Since this topic primarily pertains to Christmas in the US, this post is written from that point of view.
To me Christmas is about the children. It's in watching my son's face as he opens his gifts on Christmas Eve (in the Swedish tradition on my wife's side, Christmas is always celebrated on the Eve). It's in knowing that I gave someone something nice. But yet there are many who are trying to turn "Merry Christmas" into a political hot-potato. I, personally, am an agnostic with an agnostic wife, two kids who don't even know religion exists, and with two parents who are recent born-again Buddhists.
As Jonah Goldberg, a Jew with an Episcopal mother, put it in his latest opinion piece, the minority have to be as tolerant of the majority as the majority is of their beliefs. Yet that is increasingly not the case in this country. All in the name of being "not offended", we are all forced to tread on eggshells, afraid if a well-intentioned "Merry Christmas" leads to an attack of intolerance. Tolerance needs to be a two-way street. Why should Christians always get the short end of the stick?
As for public displays of Christmas trees, nativity scenes, Santa Claus, or just the words, "Merry Christmas," I have no problems with that. In no way do I believe the government is trying to establish a religious theocracy. Yet nobody seems to have problems with menorahs or other religious symbols appearing. Only the Christian ones are under attack. Are people so uncertain of their own faith that they equate these displays to the thousands of years of religious persecution that has gone on in history?
Any day now, I expect a lawsuit by the chief intolerants, the ACLU, to force a ban on Christmas as a national holiday. It made me happy to see all those people singing Christmas carols outside of the ACLU's offices in Washington, D.C.
Beyond the public displays is what's going on in the rest of the country. Federated Store employees are forbidden from saying, "Merry Christmas" as are Macy's employees. Kids are forbidden from singing Christmas carols. Target stores ban the Salvation Army kettles. Floats are banned from parades because they have nativity scenes. None of those have anything to do with the separation of church and state. Is this intolerance really what we want to teach our kids?
What also concerns me is that we are losing our history. Text books are increasingly being changed to dismiss our founding fathers and to show political correctness. Fewer and fewer young ones know just why we celebrate Independence Day. Thanksgiving's history is being distorted to shine more favorably on the natives. How many people know that Veterans Day was originally a celebration of the end of World War I, known as Armistice Day? How many young ones know that Presidents Day was originally two separate holidays, George Washington's birthday (Feb. 22) and Abraham Lincoln's birthday (Feb. 12)? Instead we watered it down and celebrate Herbert Hoover and William Henry Harrison on the same day as we honor Washington and Lincoln. Kids these days don't even know what those two great men did.
To turn Christmas into a secular holiday, even though it is one to me, is a disservice to our children. Regardless of whether you believe the story of Mary and Joseph, it is important to know why Christians honor that event in their celebration of Christmas. It gives insight into the very founding of our country by very religious people.
As I said, it's all about the kids.
