The War on Christmas Is Mostly a War on Critical Thinking

Every year about the time the lights start going up, the same folks start hollering about a so called “War on Christmas.” 

You know the type. They treat “Happy Holidays” like someone keyed their car. 

Suddenly the barista, who is just trying to make it through her shift without losing her mind, gets cast as an enemy combatant in an imaginary cultural battle she did not sign up for.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are standing in a mall (for the first time since last Christmas) that has been decorated since October, listening to the fifteenth round of “Jingle Bell Rock,” and wondering how anyone can claim Christmas is under attack when you cannot walk ten feet without tripping over Rudolph, the Grinch, or the tangled mass of tinsel that abandoned the giant Santa display like it had a spiritual awakening and decided to roam free.

It is not Christmas that is in danger. It is our shared ability to take a breath and think for half a second before grabbing a pitchfork.

Myth to Unlearn

There is no war on Christmas. 
There is a war on critical thinking. 
There is a war on understanding that people who live in the same community might celebrate differently and that this is not a crisis. 

It is just life. 
It is just being neighbors.

The folks shouting about persecution are usually the ones who have never experienced actual persecution. What they have experienced is someone choosing an inclusive greeting, and somehow that tiny moment becomes a personal indictment. 

If your entire worldview can be derailed by a coffee cup design, that dog will not hunt.

The Turn Toward Truth

The truth is, “Happy Holidays” is not an insult. 

It is a small way of saying, I see you and I do not assume your story is the same as mine. It is a tiny gesture of hospitality in a world that desperately needs more of it.

And if we are being honest, early Christians were not celebrating Christmas in December anyway. They were trying to survive an empire that saw them as disposable. 

The date got picked centuries later to line up with existing festivals. So the idea that there is one pure, original Christmas greeting is something we made up long after the fact.

Inclusive greetings do not hurt anyone. 
Manufactured outrage does. 
It pulls our attention away from the actual hurt happening around us.

People are lonely.
People are hungry.
People are grieving. 
People are exhausted. 

Leaders slash social programs with one hand and post cozy family photos with the other.

Those are the things that actually wound the season.

Where the Story Lands Today

If there is a war tied to this time of year, it looks nothing like the nonsense being yelled on cable news.

There is a war on the poor when families have to choose between heat and groceries.
There is a war on public schools when teachers buy supplies out of their own pockets.
There is a war on compassion when faith gets used as a shield for cruelty.
There is a war on queer and trans kids who just want to make it through December without becoming someone’s negative sermon illustration.

These are the battles that matter.
These are the places where Love is needed most.

And while the outrage machine is busy yelling at retail workers, real people are carrying the season on their backs. 

Nurses on night shifts.
Neighbors checking in on elders.
Parents doing their best with what little they have.
Volunteers refilling community fridges. 
People reaching for each other in quiet, steady ways.

This is where the heart of the season lives. Not in whatever someone prints on a cup.

Closing Blessing with Bit of a Bite

So let the outrage crowd wind themselves up. Let them argue about greetings and red cups. Let them treat inclusion as if it were a threat. That noise has nothing to do with the tenderness at the center of this season.

Christmas is not fragile. 

It does not need defending. 
It needs practicing. 
It needs people who choose connection over panic and curiosity over fear. 
It needs neighbors willing to look around and say, we can make this kinder for one another.

If there is anything worth protecting this season, it is not the holiday phrase used at the coffee shop checkout. It is the possibility of a world where everyone feels welcome.

Happy Holidays. 
Merry Christmas. 
Joy to the world.
Happy Hanukkah.
Blessed Yule.
Happy Kwanzaa.
Peace to your home.
Light and love this season.

Choose the one that feels right.

They all sound like Love trying to make a home among us to me.