do they know it's Christmas?

I'm  not much of a shopper- until we have a trip to go on.  Suddenly I'm in a flurry of retail.  The weather is actually going to be quite a bit colder than we anticipated in our next locale, which means coat shopping.  The problem is we're in Arizona right now!  I walked into a store today and asked, "Do you have coats?"  The sales girl responds, "Oh, our jackets are over there."  I say, "I saw those.  Do you have coats?"  She says, "You mean like long sweaters?"  I say, "No.  I mean coats."  She says, "Oh, like blazers?"  At that point I decide I better hit the internet at home.  But while out we were treated to Christmas songs in all the stores.  It's still 85 degrees here during the day and the Christmas music weeks before Thanksgiving seemed a bit much.  Although, I did get to hear one of all time favorites, "Do they know it's Christmas?" by Band Aid.  It is so perfectly 80's in its inception and execution.  I remember watching MTV in high school and saying, "That looks like Bono.  Wait, is that Boy George?  And Sting?  And Bananarama?"  I promptly went off to Tower Records to buy the 45 and listened it until my brother declared that he would burn it if he heard it coming from my room one more time.  I was around 16 at the time and thought it was genius.

But as an adult, I have to wonder... What were they thinking???  It was adults who thought of this song!  I get that they wanted to do something nice for the less fortunate and I support the sentiment 100%.  But who thought it was a good idea to ask if a predominately non-Christian continent knew if it was Christmas time?  I love to wonder if countries like Afghanistan have top 10 songs about North America singing if we know it's Ramadan?  Do they sing about us eating and drinking ourselves to death during a time of fasting?  In India do they have songs about us, wondering if we know it's Divali?  Just wondering...

Of course Africa being predominately non-Christian is one of those hot debate topics.  I think most statistics report a near equal spread between Christianity and Islam, but that of course does not take into account all the native religions that were present before the missionaries arrived.  There are many groups in Africa right now attempting to restore indigenous spiritual practices.  Many of those groups say that even though a lot of the people would report being "Christian" due to fear or pressure they never really gave up their original ways of worship, but when asked would say, "Yes, I'm a Christian."   So, anyway until I walk across the entire continent counting myself I'm going to have to rely on someone else's numbers.