I sought to defend the Christian right to own the festive period, but I don't observe any religious elements myself and find the whole thing, especially the commercialism, the endless mince pies and fake snow, utterly absurd.
I think you could also argue, though, that the mainstream secularization of Christmas is what takes it away from Christians, and that not automatically using "Christmas" to describe secular celebrations gives recognition to the fact that Christmas is a religious holiday that has meaning for some people.
I don't think that's the "right" view, and a lot of Christians have no problem with their holidays being mainstream. But a lot of "PC gone awry" scenarios have more than one dimension or perspective to them.
I'm not trying to be argumentative or insensitive. I just don't get it. What IS an author supposed to do? I've seen just as many complaints that there are no POC main characters. So I started making an effort to put more POC in my books, and then I started seeing all these complaints about stealing stories and own voices, etc. It's really frustrating. I just want to tell stories.
A lot of my frustration and "write whatever the hell you want" response comes from having tried to be sensitive and it seeming like there is no way to please people. Eventually, I just gave up.
Honestly, for the most part it's a lot like any other critique you might get. If multiple people are bothered by how you wrote a POC character, that may be something to take seriously. If it's one or two people, you consider what they're saying, but it's possible you won't agree with them or that you'll see their point but decide not to follow their advice. That can be a valid choice.
I see a lot of people say that they're scared of reactions because of how "extreme" people have gotten, but I don't often see people define what sort of reaction that they're scared of. I think that can be important to really think about and unpack.
Are you scared of facing serious harassment or threats? That can be a possibility any time we out ourselves out there in a way people may disagree with, but it's not always a likely scenario. How many examples have you witnessed, and what were the contexts?
In terms of threats to writers and other creative people, most of the serious attack campaigns seem to come from far-right trolls who target marginalized writers, not marginalized people targeting privileged writers. I've worried before about attracting dangerous attention for my writing, but only when writing about my own marginalized identities. And only from people outside those communities.
What I have seen a lot more frequently is that, say, a POC writer will publish a calm, non-inflammatory article on BuzzFeed or an entertainment site talking about how they, personally, saw racist undertones in a movie or book. And 85% of the comments will be from people lambasting the author of the
article for being too sensitive and "making everything about race." I seldom see any repercussions for the creator of the work being criticized unless the story was really that bad. And if you are scared about someone writing an article about how they found your book racist, I feel like the best course of action is to accept this as an opinion based on that person's perspective and not necessarily as an objective failing in your part.
This isn't meant to dismiss your concerns, because they may be valid. But I think it's helpful to look at it in perspective and consider the likelihood of different scenarios occurring or what the most realistic consequences of those scenarios would be. We're living in a time when the internet allows for controversies to blow up in a huge way, but the risk is not going to be equal in all situations.
ETA: Basically, criticism and backlash can range from anything from a couple bad Amazon reviews to a couple articles online to a Gamergate-level harassment campaign. These possibilities aren't equally likely and don't have equal stakes, and while, say, getting a couple bad Amazon reviews calling your book racist would be demoralizing, it's relatively harmless.