Whatever happened to Christmas?

Cheria and I took our granddaughter Olivia over to her schoolhouse this morning to participate in a basketball tournament, and since it was going to be an all-day affair I went back home for a while to catch up on a bit of pressing work. As I was walking back to my car, I happened to notice the following message on the school sign:

Winter Break
December 19 – January 2    Winter break? It should be Christmas Vacation, and even the school’s website has it listed as such on its own calendar! Of course hardly anyone in the county actually visits the school website, so referring to Christmas Vacation by its actual name on there is no real setback for those who are trying to take Christ out of the day that bears his name and was designated by the United States Congress as an official federal holiday to celebrate His birth.

There was a time in this country when the vast majority of Americans held our Judeo-Christian heritage in high regard, but somewhere along the way we replaced many of our most cherished Christian values and traditions with watered-down generic phrases like “Winter Break”, “Spring Break” (instead of Easter), and the now-pervasive “Happy Holidays” (in place of Merry Christmas). They say it’s all in the name of “tolerance” and “inclusion”, but when you think about it doesn’t it really seem to be quite intolerant and non-inclusive?

In spite of what the liberal talking heads that dominate the mainstream news media would have us believe, our forefathers based our amazing system of government on a Christian foundation, and our initial set of laws and regulations were pretty much straight out of the Ten Commandments – with a healthy dose of the “Golden Rule” thrown in. Any person who doubts that Jefferson and the rest of those great men intended for our society to be in accord with Christian principles need only take the time to read the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Could it possibly be more plain and simple than that? Yet, although some 80% of the American population consider themselves to be Christians, we have allowed a small, but vocal minority to hi-jack our culture and lead us down the path towards secularism. Most of the serious problems that face our country today are rooted firmly in Supreme Court decisions that have taken our Creator out of the schools and the public square, and along with Him went much of the moral grounding that we all must have in order to be good law-abiding citizens in a free society.

Perhaps a change in the way that we refer to the Christmas holiday seems a bit insignificant to some, but it’s a stark example of the way our Christian heritage and culture have been successfully attacked and watered down over the past few decades. But if you walk up to me between now and December 25, you will not hear me greet you with the words “Happy Holidays”. Like it or not, you’re gonna hear “Merry Christmas”!