Kathy emailed me this cartoon which is circulating with some of her public school faculty friends. If anyone knows the copyright information, I'll be glad to post it.

Some of you may remember my blog entry from last year, "Invasion of the Secular Snowmen," in which I commented that snowmen had replaced Santa Claus as the official symbol of Christmas...nope, can't say that... how about "holiday season"? This year, of course, the snowmen have been join by a preponderance of polar bears and penguins from what I've been observing recently. The snowflake is also a strong contender as long as you don't think about each snowflake's uniqueness which might mentally point you to some kind of Intelligent Designer. Of course, the counterpoint to all this is that when I was much younger, the claim was made that Santa Claus had replaced Jesus Christ as the symbol of the holiday. Regardless, these days even ol' Saint Nick is longed for because at least he was rooted in Christian tradition, which has also been his downfall.

In last year's post, I brought to your attention the seemingly concerted effort to remove any mention of Christmas from the holiday season. And, of course, this year the big story is that Wal-Mart employees are not allowed to say "Merry Christmas." However, news as recent as yesterday indicates that either this wasn't true, or more likely, Wal-Mart is now trying to backtrack on their recent policy change. "Well, here's what we really meant... ."

The move to eliminate or at least ignore Christmas in our culture is in spite of the fact that an extremely large majority of American celebrate Christmas, even those who do not identify themselves as Christians...and even those who do not hold to any theist position at all! It seems that the United States has become so politically correct that our culture will now go out of its way to offend the majority as long as it does not dare run the risk of offending the minority. The only people who really get offended at this are in extremely small numbers--I would guess them to be less than 2% of the population, if not even smaller. When will we wake up and realize that to cater to the minority is an absolute slap in the face to the democratic ideals upon which this nation was founded? The non-establishment clause in the First Amendment was never intended to suggest that we try to please everyone, because in our attempt to do so, we please no one.

At least others have started to pay attention to this. I noticed that John Gibson has written a book, The War on Christmas. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but it may be worth checking out.

I'm still recommending the same thing as last year: politely return a "Merry Christmas" when you are greeted with "Happy Holidays." Don't be obnoxious or start an argument, but let people know which holiday you are most happy about! The birth of Christ was never meant to be hidden or kept to oneself so as not to offend another. Rather it is to be announced, proclaimed, just as it was in the beginning:

“And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”(Luke 2:10-14, KJV)