In China, Christmas is a pleasant secular festival borrowing of an international Christian feast, the birth of Jesus Christ. In the United States, and among more than two billion other Christians in the world, Christmas is both a religious and secular event of great importance. According to slightly faulty historical calculations, Jesus' birth, life, death, and resurrection changed the face of history since that time. The birth of Christ, celebrated at Christmas, and the belief in his resurrection from the dead at Easter, are the two greatest Christian holy days in the calendar year. For churches which are considered "liturgical" churches, such as the Roman Catholic, Orthodox (which celebrates Christmas on January 6), Episcopal, Anglican, Lutheran, and certain others, the Christmas season begins with Advent, four Sundays before Christmas, when the religious services anticipate the remembrance of the birth of Christ. In the past, just as was the case for Lent, the forty days before Easter, Advent was a period of some fasting and preparation for Christmas day. Following Christmas, the religious Christmas season in most of these liturgical churches remains until at least January 6, which is often called Little Christmas, to remember the visit of the Magi or the Three Wise Men who came from the East to honor Jesus.
Throughout the world, the religious significance of Christmas is overshadowed by the secular appearance of the best selling period of gifts, products, and toys in the annual financial calendar. Americans and others pay thousands of dollars for Christmas celebrations, decorations, and gifts. Children are given many more toys and gifts than they could possibly use. Many families go into serious debt to make the Christmas season better than the one before. Many Christmas cards are sent, often in the hundreds, to remember friends once a year, often with impersonal cards lacking a message. Many stores send their customers cards with "seasons greetings." Santa Claus, found in many department stores and malls, invites children to tell him what gifts they want while their parents listen in. Parents participate in the deception that Santa Claus will bring the gifts throughout the world to good children.
A number of years ago, the Roanoke, Virginia newspaper received a request from a small girl named Virginia to find out if there really was a Santa Claus. The newspaper responded, "Yes. Virginia, there is a Santa Claus," and proceeded to talk about the spirit of Christmas as representing Santa Claus in every child's heart. The newspaper didn't quite give up the adult's, and older child's understanding that while a ideal person named Santa doesn't exist, but stressed that the season is one of kindness. The Salvation Army, which was created in England in the last century as a religious sect, has the largest budget in the United States as a charity for the poor and disadvantaged. It collects millions of dollars to give shelter, gifts, and food to poor families during the Christmas season. The organization has of course a partially hidden agenda; to bring Christ to the hearts of those whom they serve. Thus, this organization, and many other charities, link the spirit of Christmas as the season of kindness both with the religious and secular aspects of the birth of Christ.