Merry Christmas, say it loud and clear

There are no house papers at the coffee shop I visited this morning, except the local suburban paper. I was meeting a married man. Not my husband. But it's OK. We met so he could help me with a computer problem.

Before he arrived I looked through that newspaper and sipped my coffee. Big photo on the front page. "Holiday Tree Lighting" and the caption, [members of the ensemble] "sing songs of the season" before "the tree" is lit at the community "Holiday tree lighting." On to the next story. The Chamber of Commerce is having its "Annual Holiday Lunch." Another organization is sponsoring a "holiday toy drive." Even the United Methodists are having a "Holiday Cookie and Candy Sale." They are Christians and they don't bake Christmas cookies? We all know that yule logs and Christmas trees were originally pagan symbols. But we Christians baptized them and enfolded them into our own celebration. Now, for some reason, the secularists think even those pale symbols are so "Christian" they can't even be called "Christmas" traditions any more.

Our pastor writes in the December church magazine that Christmas literally means "Christ shows up." The God of the universe, the One who created everything and keeps it going, shows up as a crying, helpless infant two thousand years ago. That's Christmas.

Shout it. Announce it. Have your own parades, Christians. Don't let the merchants or the city fathers (and mothers) or the parade PC rules spoil Christmas for you. God plans to show up again.