What is the ruling on Muslims in the United Kingdom holding a family dinner party with non-Muslims at Christmas time, which includes preparing the usual Christmas dinner and decorating the house, and practicing the tradition of "Secret Santa" for exchanging gifts, while limiting attendance to Muslim relatives only?

It is not permissible to celebrate Christmas, nor to designate it with decorations and gifts, because it involves imitating the disbelievers and participating with them in their forbidden holidays. This is something that is prohibited, as the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said: "Whoever imitates a people is one of them." Some scholars have even gone so far as to consider one who does these things to be a disbeliever, due to the glorification of the symbols of disbelief inherent in them.