there has been born for you

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: if you are a believer serious about your faith, you should be reading Evangelical Outpost every day as a matter of course. Replace ESPN.com or CNN.com (if you're still reading that tripe) and replace it with a site that is thoughtful about issues important to your faithwalk. Today's musing on the Christmas/XMas war is particularly worth reading, the last few lines especially:

When the ACLU sues to remove the Christmas tree let's give them the nativity scene as well. When the secularists fight to stop the Christmas pageant let's let them have the caroling too. Let's let them have X-mas. Because maybe then we can finally show them Christ.

XMas is about maxed-out credit cards and stressful trips to the mall; it's about ornament-shopping and family visit-planning; it's about holiday card picture-taking and holiday music; it's about claymation specials and wreaths. All of that decoration and family time and present buying/giving? All of that has been XMas all along, whether or not the mass of believers chooses to accept that. Christmas has always been about the manger and the heavenly hosts and the what child is this and the sadness of a Father laying His Son in straw to set the course of history on its ear. And none of that gets lost in a "Happy Holidays" or a missing scene in front of City Hall.