I have to start with a few disclaimers. First, I really do not have a problem with people saying “Happy Holidays.” That phrase was around a long time before various people and organizations started taking the Christ out of Christmas, in fact, a song with that title was written in 1942. We actually do have several major holidays, religious and otherwise, within the space of six weeks, so it makes sense to issue a blanket statement sometimes.Second, I am a little queasy about the switch from “Christmas Break” to “Winter Break” on the part of many schools. It actually makes sense for colleges, since their break generally takes the entire first month of winter, but it does not make sense for public schools.Third, I understand that the emphasis on the Christian holiday of Christmas can be a little difficult for people of other religions to navigate, but I would rather we handle it with a sense of inclusion and acceptance. I have had my daily conducting of business interrupted due to Jewish-owned businesses being closed for Yom Kippur and by Arab-owned businesses being closed for portions of Ramadan. This does not give me heartburn and I do not believe the government needs to intervene for my convenience. In fact, I would rather see people observe some religious holiday, even if the religion is different from mine, than to be totally non-religious. I could go off on a tangent about that, but I will exercise self-restraint. Stopping schoolchildren from having a little Christmas celebration on the last day before break because it may offend a non-Christian? Well, that is just wrong and mean-spirited. If it is an Islamic kid, include a little something about Islamic holidays; and if it is a Jewish kid, include some Hanukah decorations and songs. If the kid’s parents are Atheist, give him a free pass to stay home that day. Bottom line, our schools are a government entity and no singular religion should be able to dictate what goes on there, including Atheism.Now that all of that is said, the main point I wanted to make is that I believe Christians need to stand up and tell the rest of the world that we want our holiday back. The world took our celebration of the birth of Jesus and has turned it into something crass and ugly. The gift-buying aspect of our holiday has become the very backbone of retail business in this country—which would not be a problem except many of these same retailers are scrambling to take any reference to religion out of their businesses at the same time as they are cashing in on our holy-day (which is where the word holiday comes from in the first place). Members of our government like to use the holy-day to duck out of working, then turn around and use their power to limit the free practice of our religion. Television series have Christmas-themed shows in which they ridicule everything about Christianity and religion of any sort. If these people want a holiday for exchanging gifts and getting a day off, but want to behave in a decidedly un-Christian manner, then they need to select a different day and give it a new name—and let the Christians have their holy-day. I would prefer that this new holiday be at least two months away from Christmas, that way we could maybe get Thanksgiving back to being a family holiday instead of losing it totally to the more recent holiday of Black Friday.What if next year, all Christians united in moving the gift-giving portion back to Epiphany (January sixth), the original gift-exchanging day? We could emphasize the Magi instead of Santa. And we could save money on those post-Christmas sales!! AND… we could spend Christmas celebrating the birth of Christ instead of celebrating consumerism. SpringCreekArtsGuild@-gmail.com