by Lauren Schwartz

Created on: December 18, 2008

According to Bill O'Reilly, there is a liberal, secular attack on Christmas. He has spent many nights peddling his "Merry Christmas" bumper stickers as a protest to the "Happy Holiday" enemies who are attacking this American tradition on the sly. Apparently, this conspiracy has been going on for a few years. The rest of the world were distracted by other things, such as the Iraq war and failing economy. But apparently, the liberal agenda is trying to sneak in and take a sacred, religious holiday away from Americans. "The War on Christmas", otherwise known as "Happy Holidays", is yet another way the country's traditions and values are being robbed.

As any person working in the retail industry can tell you, seasonal greetings to customers begin as soon as Thanksgiving is over, sometimes sooner. A few speculate that Turkey day and Christmas are close enough; any business owner who can get employees into the habit of seasonal greetings the sooner, the better. Others argue that it might just be politeness, for fear of offending any of those "non-Christian" folks. And then there are those who think this is one big plot to take the values out of America.

Many Jewish people have a hard time remembering when Hanukkah is, exactly, and acknowledging others with a simple "Happy Holidays" smooths it over. Co-workers that are saying farewell to each other on the last night of work before vacation? It exists so there is a faster as a much faster, and painless, way of saying "Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year". These people just want to go home already! Factoring in multiple people that you see every day at your office, this exchange can last longer than necessary; eating up precious moments of freedom.

So let's settle down here. Christmas is supposed to be a time to care about those around you; people not as selfish as certain conspiracy freaks seem to be. That includes acknowledging others have motivations that are not always attacking your beliefs. Most of us want to save time, or get away early. Others can't remember which holiday happens when. But there are quite a lot of people that recognize there are multiple, separate days of tradition that fall within a month of each other. Perhaps it's just our way of being polite by not forgetting anyone. It's not a conspiracy. It's human understanding. No, there are no evil, dark, devious reasons behind this. Don't we have enough unnecessary wars going on right now as it is? So much for the meaning of peace.

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