"Happy Holidays"? ...

or "Putting Christ Back in Christmas"

I was at a neighborhood Filipino grocery store making a last-minute pick-up of some ingredients for a traditional native dish for Christmas Eve dinner. There were more shoppers than usual and the cashier was very happy ringing the purchases in her cash register. She was all smiles to each customer as she gave their receipt saying "Happy Holidays" in a cheerful voice.

When my turn came to pay for my purchases, I wondered if she would say "Happy Holidays" to me, too.

She did.

And then I found myself answering: "Merry Christmas!" "I would have preferred that. We are still Filipinos," I added. The next customer behind me immediately commented in support: "And because we are Christians." I was happy she verbalized my thought. But I was not sure what the young lady cashier thought about it.

Watching the news on TV tonight, I saw a segment where our troops stationed in Kuwait, Qatar, Afghanistan, and South Korea sent greetings to their families and friends back home. It was noticeable that when it was a group making the greeting, they said "Happy Holidays" while individual soldiers greeted their wives, children, families and friends back home "Merry Christmas" and a few just added "Happy Holidays."

For us Christians, we know that Christ is the Reason for the season . . . for the celebration . . . for the holidays. Without Christ, what do we celebrate, why do we have the "holidays"?

The promoters of the "secular culture" have made inroads in schools to keep out God and any sign or symbol of Him there. Recently, a lawsuit has been filed against a high school over a nativity scene in the school’s annual Christmas play which ends with a nativity scene and the story of the birth of Jesus,

In the general society, they have invented the term "political correctness", which is another way of curtailing religious free speech. It is an insidious way promoted and perpetrated by the evil one, Satan, to keep the Creator out of the lives of the people and the world that He has created.

In the nation's capital, the Metro bus system rejected an ad depicting in silhouette a Baby in a manger with the title "Find the Perfect Gift" on its buses.

A welcome development, however, is that the greeting "Merry Christmas" is now heard once again from the nation's highest echelons of power.

At the Midnight Mass, the Gospel partly read:

" . . . and she gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn." (Luke 2:7)

When I read the Gospel at the Christmas day Mass, it said:

" . . . the world came to be through him,but the world did not know him.He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him." (John 1:9-10)

"Happy Holidays"? Or "Merry Christmas"?

As for me, I wish you who read this "MERRY CHRISTMAS! May our Lord Jesus, the Babe of Bethlehem, the Reason for the Season, bless you and your family always!!!"#