<p>Annette Lathrop</p>

Married to a veterinarian, it probably comes as no surprise that our lives are surrounded by animals. This affection has spilled over to our grown children; our family’s Christmas will include six Yorkies. Several years ago I started training these dogs to drop everything and come when I start to sing “It’s the most Wonderful Time of the Year.” My secret to being the Piped Piper of Lathrop Yorkies is homemade deer jerky.

Christmas is a most wonderful time of the year, and almost all Americans look with anticipation toward the Christmas season. Our national celebration includes different and distinct perspectives.

Many love secular Christmas for the traditions, decorations, music, and foods. Christmas sounds, smells and sights invade our lives and it seems for a brief moment as we look beyond ourselves and give to others, a hope for a better humanity.

In addition, there is an economic side to Christmas. It has been said that for many large and small businesses, the Christmas season determines whether or not they will turn a profit (oh that evil word) for the year, providing needed jobs. There is a religious foundation for Christmas. Believers, who hold to faith in Jesus alone for our hope in this life and the life to come, celebrate God sending His Son to earth. The Christ child, and hence CHRIST-mas.

There are, however, a small percentage of people in America that don’t celebrate Christmas. A small subset of this group, not content in their choice, hate the freedom of others’ celebrations and want Christmas banished from any business and public square. They aggressively and consistently push to curtail Christmas celebrations. Christmas is not their only target but certainly a primary one.

Coalescing behind the ACLU and the Freedom from Religion Foundation (a Wisconsin-based group), the Christmas haters are among those who “have been on a mission to eliminate public expression of our nation’s faith and heritage,” according to the Alliance Defense Fund. This well-known legal group is often called to answer court challenges.

For years now, the news has been sprinkled with reports of lawsuits filed by these two groups. Beginning with suits to remove the nativity scenes from public locations, schools were subsequently pressured to delete any Christmas activity – no Christmas programs, trees, parties, or “Christmas” break.

The word “holidays” is deemed an acceptable replacement for “Christmas” as we are pushed to accept a fundamental transformation in our country. Stores advertise holiday sales; cards wish us “Happy Holidays” – neutral, sterile, safe.

The legal challenges have seemed to happen far away from our community, but they grow closer. This past spring the City of Prineville came into the crosshairs of the ACLU and Freedom from Religion Foundation. While it didn’t appear that anyone locally initiated their interest, these powerful groups swooped down into this central Oregon community and squeezed their talons around the neck of the city council. Fearful of the threatened lawsuit, the council voted to remove the town’s nativity scene. The townspeople showed up in force in favor of the tradition. The Alliance Defense Fund offered to help draft a policy that would survive a legal challenge as well as to defend the city, but the threat of a suit had the desired effect. The council, intimidated, submitted. The Christmas nativity scene was banished from its site.

There is a post-modern philosophy behind eliminating Christmas. Espousing relativism, this philosophy holds that there are no absolutes, no right or wrong. Absolute values or beliefs must be ridiculed, devalued and pushed to the edge of society. An online comment to a news release on the Prineville conflict sums it up: “Believing in imaginary gods is not logical. Believing that yours is the only way to go is not tolerant.”

If this small number of Christmas haters is successful, the only acceptable place to celebrate “the most wonderful time of the year” will be privately, behind closed doors.