Christians Underground, a website for all of the oppressed Christians who make up the vast majority of this country, weighs in on the "War on Christmas" with this observation:

On the first Sunday after Thanksgiving 2005 I visited Manhattan to go to Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral and to see the displays in the front windows of two famous Fifth Avenue department stores, Lord & Taylor and Sax Fifth Avenue.

The windows were artistically decorated, but certainly not for Christmas, which celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, not children’s fairy tales or general concepts.

So I suppose CU wants a creche in every window up and down Fifth Avenue?

The writer goes on:

The Lord & Taylor windows were dedicated to fairy tales, like Rumpelstiltskin, The Princess and the Pea, and Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Snow White was there, but not the Virgin Mary. There were a few decorated trees in some of the windows, but no Jesus, not even the word Christmas.

This does not surprise me one bit.  Of course, the point is silly.  I can understand being upset if, for example, religious institutions went commercial over Christmas.  But what exactly is wrong with commercial places of business being commercial about Christmas? 

I can even understand why many bemoan the general public’s indifference to the religious nature of Christmas.  Yes, the crass commercialization of the Birth of Christ is bad, but it is hardly new.  But this is not what the writer is talking about.  He’s talking about an actual war on Christ, being conducted by retailers and "secular extremists".

But all this is prologue.  The main thing I wanted to focus on was the writer’s funniest line of his rant:

It was the same at Sax, where the windows focused on concepts like unity, harmony and beauty. Nothing about Christmas.

And there you have it, straight from the religious right: Christmas has nothing to do with unity, harmony, and beauty.  "Peace on Earth and good will toward men"?  Yeah, fuck that — Christmas is about Christ, not that bullshit!

And yes, it’s "Sacks Fifth Avenue", not "Sax Fifth Avenue".

NOTE:  The photos here are from this season’s windows at Macy’s (above) and Lord & Taylor’s (middle).  This last photo is a picture of a creche, available at Macy’s.