Santa hears Christmas wishes from all who sit on his lap. Just one of the secular aspects of Christmas

It seems that Christmas is under attack. Not necessarily by atheists and the like, although I'm sure they are part of it, but by people who are afraid to offend others. What these fearful folk fail to realize is that they offend many more people by their actions than if they just kept their mouths shut in the first place.

What is so wrong about wishing someone a Merry Christmas this time of year? Christmas is a national holiday. It has Christian roots that make it important to Christians but it has transcended the purely theological and become a secular tradition as well.

The folk that fear offending people bend over backwards to avoid Christmas and anything pertaining to it. A Christmas tree is renamed a holiday tree and heaven forfend (definite sarcasm here) that we place an angel on top of it. Christmas carols are out of bounds on city property, never mind that many, if not most, of them are secular rather than religious.

The fearful folk say that they believe in tolerance and don't want anyone to feel left out. Why then are they so insistent that Christians be left out? Christians make up the majority of the population of this country. If they truly wish to be inclusive they should encourage people to remember others instead of trying to force the majority to forgo their celebrations.

What they do tends to stir up hard feelings and cause rancor during a season that should promote good feelings and harmony. The thing is that the people causing the problem, for the most part, are good-hearted people who really want to be helpful. They are just obtuse and cannot understand why their efforts go unappreciated.

The hard feelings lead to misunderstandings. Recently the Drudge Report, a web-based news service, accused the Archbishop of Canterbury of saying the Christmas traditions were a myth. That's not what he said. He gave an interview and was asked about the traditions including the three wise men and the Star of Bethlehem. His answers were biblically based and nothing that should have caused a stir. However, in the climate generated by the Christmas bashers it caused problems.

I can give an example of someone trying to be nice and causing nothing but trouble by it. I approached a stop sign and the driver of the car opposite me was already at the stop sign. I was going to turn left and had my signal on. I pulled up to the stop sign and waited. Nothing. I waited some more. I waved them on. Nothing, the glare on their window kept me from seeing if they were doing anything. I finally went ahead and turned but wasn't sure they wouldn't take off and smack into me since they had the right of way and an accident would have been my fault--or it would have appeared that way.

Apparently the other driver, trying to be nice and polite, was waving me on but since I couldn't see them they were wasting my time and theirs. If they had simply gone when they should have the whole problem could have been avoided.

The feel good fearful folk are the same way. If they would just go about their business and stop trying to straighten out the rest of us we would all be better off.

To all those who serve, whether it be in the armed forces; the fire and police forces; in the medical service doctors, nurses and aides or those who serve in other ways, they keep our water flowing, our cars running and our bellies full: Thank you and Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year.

(edited Dec. 26 to spell appeared correctly)