In Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has made the defense of Christmas traditions central to her political identity. She has repeatedly framed the holiday as part of the nation’s endangered heritage, railing against what she calls “ideological” attempts to dilute it.I’m not sure that the American version of the “war on Christmas” theme ever had much political effect beyond the loyal Republicans who appreciated its antisemitic undertones. (Because of course we know who’s really behind this here War On Christmas!) John Gibson’s 2005 book The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought was an attempt to give some minimal intellectual respectability to the slogan.
“How can my culture offend you?” Meloni has asked in the past, defending nativity scenes in public spaces. She has argued that children should learn the values of the Nativity — rather than just associating Christmas with food and presents — and rejected the idea that long-standing traditions should be altered. This year, Meloni said she was abstaining from alcohol until Christmas, portraying herself as a practitioner of spirituality and tradition.
France’s National Rally and Spain’s Vox have similarly opposed secularist or “woke” efforts to replace religious imagery with neutral seasonal language, and advocated for nativity scenes in town halls. In Germany, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) has warned that Christmas markets are losing their “German character,” amplifying disinformation about Muslim traditions edging out Christian ones. (1)
Trump picked up the “war on Christmas” slogan in his 2016 Presidential campaign. But his embrace of it did not give it any notable additional heft as a political slogan. Gretel Kauffman reported in late 2016 after Trump election to his first Presidential term:
Not all conservatives and Christians feel that Christmas is under
attack. In a recent survey by Public Policy Polling, only 13 percent
of Americans polled said they'd be personally offended if someone told them
"Happy Holidays," compared to the three percent of Americans who
found "Merry Christmas" offensive. The poll also notes that 57
percent of Republicans say there is a war on Christmas, down from 68 percent
of Republicans in 2012. (2)
But even though it has largely faded away, FOX News and the dreary MAGA verbal moralizers were even whining about it this year. As Josh Olds observes for Baptist News Global:
The calendar flips to December and the old, familiar talking points begin.And he notes that among far-right Christian adherents of the Trump cult, the theme is still part of their standard repertoire:
The White House tweeted, “We’re saying MERRY CHRISTMAS again!” along with a photo of President Donald Trump standing stiffly next to a Christmas tree. Laura Ingraham has warned Fox News listeners, “The Left is ramping up its war on Christmas again.” Liberty Counsel released its annual “Naughty or Nice” list, which denotes which major retailers use the word “Christmas” in their holiday advertising.
For a holiday centered on the Prince of Peace, a lot of folks spend an extraordinary amount of time feeling threatened. [emphasis in original] (3)
Now in its 20th year, The War on Christmas has grown from talk-radio outrage cycles and cable-news monologues to the halls of governmental and religious power. Megachurch pastors are claiming the angels who visited the shepherds were dressed “not in robes, but most likely … in battle fatigues” because of the War on Christmas. Donald Trump is claiming he has kept Christmas alive and declaring everybody is saying “Merry Christmas” again.He goes on to explain why the war-on-Christmas trope is also bad Christianity from his viewpoint:
The War on Christmas is a conservative cultural shorthand for anything that could be framed as an assault on Christian identity or as proof that the culture was slipping away from “Christian values.” What rarely gets questioned is what values we are talking about.
The War on Christmas is a conservative cultural shorthand for anything that could be framed as an assault on Christian identity or as proof that the culture was slipping away from “Christian values.” What rarely gets questioned is what values we are talking about.According to the account in the Gospel of Matthew, Mary and Joseph found it necessary to become refugees to Egypt to prevent Baby Jesus from being murdered by the Judean King Herod I. (4)
The Nativity story is not a tale of cultural dominance. It is the story of God entering the world through the margins - a baby born to a young teenage girl living in occupied land, laid in a feeding trough and first visited by shepherds who occupied one of the lowest rungs of society. Jesus’ birth does not protect the powerful. It does not comfort the culture. The Incarnation shakes the system of power to its core. [my emphasis]
To be fair to the FOXists of recent decades, they didn’t come up with the War on Christmas notion all on their own:
The idea of the War on Christmas started with one of the founding fathers of American anti-Semitism: automaker Henry Ford. Back in the 1920s, he published a newsweekly called the International Jew. It frequently featured blatantly bigoted accusations such as, “Last Christmas, most people had a hard time finding Christmas cards that indicated in any way that Christmas commemorated someone’s birth.… People sometimes ask why three million Jews can control the affairs of 100 million Americans. In the same way that 10 Jewish students can abolish the mention of Christmas and Easter out of schools containing 3,000 Christian pupils.”Ford also has the dubious distinction of having published the infamous Russian czarist forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in English. And also for being mentioned by Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf as an American he admired:
In modern times, Fox News has been airing segments such as Bill O’Reilly’s 2016 “Naughty or Nice” list, which praised businesses that use “Merry Christmas” and condemned others that say “Happy Holidays.”
In 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump triumphantly proclaimed that, “People are saying Merry Christmas again.” But when did people stop saying Merry Christmas? The answer is never. Former U.S. president Barack Obama said it, as did all of his predecessors. People in stores say it, greeting cards say it, even Jews have been known to say it when dealing with Christians over the holiday season. (5)
„Jews are the rulers of the stock market powers of the American Union. Every year they increase their control of a people [Volk] of 120 million. One single great man, still stands independent [of the Jews] today, [Henry] Ford.” (6)
The present-day European edition of the “war on Christmas”
The Politico article doesn’t go into much detail about how today’s far right is using the war-on-Christmas nonsense as ideology. The mostly have few scruples about pandering to antisemitic prejudices. But Christian religiosity does not play as prominent a role for far-right, Trumpist-type parties like Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) or France’s National Revival as it did for Italian Fascism in Mussolini’s day or for the “Austrofascism” of the governments of Engelbert Dollfuss and Kurt Schussnigg of 1934-38.
The fascist-leaning parties in Europe today certainly aren’t averse to promoting antisemitic prejudice. But their focus right now is much more on xenophobia and Islamophobia against Muslim citizens and immigrants. So right now they are willing to cheer Israel’s actions against Palestinians, which lets them strike a posture of: We support Israel in their fight against Muslim barbarians so we can’t possibly be antisemitic! Another variation is: We hate Muslims and Muslims hate women and so we can’t possibly be against women’s rights”
Politico describes the posturing of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni this way:
In Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has made the defense of Christmas traditions central to her political identity. She has repeatedly framed the holiday as part of the nation’s endangered heritage, railing against what she calls “ideological” attempts to dilute it.Politico also observes:
“How can my culture offend you?” Meloni has asked in the past, defending nativity scenes in public spaces. She has argued that children should learn the values of the Nativity — rather than just associating Christmas with food and presents — and rejected the idea that long-standing traditions should be altered. This year, Meloni said she was abstaining from alcohol until Christmas, portraying herself as a practitioner of spirituality and tradition.
France’s National Rally and Spain’s Vox have similarly opposed secularist or “woke” efforts to replace religious imagery with neutral seasonal language, and advocated for nativity scenes in town halls. In Germany, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) has warned that Christmas markets are losing their “German character,” amplifying disinformation about Muslim traditions edging out Christian ones.
Notes:
(1) Roberts, Hannah (2025): How the far right stole Christmas. Politico EU 12/24/2025. <https://www.politico.eu/article/how-far-right-stole-christmas-culture-war-christian-civilization/> (Accessed: 2025-25-12).
(2) Kauffmann, Gretel (2016): 'Tis the season: What the 'War on Christmas' looks like in 2016. Christian Science Monitor 12/23/2025. <https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2016/1220/Tis-the-season-What-the-War-on-Christmas-looks-like-in-2016> (Accessed: 2025-25-12).
(3) Olds, Josh (2025): Saving Christmas, losing Christ. Baptist News Global 12/23/2025. <https://baptistnews.com/article/saving-christmas-losing-christ/> (Accessed: 2025-25-12).
(4) Photo: Flight Into Egypt (1923) by Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1923 (The Met object ID 16947), Source: Wikipedia. <https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7540664>
(5) Rosenberg, Dan (2019): The anti-Semitic roots of the ‘War on Christmas’. Canadian Jewish News 12/23/2019. <https://thecjn.ca/opinion/perspectives/the-anti-semitic-roots-of-the-war-on-christmas/> (Accessed: 2025-25-12).
(6) Hitler, Mein Kampf.Eine kritische Edition, Bd. 2, 1619. Munich & Berlin: Institut für Zeitgeschichte. My translation to English.
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