Or shall I say, “Happy Holidays”, to be more politically correct? No, I won’t. That sounds too hollow and empty. It lacks meaning. It is not American. Should Christmas be something that we are ashamed of? I think not. In fact, it was something that was sent with a lot of good things behind it. How could it become something that we must be fearful to wish someone? What is even more bewildering and ironic to me is how people, even our own president this year, could take such pains to include any religious songs or mention of the real person for whom the holiday was named after, yet be so open in his mentioning of the totally mythical figure who has become more commonly associated, if not replaced, with the holiday--Santa Claus.

This year is the saddest Christmas I have ever experienced. The stores themselves, even though they are all decorated for the time, and shoppers can even be seen in them shopping for presents, they feel devoid of the feeling of Christmas that used to be there--all because “Christmas” has be relegated to just a “Happy Holiday”. On black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year that follows Thanksgiving, the shoppers I saw crowding the stores appeared to be doing so more for their own selves than to buy things as presents for other people.

And this year, it made sense, with the economic downturn of our economy, and how pressed people are for just the things they need for their own selves. Even I was doing it, and even though they could have been gifts, there was no need in even wrapping them this year because they were things that could be used right away. As I stood in lines, and just in my own daily ventures, very few ever made mention of the actual holiday, or said “Merry Christmas” to another human being. It only adds to the hollowness of the holiday, and how empty Christmas is becoming.

What the American people are doing today is putting all their hopes and dreams in the policies of our president, in Barack Obama. Even since he came upon the scene, certain talk show hosts have given him deity status, if just in jest, because how people have reacted to him, because of his bold and determined appearance before the cameras, and how he promoted “CHANGE” and how better days would be ahead of us.

But look at where America is at these days. We have a government that is out-of-control in its spending, pushing a health care issue down our throats that will cost the America people even more and in so much of a rush when the war, terrorism, economy, and jobs are all a much bigger priority. A whole series of one or two thousand page bills threaten to change the very foundations for which this nation was founded, and make it something else that can only mean less of the freedoms we all have shared here until now.

With unemployment so high, money so tight, crime is going up. So is people’s fear about it. States--states like New York, that is home to the world’s preeminent financial center, along with golden state of California, the garden state, where Hollywood reigns supreme, are set to go bankrupt! How can such things be happening here--in America? Why is it being allowed to happen? And why is there not more urgency in trying to prevent it? Terrorism, something President Bush had always felt was being contained overseas in our fight with Iraq, is now something increasingly being homegrown on our own shores, and threatens the internal security of our nation. It is all having a downgrading and repressive affect on America.

We NEED Christmas in our lives--especially during these turbulent days, even if people do not believe in Him as the Son of God and view it as the religious day for which it was. We need it to be the good and positive thing it used to be, and Christ needs to be a part of it, because He was a real being, and a being that we need to be more molded after, because in Him, and the Bible itself, we can find guidance in how we ourselves can, and should be. In Him, we see the image of how the rest of mankind ought to be; the image for which all the rest of can aspire to.

Yes, we do have the freedom to do both good and evil, right and wrong. Those freedoms need to be preserved, but we have a legal system in this country that does pose limits on what we can do despite those freedoms. Goodness and righteousness needs no laws at all, but evil and wrong does because of the negative affect it has on others.

There is a troubling aspect about tolerance, and we need to recognize this in our country, and that is this: As we try to become more open and more tolerant of “other lifestyles”, we have to be careful about it. It is one thing to be tolerant and accepting of a person who is “different”, but if we allow that difference to become “normal”, it seems to cross a line to where we go down a path of depravity.

We are seeing that today with the huge demand for same sex marriage. My feeling is that the idea is divisive because people feel that if we cross that line, we will end up subjecting ourselves to having to allow each and every other little thing under the sun. And, perhaps, rightly so.

I was listening to a radio talk show (Sean Hannity, I think), and a caller had told of a children’s book she had seen. I forget the exact title of it, but it was about marriage. It was written by a very liberal person, and it talked about how marriage did not have to be just between a man and a woman. It could be between two women, or two men. And from there, it went on to tell how a person could be “married” to just about anything--even to a flower.

That is the kind of thing we would be setting ourselves up for, and it would create something of a nightmare trying to accommodate everyone’s different tastes. How do you then ’tax’ a flower? If we, as one of our czars have suggested, give animals same rights as humans, so that homeowners could be held guilty for killing rats in their houses and the like, where do we stop?

When we take equality to such extremes, clearly a line has to be drawn somewhere.

My sense about it is that tolerance is more an attitude a person needs to develop within himself than a right to be granted under law for each and every little thing under the sun.

Laws are meant to help provide some order within a society. When we try to use it to encompass more than it is meant to, it takes us down a road to which there is no end. As it is, laws are becoming so complicated that law is now becoming something that is used to dance around truth and provide more disorder in society more than being the method by which truth and order is maintained.

Additionally, we are also seeing how, when things denigrate to such a point, it ends up affecting even the positive things people might do. For instance, because of the increase in pedophilia, a person has to be so careful in protecting their child that even a person who only intends to say merely hello to a child or ogle a cute little baby can become a threat. In earlier days, there was no such fear. Why is that?

I think it is because when we allow such leniency in our societies, we open ourselves to those kinds of things. Christian religions will make the point that it is because we are all sinful creatures. Even if you disagree with that assessment, the fact that society uses law to control a person’s actions and define what things that are right and wrong, good or evil, or just acceptable or unacceptable in society, illustrates the need society has for limits and restrictions of some sort.

So, in the end, what the law cannot cover, tolerance can.

One thing that has been annoying me is how we can have commercials wishing people “Happy Hanukah”, but we are not allowed to have commercials wishing us “Merry Christmas”. Similarly, these days there are those who are trying to get us to rename “Christmas trees” to “Unity trees” or something.

I hope you will forgive me for getting crass here, but that is a giant load of crap!

Christmas is a religious holiday, and it should be kept that way. Wishing someone “Merry Christmas” does not have to be offensive, any more than “Happy Hanukah”. The intent of it is something pleasant, and we should not be afraid to say it. And Christmas trees are that--Christmas trees. They do not need to be re-labeled something else because it is part of the Christmas tradition. However, if you wish to put up a tree, and call it a “Unity tree”, you certainly have the right to do so.

As I see it, this ongoing fight between conservatives and liberals, religion vrs. atheist, or and good over evil is, and always will be, an ongoing thing. Neither side will ever get totally what they want, so the thing we must do is learn to meet in the middle, and find those things that work for the majority of people in a society without totally alienating those on the outer fringes. Tolerance is something we all need to practice, while law is something we need to maintain order.

So, I will leave this post wishing everyone a now belated Merry Christmas, and if, for some reason, you do not care for my doing so, you have my sincerest apologies, but I will wish it upon you anyway…