The Corner and the permanently blogless Dennis Prager have spent some time on this today, and if you happened to hear "Joshua from Denver" call in to the show, then, yes, that was me, and you can stop reading now.
Prager was spending a great deal of time decrying the progressive (and Progressive) renaming of the Christmas Tree to the Holiday Tree. His ire was centered on what he saw as an attack on Christianity among the mendacious, and excessive sensitivity on the part of the immature. Right on both counts.
My object, however, was different. As an Orthodox Jew, my concern is with building and perpetuating a cohesive and resilient Jewish community. The rationale for renaming Christmas Trees to Holiday Trees is that "Christmas" is exclusive, whereas "holiday" is inclusive. Personally, it just makes me want to be more reclusive, but that's another matter. So the question is, what exactly are the revisionists including?
What do you think? They're trying to include Hannukah. But I don't want Hannukah included. Hannukah doesn't have anything to do with trees, except perhaps burning them for the fire to make the latkes. Trees have no place in Hannukah, just as Christmas has no place in Judaism. This is the kind of syncretist nonsense that can only serve to undermine, dilute, and corrupt my holiday, and it reveals a leftist hostility not merely to Christianity, but to religion as a whole.
Christmas in the public square is fine, as long as it doesn't try to include me.