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Q: Will Christmas ever become a national holiday in China?
Now that a) there are so many foreigners here and b) Christmas is trendy among Chinese and supermarkets even play Christmas carols.
Christmas is a christian holiday, and the chinese govt doesn't really recognize christianity, so unless that changes, probably not.
It's a commercial thing here not a religious one, hence it is called Xmas
I don't think it will ever become a national holiday simply because it's not Chinese in origin and also because Christianity is not practiced by a majority of people. Similar to how Muslim holy days are not national holidays in the US (or Chinese holidays, or Canadian holidays, etc.)
It will become a trendy gift giving day and I think Santa will become a popular figure, but it won't be celebrated with the religious connotations (by non-Christians). Perhaps in the future if it becomes immensely popular and retail markets put pressure on to expand, then it *MIGHT* become a day off in the future, but I highly doubt it.
Of course, you'd have to make it up on a Saturday the next week so it wouldn't really matter anyway if it was a holiday
I don't believe it'll become a National Holiday either. As other members have pointed out above, Christmas has too many religious connotations (it is a religious celebration first and foremost anyway) and besides, someday after China has copied everything it needs from the West, it will clamp down and become a closed-off, homogenous nation again.
We demanded it as a day off - so we get it where I work. But it will never be a national holiday in China. How can it compete with Tomb Sweeping Day? it's going to be nice to avoid the commercialism of Christmas actually for a year or two. But I will miss the big family dinner and get together.
