How many, many times during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq did we endure a spitefully sneered, "America. Love it or leave it" - or, "If you don't like it, why don't you move to France?"
I have a suggestion for many of those same people regarding their claims of a war on Christmas: This is America. And this is the American Christmas. It's about toys and presents that you can exchange for something you really want and super doses of stress. If you want a Christmas about the "virgin birth" go to central Mexico.
I was in Periban, Michoacan, Mexico, for a Christmas not too long ago and experienced a Christmas totally different than our American experience. Hundreds of people in the town went on a night-time stroll through the streets where they were greeted at doorways with tableaux performed by children with real live animals depicting the manger scene or the trek to Bethlehem by Joseph and a pregnant Mary and later by the magi. (No camels, I'm disappointed to say. But there were donkeys.) The procession ended at a palm-leaf and pine needle-strewn street at the end of which was erected a large alter to Mary and the babe.
They also had a night for neighborhood posadas where other processions were enacted commemorating the trek to Bethlehem with a young couple at the head of the procession dressed as Mary and Joseph. As they passed by houses, people would join the parade which ended at a particular house in the neighborhood where a singing exchange occurred representing the request of the couple for a place at the inn.
So, if you aren't happy with our American Christmas, why don't you move to Mexico?
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
PS - NPR has an article about an Israeli archeologist having found what is believd to be the actual little town of Bethlehem (in Galilee) where Jesus was born, which is a 7 kilometer trek for the pregnant Mary, and not a 150 trek to the Bethlehem of Judea, where it has been celebrated for 2000 years.
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