c. 2005 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) The War on Christmas seems a little less intense this season.

Last year some feared it would escalate until ACLU shock troops dragged Salvation Army bellringers into the streets and made them kiss a copy of “Atheism for Dummies.” Christmas trees would be renamed “arboreal solstice commemoration devices” by order of the United Nations, and churches would have to wrap their clappers in cotton lest the sound of the pealing bells make someone feel uncomfortable.

Because that’s the worst thing that can happen: You feel uncomfy. Left out of the reindeer games.

This is why some people devote December to getting angry about Christmas. Never mind the possibility of a flu pandemic or a nuclear-armed Iran, either of which might make you feel, um, dead. The hard left has priorities: It must convince America the war in Iraq is lost, the founder of the Crips who shotgunned innocent people must be spared, and no one can shout “Jesus” on public property unless he’s slipped on the ice and hit his tailbone. Now let’s get out there and improve America!

If the War on Christmas has simmered down this year, there might be three reasons:

_ The lull is an illusion; the war continues. Attention-starved atheist filmmaker Brian Flemming has taken out ads in The New York Times, The New Yorker and USA Today to promote his new movie “The God Who Wasn’t There,” and promises that his “300-member street team” will interrupt “Christmas-themed public events” to distribute his movie. Finally: an atheist answer to Fred Phelps and his despicable “God Hates Fags” losers. Give the man a few years and he’ll be showing up at little kids’ funerals shouting “There isn’t any heaven!” at the mourners.

_ A truce has been reached: The secularists have agreed not to picket the Postal Service for putting the “Virgin” Mary on a stamp, and the religiously minded have promised not to say “Merry Christmas” to strangers unless they first secure a signed waiver for mental stress, and do not say the words within 500 feet of a school.

_ The war is over, and the secularists won. It’s hard to see any other conclusion, really. Wal-Mart _ that crass, horrid wad of red-state values, if you believe the left _ can’t even say “Merry Christmas” on its home page. As Wal-Mart goes, so go 9,000 Chinese factories, all of which are busily stamping out “Happy Holidays” signs for 2006.

This isn’t to say that Christmas is over, driven underground by cackling tools of the Antichrist. It just means that the “elites,” to use a sloppy buzzword, have ceased to care or pretend. Where once it was standard for radio shows to end with “Merry Christmas” and “God bless” and “Buy Chesterfields,” it’s now standard to say “Happy holidays” and leave it at that. (And don’t smoke Chesterfields!) Ninety-six percent of the country celebrates the holiday, so it’s not exactly a niche market big business feels it must pursue.

The overclass has disconnected from a common American reality, but that’s nothing new. The overclass hangs on a thin, dense sliver clinging to the coasts, a worried, furrowed state of mind cleaved by the broad, smooth brow of Jesusland. People note how the elites quail and simper and wring their hands before the terrifying sound of “Merry Christmas,” and shrug. Whatever. No surprise. It’s not the end of the Republic. Nothing ever is, which is why it’s hard to get people interested in the little things that change, forever, the character of the culture.

Wherever you stand on this issue, you have to admit there’s something odd about a culture that makes shopgirls in malls unable to say “Merry Christmas” without coughing as though they had inhaled a fishbone, and looking around to see if the manager heard. Not that the manager would care, but there was a memo.

Of course, given Wal-Mart’s market, you could argue that saying “Merry Christmas” to their customers is like saying “Praise Allah” during the hajj; it almost goes without saying.

But there’s something to be said for saying it.

MO PH/LF END LILEKS

(James Lileks is a columnist for Newhouse News Service.)

Editors: To obtain a photo of James Lileks, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.