn't a word, it is now) of politics in America, some power groups, under leaders whom I consider radical clerics, have attempted to force the general public to accept this season as a time to pay homage to Jesus. The custom of saying "Happy Holidays" has been described as "an attack on Christianity." Boycotts and legal action have been used in this supposed holy war in Jesus' name.
Ironically, most of those who are loudest and most hostile about this issue would probably be furious at anyone who wished them merry "Christ Mass," which is what Christmas actually means. Mass is what Catholics do, and I don't believe evangelical protestants appreciate being mistaken for Catholics.
Do we need this? I'm OK with calling December 25 Christmas and going to what people call a Christmas party, even though there is nothing religious about it. After all, we call the first day of the week Sunday, although, to my knowledge, very few Americans are sun worshipers. People who throw big bashes at Christmastime without even mentioning Jesus are honoring a tradition that's much older than Christianity itself.
Whatever Jesus was or wasn't, there's no doubt in my mind that he or He said a lot that all of us could learn from, and I believe Jesus would think this whole controversy is pretty damned silly. Those who want to honor him can honor him, those who want to worship him can worship him, and those who want to ignore him can ignore him. At Christmas or any other time.
Thank God we live where that's true.