Many of you who have my albums,( that's right...ALBUMS , I'm old school baby) may have noticed I took time in 2 of them to rant about Christmas. Not the holiday so much as the word. I don't need to beat that dead horse about the removal of the word from stores , schools, and even our own mouths , as that truth is self evident.

What I did want to comment on was the irony that in the desire to be inclusive, our social community became the opposite. First we must explore which Holidays were being left out of the December celebration? There seems to be only 3 that are observed. I suppose there are some Wiccans celebrating the harvest, or the new moon or the tree gods or something but I don't count them. Those wacky Wiccans look for any excuse to get naked and dance around at night.

First we have Hannakuh. This is the celebration of the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem. This is a noble celebration and as I am Christian I have nothing but respect for the religion and people that birthed mine. But respect or not isn't the point. Hannakuh is a specific JEWISH holiday ,celebrated BY Jews. No one else is invited simply because it isn't FOR anyone else AND SHOULDN'T BE! Nothing wrong with that.

Consequently there are no Nat King Cole Hannakuh albums out there , though I'm sure if anyone could have nailed the dradle song it would have been Nat. The next holiday is Kwanzaa. Kwanzaa by the way has only been around since the mid 60's. Its purpose is to celebrate black Africans and their culture. Notice I said BLACK,AFRICAN and culture.

Since black Americans ancestors arrived here as slaves and over time many of them lost their cultural roots, to have a celebration to reclaim them while finding unity amongst their own certainly makes sense and is a perfectly logical way to do so. The point though is it is purposely exclusionary. It isn't for all Americans and was designed on purpose not to be.

What am I getting at? IF the concept of the term "Happy Holidays" is to prove equal respect for those who don't celebrate Christmas, does no one find it odd that the 2 other holidays we honor doesn't include us? You see folks the truth is even though Christmas is a Christian holiday it has morphed over the years for non-christians as a celebration of GIVING. Atheists don't believe in Christ as God but most give Christmas gifts. Deists, secular-humanists and political correct junkies give Christmas gifts.

Every commercial that doesn't use the term Christmas still uses Christmas symbolism to get you in the holiday spirit.You always get red and green colors, snow fall while jingling bells are heard in the backgound. Santa and elves, pine trees and large wrapped presents. ALL of these symbols, anyone who hasn't been recently lobotomized are aware, refer to Christmas and Christmas only.

That...is why Christmas celebrators get bent out of shape. If your going to use our symbols to hawk your wares , have the decency to use our word. If you truly believe in inclusiveness, in your next commercial include Jewish and Kwanzaa paraphenelia. Show Jewish Americans coming out of Temple and heading to their respective family homes or black Americans wearing traditional west African garb......but you don't.

Because you know what we all do.The reason there are lights on the homes across America, the reason there is even the contemplation of the "season of giving" and the reason there is a multi billion dollar buying spree in December and December alone is because of ONE holiday....Christmas. Please don't use our symbols to pretend your including everyone as it is a lie. Use ALL symbols OR NONE.

Lastly, anyone out there who celebrates Christmas but doesn't say Merry Christmas at work, while shoppng or in school...is a wuss! Merry Christmas everyone. Brad Stine