The Christmas Issue

I recently signed up for the OneNewsNow mailing list (don't look at me like that, it's hysterical), and so have been inundated with joyful messages over the great moral victory that was won in California by a legion of bigots. I've also been offered attractive savings on banal 'It's OK To Say Merry Christmas' pins.

This whole 'controversy' is just insane. A relatively small group of vocal Christians appear to be engaged in what I can only describe as large-scale roleplay, acting out a grand dystopian narrative where their vaguely defined left-wing overlords have successfully made it illegal to say the word 'Christmas'. Very often it is implied that 'the atheists' have had something to do with this, an idea actual atheists find incredibly confusing. If I may generalise here for a moment, we don't care. I say 'Merry Christmas' all the time. I'll have a brightly lit tree in my house come the 25th of December. I'll exchange presents. I'm planning on attending the Christmas choir recital being held in my university. I love Christmas.

If the holiday really does have an 'enemy', it's proponents of multiculturalism rather than atheism. The push for a generic 'happy holidays' was an attempt to include people who don't celebrate Christmas - Jews and Muslims, for example - in the traditional Christmas retail extravaganza. (If that sounds cynical, wake up and take a look around next time you're walking through any large town or city.)

So if you want to say Merry Christmas, go ahead. Nobody is stopping you.