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Christmas is really a pagan holiday to celebrate the winter solstice and the end of the harvast. Jesus was probably born in late September. Even if Jesus was born on December 25th, an orgy of materialism showing friends and family how much you love them is not an appropriate way to celebrate his birth. Many Christians recognize this paradox, hence the emphasis to "put Christ in Christmas." This means evening devotionals about the birth of Christ, special candles, and other rituals. Yet this has the effect of elevating Jesus' birth above his death and resurrection. Most Christians do not...

Antioch Bible Church: Prayer Warrior Thursday, 04 December 2008 As you are aware, the State of Washington has allowed the Freedom from Religion Foundation to place a plaque, near the nativity scene, in the Capitol Rotunda Building in Olympia denouncing faith in God as "myth and superstition...enslaving minds." Antioch Bible Church will be placing its own sign in the Capitol Rotunda during a press conference on Friday, December 5 at 11:00 west coast time. Please be praying during this time that God will be glorified! Pastor Hutch

A primary school teacher who left a class of 25 pupils in tears after she told told them Santa Claus did not exist has been fired.. When excited youngsters became rowdy as they talked about Santa, the supply teacher blurted out: 'It's your parents who leave out presents on Christmas Day.' The class of seven-year-olds at Blackshaw Lane Primary School, Royton, near Oldham, Greater Manchester burst into tears and told their parents when they arrived home. Mothers and fathers then complained about the incident and were sent a letter by the school saying the substitute teacher, who only worked at...

Time magazine’s Jeff Israely compared Pope Benedict XVI to the most famous Charles Dickens character in his latest column, which focuses on the “tough line on Church doctrine” the pontiff has taken: “...[T]here is growing proof that the 82-year-old Pope is...quite willing to play the part of Scrooge to defend his often rigid view of Church doctrine.” Israely later put Scrooge’s characteristic anti-Christmas exclamation in the mouth of the Holy Father: “...[O]ne can imagine Benedict flashing that gentle smile, tilting his head ever so slightly and declaring: Bah Humbug!” The correspondent’s Thursday column on Time.com, titled “The Pope’s Christmas Gift:...

In a magazine interview Obama and his wife Michelle revealed that one of their steadfast house rules is not giving Christmas or birthday presents to Malia, 10, and Sasha, seven. The couple explained that they spend "hundreds" on birthday slumber parties and want to "teach some limits". Santa Claus is still permitted to deliver seasonal gifts however. The girls are also given an allowance of just $1 (50p) a week for performing household chores, according to People magazine. Those chores include making their own bed, setting and clearing the dinner table and putting themselves to bed by 8.30pm. On the...

Democratic presidential hopeful, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., reacts as she attends a low dollar fundraising reception at the Lisner Auditorium at George Washington University, in Washington, Monday, Feb. 25, 2008.

Is Scrooge running the government of Oklahoma City? That's what attorneys at the Alliance Defense Fund are wondering. The group has filed a lawsuit in response to a ban on the celebration of Christmas in the workplace by city employees. The complaint was filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma in response to a memo sent Nov. 15, restricting holiday celebrations. Oklahoma City officials received a memo from the city manager stating holiday decorations with an explicitly religious theme would be banned from the workplace because it posed a legal liability to the city....

An e-mail fracas at North Seattle Community College hits on why "the most wonderful season of all" causes us so much angst. Here in Seattle, the phrase "Merry Christmas" has been largely expunged from public discourse. Haltingly and awkwardly, we wish each other happy holiday; we talk vaguely about a holiday season; we plan parties that by all appearances look like Christmas parties, but we never call them such. This despite every indication that Christmas, at least the consumerist trappings of it, is alive and well. Every Starbucks sign hawks a peppermint latte; the sound of Barbra Streisand belting out...

Today was the last day for most of the 120 staffers on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," who left with an early Christmas bonus check and no guarantee of a job when the strike ended. "Do we have a job when the strike ends? That's what everyone keeps asking," one former staffer said. "They've guaranteed no one a job. They just keep saying, 'The letter explains it." That letter is a notice from NBC's human resources department that says, "If your services are needed, we will contact you." Sources said that while some higher-level executives received severance packages, other...

  New laws pull plug on Xmas   Humbug ... Amy outside shop  HIGH streets face a Christmas blackout because of health and safety rules, business leaders warned yesterday. The demands of insurers mean festive lights are simply too expensive to put up. They say illuminations should be erected by trained professionals using a hydraulic platform, rather than ladders. Fittings should undergo a rigorous “pull test” to ensure they can secure cables and many councils are even ordered to individually test every bolt with a pressure gauge. The Federation of Small Businesses said costs for towns can hit £25,000...

Man sets himself aflame to protest religious names for California school district's breaksAP) A man used flammable liquid to light himself on fire, apparently to protest a San Joaquin Valley school district's decision to change the names of winter and spring breaks to Christmas and Easter vacation. The man, who was not immediately identified, on Friday also set fire to a Christmas tree, an American flag and a revolutionary flag replica, said Fire Captain Garth Milam. Seeing the flames, Sheriff's Deputy Lance Ferguson grabbed a fire extinguisher and ran to the man. Flames were devouring a Christmas tree next to...

IT WAS the night before Christmas and Ebenezer Scrooge was facing a succession of supernatural terrors; or, as the latest medical thinking would have it, he was succumbing to a brain disease so obscure that doctors would not give it a name for another 150 years.A pair of medico-literary sleuths claimed last week to have tracked down the illness that haunted Scrooge. They concluded that Charles Dickens brilliantly observed the symptoms in A Christmas Carol. Robert Chance Algar, a Californian neurologist, and his aunt Lisa Saunders, a medical writer and physician, believe that the affliction that made Scrooge a byword...

"While an Olympic-medal-winning ice skater smiled and listened to Christmas carols, a Riverside city staff member silenced the singing group because she was afraid the skater would be offended because she is Jewish." "The choir had barely launched into "God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman" when a police officer and Michelle Baldwin, a city special-events employee, approached choir director Staci Della-Rocco and told her to stop the choir's performance." "Amber Eyerly, with the New York-based PR firm that helped promote the event, said that Cohen didn't make the request." "I felt so bad for my kids and that whole situation," Della-Rocco...

SEATAC, Wash. — The Christmas trees are going back up at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Port of Seattle officials had ordered the trees taken down over the weekend after a local rabbi threatened a lawsuit if a menorah wasn't also displayed at the airport. Airport officials say they took that action out of concern that if they allowed the addition of a menorah, they would also have to display symbols of other religions and cultures, which was not something airport workers had time for during the busiest travel season of the year. Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky says he never asked that the...

The departure of Christmas tree displays at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport — the Port of Seattle's response to a local rabbi's insistence that an electric menorah also be put up — is accelerating into an international spectacle in the so-called "war on Christmas." And that is not what Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky wanted. "I am devastated, shocked and appalled at the decision that the Port of Seattle came to," he said Sunday. As news coverage about the airport's trees spread from CNN to ABC to the Paris-based International Herald Tribune, Bogomilsky on Sunday began to receive hateful messages from people holding him...

There will be no more Christmas trees at Sea-Tac Airport this season after the Port of Seattle received at least one complaint about them. For more than 25 years, the airport has celebrated the holidays with Christmas trees over its entrances. But overnight, the Port of Seattle ordered all 15 trees removed. "I think it's very unfortunate. Why lose the Christmas spirit? Christmas is for kids," said passenger Lisa Jones. The Port allowed "holiday" decorations to remain but decided to take down all the Christmas trees after a Jewish religious leader complained they were offensive. "It's a Christmas tree! It's...

All Holiday trees at Sea-Tac Airport were removed this morning after several community member complaints. They say the trees don't represent all cultures and religions...The trees will not go up again...the airport policy on decorations will be reviewed after the holidays.

SEA-TAC Airport - All of the Christmas trees inside the terminal at Sea-Tac have been removed in response to a complaint by a rabbi. A local rabbi wanted to install an 8-foot menorah and have a public lighting ceremony. He threatened to sue if the menorah wasn’t put up, and gave a two-day deadline to remove the trees. Sea-Tac public affairs manager Terri-Ann Betancourt said the trees that adorn the Sea-Tac upper and lower levels may not properly represent all cultures. She said that since this is their busiest time of year and they don't have time to add...

America has a split personality when it comes to paying for a just, free society. On the one hand, there's almost universal acceptance of the sacrifices needed to defend the nation from military and terrorist threats. This has created a bipartisan consensus to devote $453 billion, well over half of all discretionary federal spending this year, to defense. Most even accept the ultimate sacrifice of our brave military servicemen and women, who give their lives defending the nation. The question is, why accept the costs of defending our country from external threats while turning our backs on domestic programs that...

The pendulum swings both ways. Last year in Denver, it was Mayor John Hickenlooper proposing to replace the city's traditional "Merry Christmas" sign with one that said "Happy Holidays." The mayor wisely backed off in response to the public outcry, as did the Parade of Lights, this year, reversing its policy barring religious floats. Earlier this month, Speaker of the U.S. House Dennis Hastert, issued a directive instructing the architect of the Capitol to drop the name "Capitol Holiday Tree" - adopted in the late 1990s under the authority of no one who's now willing to admit to it -...

I find it necessary to type. It may be that the copious amount of anesthetic that my dentist injected was actually necessary, but now I'll never know for sure. I do know that he voted for Kerry- and he is steamed. Talk about gnashing of teeth- I just didn't realize that it was my teeth to be gnashed. Lesson learned? Never gloat in front of a man with the power to disable your mouth, and the will to do so. I hadn't realized previously that getting your teeth cleaned involved so much pneumatic equipment. I suppose I'll eventually get used...

I used to harbor the quiet but fierce ambition to write just one definitive, annihilating anti-Christmas column and then find an editor sufficiently indulgent to run it every December. ... But I have slowly come to appreciate that this hope was in vain. The thing must be done annually and afresh. ... [W]hat I have always hated about the month of December: the atmosphere of a one-party state. On all media and in all newspapers, endless invocations of the same repetitive theme. In all public places, from train stations to department stores, an insistent din of identical propaganda and identical...

I keep reading about churches that are going to be closed on Christmas day, which falls on a Sunday this year. What’s up with that? The word ‘Christmas’ comes from ‘Christ mass,’ which is the Roman Catholic service, or mass, for celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. Christmas falling on a Sunday should be viewed as a special occasion, with people excitedly looking forward to going to church that particular day, not using it as an excuse to close the church doors. Churches that are deciding to not hold services on Sunday, December 25th, are making a huge mistake. Now,...

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Everyone celebrates religion and holidays in their own individual ways, but currently there are questions about whether the two should be more connected. One of the latest places involved in the controversy is a McDonald's restaurant in Raleigh.The sign at McDonald's on the corner of Falls of Neuse and Spring Forest Road reads: "Merry Christmas, Jesus is the Reason for the Season." It is a holiday message that Amanda Alpert thinks comes on a little too strongly. "It offends me because it specifically talks about Jesus, Merry Christmas. It doesn't give credit to anyone else," Alpert said....

LOGAN - Four Logan teenagers, two boys and two girls, turned themselves in at the police station late Tuesday, confessing that they wrote and delivered threatening letters to 14 homeowners displaying Christmas lights. The teenagers on Saturday allegedly taped threatening notes to the front doors, warning that the homes would be burned down if outdoor-decoration lights were not turned off until Dec. 14. In a news conference Wednesday afternoon, Logan police Lt. Rod Peterson said officers interviewed and released five suspects, including one teenage male whose involvement appeared to be minimal. "I'm impressed that they were willing to come forward,"...

In city halls and public parks across the country, stories-high evergreens are being erected and decked with glowing lights and sparkling ornaments. They look - and smell - like Christmas trees. But not so fast. In places as varied as Chicago, Reno and Prairie Village, Kan., they're "holiday" trees. In other spots, such as Atlanta, they have no name at all. This year, the tree-name game has sparked a backlash, with some Americans crying humbug and Christian groups threatening lawsuits over what they say is religious discrimination. Perhaps the most heated debate is brewing in Boston. The city's Parks and...

If you're expecting a hearty "Merry Christmas" as you're doing your shopping; you might be disappointed. Usual holiday ads say things like Christmas, but you might want get used to hearing and seeing the term holiday. Because some stores are cutting Christmas out and putting a generic phrase in. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, but don't expect to hear someone say it. "I love Christmas, so I don't mind," says Rebecca Reyes. Wal-mart is one of many stores asking its employees to replace Christmas with "Happy Holidays". The company says its trying not to offend anyone, by...

An effort to boost Christmas Tree recycling in Chicago has come under fire by atheists (search), who say it unfairly benefits Christians. Authorities planned to hand out a year's worth of blue recycling bags in exchange for one used tree, but atheist activist Rob Sherman says the program is inherently unfair to those without Christmas trees. Officials told him he could bring someone else's tree but Sherman complained that "Atheists shouldn't have to go begging from home to home for a Christian who will sponsor them." The city will now offer the blue bags to anyone who visits a tree...

A 12-year-old New Hampshire boy who wanted to jolly up his junior high dance by dressing in a Santa suit instead got a lesson in political correctness when his Scroogelike principal turned the student away, fearing he might offend his classmates.

It's Christmas time, and that means it's time to enjoy A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens' melancholy tale of a productive businessman who gets worked over by three meddling supernatural social workers one Christmas Eve, transforming him into a simpering socialist. It's almost as sad as Star Wars, really. A Christmas Carol had someone other than that crypto-commie Dickens written it. So, for your holiday enjoyment, I submit these re-imaginings of A Christmas Carol, as other authors might have depicted it:

A Michael Moore Christmas Carol

CHICAGO -- A suburban school bus driver claims she was pulled from her route because she objected to an "anti-Christ" song listed in the school's holiday program. The Herald News reported Friday that Plainfield's Central School officials say the driver was taken off the route because she passed out unauthorized fliers along her route criticizing the program. Carmen Brown said she was reprimanded by the First Student Bus Company for handing out unapproved fliers she had made up encouraging people to boycott the school's holiday program because it included the song, "I Hate This Holiday." Brown, who has a son...

BENTONVILLE, Ark. - Folks dropping money in Salvation Army kettles at Wal-Mart stores can make their money go twice as far. The world's largest retailer announced Thursday it would match up to $1 million in donations. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has more than 3,600 domestic stores operating as Wal-Marts, Supercenters, Neighborhood Markets and Sam's Club warehouse stores. The company said the clock started Thursday on the match and runs through Christmas Eve. Wal-Mart competitor Target Corp. has joined a number of other major retailers in banning the Salvation Army bell ringers, saying it was not fair to select certain charities and...

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Emboldened by their Election Day successes, some Christian conservatives around the country are trying to put more Christ into Christmas this season. In Terrebonne Parish, La., an organization is petitioning to add ''Merry Christmas" to the red-lighted ''Seasons Greetings" sign on the main government building, and is selling yard signs that read, ''We believe in God. Merry Christmas." In Raleigh, N.C., a church recently paid $7,600 for a full-page newspaper ad urging Christians to spend money only with merchants who include the greeting ''Merry Christmas" in ads and displays. ''There is a revival taking place in our...

BELLEVUE -- The latest flare-up over Christmas trees in public places has longtime Bellevue chiropractor and resident Sidney Stock protesting the large tree standing in the lobby of City Hall. The tree is a symbol of Christianity, Stock and his wife, Jennifer, told City Council members this week. They said it is inappropriate to display symbols of any religion in a public place. Their objection follows a recent flap over Christmas trees at branch libraries in the King County Library System, which first banned trees then decided to allow them at the discretion of branch librarians. ``I think it's inappropriate,''...

Minneapolis-based Target Corp.'s decision this fall to stop allowing Salvation Army bell ringers at its stores has turned out to be a blessing in disguise for the Lake County Salvation Army. Capt. Diana Williams said she lost three locations with Target's decision, and touched off a search prior to the start of the kettle drive to find replacement sites at other stores. She looked at corporations the Salvation Army already knew would allow bell ringers, and contacted the local stores. The result - seven new sites for a net gain of four. Salvation Army now operates 27 bell-ringer locations in...

It wasn't a silent night for the Scrooges at ACLU, but for a nice change it was a holy night. Christian Wire Service today reported glad tidings: The conservative group Public Advocate of the United States, "not dissuaded from 'bah, humbugs' to groups like the Boy Scouts of America and pro-family Americans in general," sang traditional religious Christmas carols in front of the Washington office of American Civil Liberties Union.

If I hear "Frosty the Snowman" one more time, I'll rip his frozen face off. It's a scientific fact, or should be, that Christmas music can turn you into a fruitcake. It either sends you into a Pavlovian shopping trance, buying stupid things like the Robosapien, or, if you hear repeated Clockwork-Orange choruses of "Ring, Christmas Bells" drilling into your brain with that slasher-movie staccato, makes you feel as possessed with Christmas spirit as Norman Bates. I've never said this out loud before, but I can't stand Christmas. Everyone in my family loves it except me, and they can't fathom...

Saturday after Thanksgiving is the traditional day to purchase stamps for my annual Christmas card mailing... [snip] So, shortly before noon on that most recent post-turkey day, I sauntered into a neighborhood "U.S. Postal Store," [snip] and headed for the stamps-only section. I quickly found a packed wall of display racks offering a panoply of first-class postage devoted to the various elements of the year-end holiday season, specifically: 1) Christmas, featuring colorful, contemporary designs of Santa Claus with an array of inanimate, secular Yule symbols; 2) Kwanzaa, with not just one but two stamps promoting a totally fabricated "harvest holiday"...

During the holiday season, many people are so busy rushing around worrying about buying gifts, getting the best deal and running over anyone in their path that they tend to forget what they are celebrating. On Thursday, UNO hosted its ninth annual Kwanzaa luncheon in the Milo Bail Student Center Ballroom. Keynote speaker Saidi J. Liwaru stressed the importance of Kwanzaa as an African American holiday as well as a Pan-African holiday. Kwanzaa is a time for knowing one's roots while bettering one's culture. Liwaru is the host of the Real Solutions television program. He said that the timing of...

CHRISTMAS IS NOT THE TARGET: Much has been written and discussed in talk radio and on the internet this holiday season as to why certain decisions are being made when it comes to certain symbols of Christmas. I have seen or heard stories along these lines on all of the following topics just in the past 24 hours... 1. TARGET vs. Salvation Army 2. Macys banning "Merry Christmas" 3. Bloomingdales banning "Merry Christmas" 4. The Denver Parade of Lights banning "Christmas" floats 5. Maplewood Schools in New Jersey banning all Christmas and Hannukah music from its Winter Concert. 6. Bloomberg proclaiming the NYC no longer...

Denver-area churches decided that the official, government-sanctioned secularization of the Christmas holiday had gone too far recently when the city's mayor decided to replace the traditional "Merry Christmas" banner atop the local City and County Building with a "Happy Holidays" greeting and the organizers of the local Christmas parade denied permission for a local church to participate. Christians around the city rose up in protest by descending on the city's annual Christmas parade and sang carols emphasizing the Christian origins of the celebration, as noted in this surprisingly sympathetic account in yesterday's New York Times. "Like a spark in dry...

Freedom Elementary School in East Manatee, Florida, is banning not only Christmas and religious-themed songs from its winter concert this year; it's banning references to winter, altogether. Snowmen and snowflakes are strictly forbidden. The schools principal insists, "[We're] trying to be respectful of everyone." So, according to the Sarasota Herald Tribune, students are now planning to sing songs about America and patriotism. (End story) Now we can't even call it an ultra-politically correct "winter solstice!" Scrooge this school's staff, I say, and ba-humbug to them. Perhaps we should sing this song to each and every member that made this decision:...

Just in time for Christmas, America's two largest news magazines devote this week's cover stories to debunking the story of Jesus' birth. Among the conclusions in Time and Newsweek: Jesus was born in Nazareth, not Bethlehem; there is little evidence of three kings following a star, and the story of the virgin birth may have been borrowed. "The Nativity saga is neither fully fanciful nor fully factual but a layered narrative of early tradition and enduring theology," Newsweek writes in examining the Sunday-school version of the birth of Christ. This may be unwelcome "news" to most Americans. A Newsweek poll...

TARGET THE GRINCH:And the beat goes on... According to this morning's USA Today, Target Inc.  is sticking to its plan to kick the Salvation Army to the curb throughout this holiday season. For those of you late to this story, Target stores had long allowed the Salvation Army to be the only charity that raised funds outside their stores using their famous red kettles and the cheerful sound of Christmas Bells. This year the good will from the red bulls-eye came to an end.  According to the USA Today the impact will leave the Salvation Army short about 9 million dollars...

Two dozen San Francisco schoolkids sporting white turtlenecks and Santa hats got a very un-Christmaslike civics lesson the other day when they showed up at Union Square hoping to delight Christmas shoppers with holiday carols. "They just wanted to set up next to the Christmas tree and sing,'' said Donna Vargas, one of the parents who escorted the fifth- and sixth-graders from San Francisco Day School on Friday's outing. Instead, they got the boot. Seems they didn't have a city permit -- so after a brief run-in with the park's security, the kids were shooed away. "How can children not...

OPERATION LUMP OF COAL: STAGE TWO!  By Michelle Malkin   ·   December 04, 2004 12:55 PM Earlier this week, many of you contacted Denver mayor John Hickenlooper (MileHighMayor@ci.denver.co.us) after I wrote about his effort to replace the city's "Merry Christmas" sign with a "Happy Holidays" sign. As you all know by now, Hickenlooper heard us--and tons of other protesters-- loud and clear. The phrase "Merry Christmas" will not be removed from the city building after all. According to a press release issued by the mayor's office: “Last week a journalist accurately quoted my comments that a ‘Happy Holidays’ sign encompassing...

Denver's holiday traditions include a Christmas Parade and the lighting of the City and County Building in downtown Denver.Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper recently announced that the phrase "MERRY CHRISTMAS" on the outside of the building will be changed to "HAPPY HOLIDAYS," in yet another politically correct attack on the institution of Christmas. And while they're at it, the city is stopping a church group from participating in the annual "Parade of Lights", and singing Christmas Carols.Parade organizers claim that Christmas Carols may be offensive to some people....a church group who wants to march in the Parade of Lights and sing...

HOLIDAY BLUES Christmastime event is no-Christian zone Santa, 'holy homosexuals' OK for parade, but no floats with direct religious themes -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: December 2, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern By Joe Kovacs © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com In the latest skirmish over Christmas in America, a Christian group is not allowed to participate in Denver's annual Parade of Lights, because church members sought to sing yuletide hymns and proclaim a "Merry Christmas" message on their float. However, the event, now in its 30th year, will include homosexual American Indians, Kung Fu artisans, belly dancers and, of course, Santa Claus. "I think there's an...

MY CHRISTMAS CRUSADE  By Michelle Malkin   ·   December 02, 2004 02:36 AM The persecution never ends. Denver has launched war against a church group that wanted to march in the city's Christmas parade "Parade of Lights." (I hate, hate, hate that p.c. euphemism.)From the Denver Post: Parade Organizers Say Christmas Carols May Be Offensive To Others Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper recently announced that next year the phrase "Merry Christmas" will be removed from the city building and replaced with "Happy Holidays." And now a church group who wants to march in the Parade of Lights and sing Christmas carols...