Christmas in Star Trek
- Thread starter Ro_Laren
- Start date
Just checked Memory Beta:
"The personnel of the USS Enterprise's science lab held a Christmas party in late 2266, which Captain Kirk attended. After the party, he spent the evening with Helen Noel. (TOS episode: "Dagger of the Mind")"
"Lieutenant Sam Redbay of the USS Voyager regularly celebrated Christmas. (VOY novel: The Final Fury) "
"The personnel of the USS Enterprise's science lab held a Christmas party in late 2266, which Captain Kirk attended. After the party, he spent the evening with Helen Noel. (TOS episode: "Dagger of the Mind")"
"Lieutenant Sam Redbay of the USS Voyager regularly celebrated Christmas. (VOY novel: The Final Fury) "
I believe Tom Paris mentioned something about Christmas at one point or another on VOY. Also, of course, there's also the episode where Q turns Voyager into a Christmas Tree ornament.
Now this all depends on how one converts stardates but even though Memory Alpha states that Voyager's End Game took place in the beginning of 2378 the stardate given for the episode roughly gives a date of 22nd December 2377, 3 days before Christmas. Now I guess if it was this close to Christmas then the crew might have mentioned it as it would've probably been the best Christmas for most of the crew as they would be spending it with there families. But I guess the writers never thought about this when doing the episode.
The expression "Lit up like a Christmas tree" still exists - TWOK, I think.
One of my two spec scripts which got me an invitation to pitch to TNG way back when was a Christmas-themed episode called "And All Through the Ship."
It touched on both the secular and religious history of the holiday. And Santa appeared in the holodeck.
--Ted
It touched on both the secular and religious history of the holiday. And Santa appeared in the holodeck.
--Ted
Of course they would still celebrate Christmas and even New Year! 
But what about Easter and Thanksgiving? lol
But what about Easter and Thanksgiving? lol
For that matter, 'Quinn' tried to hide Voyager from Q by turning it into a Christmas tree ornament.
Those ministers practiced the Bajoran religion, not Christianity. The only Christian religious figure on DS9 that I can think of was the 1950s Preacher from "Far Beyond the Stars".
Some individuals would celebrate it, but most would not.
Remember, those people are supposed to be largely atheists, and Christmas is a religious holiday.
Besides, for such a tradition to survive into the 24th century in Trek universe is a bit stupid given the fact everything that happened from the mid 21st century onward.
Simple fact:
It's an American show and the producers went the easy way to accommodate their viewers (granted they never or rarely showed christmas being celebrated or any other religiously based holidays, and even then it was meant to taken that only a handful of individuals would do it and not everyone).
I mean they even have marriage survive into the 24th century which is still glorified as the 'ultimate union' of 2 people which even ALIEN cultures have (yeah right ... give me a break).
Remember, those people are supposed to be largely atheists, and Christmas is a religious holiday.
Besides, for such a tradition to survive into the 24th century in Trek universe is a bit stupid given the fact everything that happened from the mid 21st century onward.
Simple fact:
It's an American show and the producers went the easy way to accommodate their viewers (granted they never or rarely showed christmas being celebrated or any other religiously based holidays, and even then it was meant to taken that only a handful of individuals would do it and not everyone).
I mean they even have marriage survive into the 24th century which is still glorified as the 'ultimate union' of 2 people which even ALIEN cultures have (yeah right ... give me a break).
Last I checked, Christmas is celebrated around the world and did not originate in America. Thanks for playing.
Maybe the 24th century never did, but the they were rather boring anyway. The 23rd century celebrated Christmas. They had Thanksgiving. Kirk told the Klingons to "go to the devil." To which Kang responded, "we have no Devil Kirk, but we understand the habits or yours." They acknowledge the "almighty" in Trek 5. They had traditional wedding services on the ship, UHura acknowledges the son of God. Religion is alive and well in the 23rd century at least.
And you completely missed the point.
I never wrote that Christmas originated in America.
Fact: Americans are largely Catholics (despite the fact there are numerous other religions in US).
Producers labeled Star Trek as 'family show' (ugh) and thus wanted to keep it within those boundaries.
The people who made Trek also had the characters incorporate religiously based curses into vocabulary (which was unrealistic for an atheist human society 200 or 300 years into the future).
I can buy that for the NX-01 time period since that was essentially the transitional era, but anything beyond that doesn't hold water if you want to take into consideration the progression of human society into account and what happened prior and after FC with the Vulcans.
Essentially, what we got was contemporary humans in the future, which is ... dumb and unreal.
TNG had it done ok within the first few seasons, but then they downgraded it for the sake of making the characters closer to contemporary humans.
Sorry, but there are other ways of making the characters interesting without having them behave stupider and exactly the same as their predecessors of the 20th and 21st century they always stated to be 'inferior'.
Christmas is secular as well as religious.
And I've never seen ANYTHING to support your contention that Starfleet personnel are atheists. NOTHING. Doesn't matter what Roddenberry believed or didn't believe. There's nothing on the screen that supports your statement.
--Ted
And I've never seen ANYTHING to support your contention that Starfleet personnel are atheists. NOTHING. Doesn't matter what Roddenberry believed or didn't believe. There's nothing on the screen that supports your statement.
--Ted
I don't think it unrealistic. The Yule/Saturnalia/Solstice/Christmas/Kwanza/Hannukah etc. etc. is a universal aspect of humanity and has been for thousands of years.
Romantic love between 2 beings is also universal and it doesn't seem strange that many humanoid cultures would also revere it. Sure there are alien cultures where different numbers are the norm, or asexual reproduction, but the 2 is universal.
I think it would be much more unrealistic to have an entirely materialist, secular and agnostic future society.
But what I think IS realistic is the idea that FUNDAMENTALISM will be unheard of in Trek universe. The religions will survive but the fundamentalist nutjobs won't generally exist because the resource wars and such will be a thing of the past.
Romantic love between 2 beings is also universal and it doesn't seem strange that many humanoid cultures would also revere it. Sure there are alien cultures where different numbers are the norm, or asexual reproduction, but the 2 is universal.
I think it would be much more unrealistic to have an entirely materialist, secular and agnostic future society.
But what I think IS realistic is the idea that FUNDAMENTALISM will be unheard of in Trek universe. The religions will survive but the fundamentalist nutjobs won't generally exist because the resource wars and such will be a thing of the past.
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