I’ll take you yanquis seriously about your precious doctrine of separation of church and state when you as a nation demand all federal, state, county, and local government facilities remain open for business on 25 December, just like any other day.

So long as government offices remain closed on 25 December, however, you’re simply continuing the tradition of bowing to tragically misguided church authority, from the Catholic Church on down through its Protestant spawn.

And, in turn, you are bowing to pagan idolatry:

Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. . . . But they are altogether brutish and foolish; the stock [tree] is a doctrine of vanities. Silver spread into plates is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the workman, and of the hands of the founder: blue and purple is their clothing: they [the trees] are all the work of cunning men.

Granted, Jeremiah is telling only the Israelites not to follow pagan customs (such as seasonal feasts of the Solstice or Equinox), but I still don’t understand why any Christian today would want to (especially given Paul’s dismissal, “we know that an idol is nothing in the world,” and then his admonition to the wise nevertheless to “flee from idolatry”).

It always makes me cringe when people demand that Christ be put back in Christmas; He was never in Christmas in the first place.

If you want to bow to mediæval church authority and idolatrous pagan customs, feel free to celebrate Christmas. And while you’re at it, why not celebrate the Hajj, too? It’s as Christian as Christmas is.

For those who feel the need to celebrate Christ’s birth, do so on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.

You are, of course, bound to no celebrations. Which is the way I like to celebrate just another day.