The website Right Wing Watch reports the resumption of the right wing’s battle against the supposed “War against Christmas,” the first shots this year being fired by an anti-LGBTQ organization called Liberty Counsel. It seems they publish an annual list called “Naughty or Nice” that rates stores according to how much the word Christmas is found in their advertising, signage, labeling, etc. This list is intended to direct us towards stores that have lots of signs that say Merry Christmas,and away from those that have too many signs that say Happy Holidays. . 

They say they want to keep our focus on “the true Reason for the Season.” I suppose this is another “keep America Christian” schtick, though it seems to me that the true Reason for the Season is the mounds of money that are to be made from suckers who are annually manipulated into a mid-winter buying frenzy. What “Christmas spirit” and “the spirit of giving” really mean is “Won’t you feel terrible if you fail to buy an appropriately expensive gift for everyone who expects a gift from you?”

Rather than resist the re-purposing of a religious feast day by pagan commercial culture, the Liberty Counsel is quite ready to go along with this so long as the pagan commercial culture uses the signs that they prefer.