Christmas outlawed, really?

I grow weary of hearing complaints that secular America has “outlawed Christmas” and suppressed the rights of Christians to publicly celebrate the good news of Christ’s birth.

The reality is that Christmas dominates American culture from Thanksgiving to New Year’s. Christmas movies, Christmas music, Christmas trees, Christmas shopping, Christmas advertising, Christmas decorations, Christmas church activities, Christmas Nativity scenes, Christmas caroling, Christmas vacation, Christmas cards, Christmas gifts, Christmas dinners, Christmas parties, Christmas eggnog, Christmas worship services and Christmas Santa Clause.

Law enforcement and courts do not prevent people from wrapping themselves in the ecclesiastical and commercial trappings of this important season of the Christian calendar. One does not spend Christmas in America and come away thinking the holidays were spent celebrating Hanukah or Ramadan or atheism. That there are some who refer to the season as the “holidays” is a small gesture of sensitivity toward those in our culture who are not Christian, people who are entitled to be remembered in a society for whom inclusiveness and freedom of religion were so important that these principles were enshrined in the very first amendment to the United States Constitution.

George Critchlow

Spokane Valley