We’re coming up on the Christmas holiday for those celebrating, and as it’s such a cultural phenomenon in the West, I thought it might be interesting to see what the far future has to say about whether we celebrate and if we still do. Star Trek has portrayed, at least as far as its human characters are concerned, almost completely secular societies. We see a few ceremonies that often have a religious component to them—weddings and funerals, but generally, we don’t see human religion except in passing. That is, of course, just fine, and there’s certainly a strong argument to be made that Christmas has become more secular in its observance than religious even now in the 21st century.

However, we do seem to see some of the trappings of the holiday floating around. There’s a one-off mention of a Christmas party in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode “Dagger of the Mind,” for example. The big image of Christmas, though, comes to us in the film Star Trek Generations, when Captain Picard’s version of perfect happiness involves an incredibly traditional portrayal of Christmas. Some of that could have been because the film premiered in November of 1994, but given how Christmas is portrayed as the happiest time of year, it’s entirely possible that the writers and film director choose to use the season as a shorthand for heaven. There’s a reason that the Christmas season is one of the most difficult for many people.

Still, it’s an odd choice for a man who is so very rigorously secular in his own life, even if he respects the religious beliefs of others. Perhaps the use of Christmas in the Nexus sequence is also intended as a red flag for Picard, making it easier for him to see that the Nexus wasn’t where he needed to be. One of Picard’s big character arcs centers around him making peace with choosing to prioritize duty over having a more traditional family. We saw this arc begin in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Family,” and that theme carries into Star Trek Generations. Picard must make peace with his decisions, including that of not having a traditional family, though it turns out that he sort of does in Star Trek: Picard season three. Christmas as a holiday is synonymous with family as any Hallmark movie installment will tell you, so the choice to set Picard’s version of perfect happiness in the Nexus may also reflect some internalized understanding of the holiday as synonymous with the family that Picard chose not to have. Picard symbolically rejects this desire by choosing to walk away from that perfect Christmas and to make contact with James Kirk, a man who also found Starfleet duty to be incompatible with settling down and having a partner and family.

Setting aside the question of whether making that choice is really necessary, which is an issue that has plagued Star Trek since 1966, I do think it’s interesting that the zeitgeist of Christmas even haunts Trek, a franchise that ostensibly represents a vision of the future in which humanity has grown beyond divisions and the need for religion. Star Trek Generations doesn’t devote much time to questioning why Christmas, and that’s telling, especially as the film seems to rely on the audience’s immediate grasp of the baggage that goes along with the Christmas ritual to get its point across. Trek is at times very good about questioning the societal pressures that drive us, and at others, the franchise allows these issues to pass unremarked. Star Trek Generations either misses a prime opportunity for that critique or does it so subtly that it’s easy to miss.

Still, if you happen to be celebrating, I wish you a peaceful holiday. If you’re not, I hope you have a lovely end of December.