It’s almost time for Christmas. I can tell because there are lights on my neighbors houses, it is a little colder outside, the meeting house has been decorated with trees and nativity scenes, they’re playing carols on the radio, and, most clearly, everyone is complaining about the phrase, “Happy Holidays.” I hear “Keep the Christ in Christmas” more than I hear “Merry Christmas” these days.

Here’s an example that’s been floating around Facebook:

Just so everyone knows, I will have a CHRISTMAS TREE in my living room (not a holiday tree), my child is getting CHRISTMAS PRESENTS (not holiday gifts) and we will eat CHRISTMAS DINNER (not a holiday meal), and I will attend a CHRISTMAS PARTY (not a holiday party). I will also very cheerfully wish you a MERRY CHRISTMAS! (not… happy holidays). By the way, if you want to have a Happy Hanukah , by all means do, I respect that. If you want to have a Blessed Kwanzaa, I also respect that. I want to have a Merry Christmas, so I ask YOU to respect that! Repost if you agree!!

It is a tried and true Christmas tradition that every year Christians stand around and pretend that they are persecuted. Henry Ford was doing it as early as 1921, but it was the Jews trying to destroy Christmas back then. Then the commies. Now finally, it’s the liberals.

Most of this is manufactured. We’ve all seen the posts taking stands against the “War on Christmas” and the White House calling their Christmas trees “Holiday trees.” What you probably haven’t heard is that it is a complete fabrication.

Here’s the thing: 93% of Americans celebrate Christmas while only 80% of Americans self-identify as Christian. That means 13% of Americans keep Christ out of their daily lives, but keep Him in Christmas. What an empty victory.

Each year the American Family Association releases a list of retailers to let us know whether companies are “Naughty or Nice” by breaking them into three categories: for “Christmas,” marginal on “Christmas,” against “Christmas.”

Victoria’s Secret makes the naughty list for being “against Christmas.” I imagine that somebody will go to Victoria’s Secret this year without having consulted the list (perish the thought!) and be furious when they are wished “Happy Holidays” on the way out. Some of them might even angrily respond, “MERRY CHRISTMAS!” feeling self satisfied.

Which doesn’t do any good for Clarisse Kambire, a thirteen year old slave who picked the “organic fair-trade” cotton used to make the underwear sold at Victoria’s Secret. This year Victoria’s Secret will make 6.2 Billion dollars while using slave labor and we’re worried about whether or not they say “Christ” to us on the way out.

A stand out on the American Family Association’s list is Wal-Mart. They’re rated exceptionally for Christmas, and you are encouraged to shop there, based solely on Wal-Mart’s support for the word “Christmas.” Yet, within the last two weeks Wal-Mart has been in the news for both a massive strike in which its workers were asking for livable wages and a fire in an unsafe factory in Bangladesh killing 112 people.  They are the exact thing James 5:4 and Deuteronomy 24:14 are talking about.

But they say Christmas.

This is such a perfect example of the way we operate as Christians in America.  We’re concerned only with what we say and not what we do.  We’re complaining about words during a time of the year when the greatest sins in America, idolatry, materialism, greed, and gluttony, are celebrated and encouraged. The “only war on Christmas” is the battle between consumerism and compassion.

If anything, we should be glad people aren’t saying Merry Christmas. That way we don’t have to be confronted with the reality of Christ coming to set us free from the slavery of sin while we’re exploiting those still enslaved.

This year, instead of focusing on which phrases people use, lets focus on injustice around the world which is in direct opposition to the good news of Christmas.

Check out www.adventconspiracy.org for more information on celebrating a different kind of Christmas.

Check out www.ijm.org to learn more about modern slavery.

Check out www.knowmore.org and www.goodguide.com to find out more about the brands you buy.