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In Christmas as Religion, Christopher Deacy explores the premise that religion plays an elementary role in our understanding of the Christmas festival, but takes issue with much of the existing literature which is inclined to limit the contours and parameters of "religion" to particular representations and manifestations of institutional forms of Christianity. "Religion" is often tacitly identified as having an ecclesiastical frame of reference, so that if the Church is not deemed to play a central role in the practice of Christmas for many people today then it can legitimately be side-lined and relegated to the periphery of any discussion relating to what Christmas "means." Deacy argues that such approaches fail to take adequate stock of the manifold ways in which people's beliefs and values take shape in modern society.