Tommy Denton

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As Dec. 25 nears, tensions seem to run a bit higher this year among the season's celebrants.

Emotions ranging from angst to full-blown righteous indignation to eye-watering redemptive passion to save imperiled souls have accompanied a stirring debate over how to designate certain seasonable decorations, specifically, evergreen trees adorned with assorted lights, baubles, stars and other glittering items appealing to the eye.

Earliest memories from my own family's celebrations called it the Christmas tree. Most everyone we knew called it the same thing, most likely because we didn't know anyone who wasn't Christian.

A few of the kids at school insisted that we Catholics weren't really Christian and were destined for the sulfurous regions, which was slightly confusing to a youngster who sang the same Christmas carols in class with the Baptists, Methodists and Nazarenes about the baby Jesus, three kings, Bethlehem and angels.

The point was, the season was Christmas, the trees that appeared in virtually everyone's living room were Christmas trees, and such self-evident truths were, well, self-evident.

Recently, though, certain faithful Christians have noted -- why they hadn't noticed before is perplexing -- that undercurrents of what they consider to be political correctness have effectively banished Jesus from his birthday.

The season, they have complained, has been transformed in recent years into an innocuous, spiritually hollow "holiday" during which secular merry-making and commercialization have sanitized the "reason for the season."

Referring to "holiday" trees as opposed to Christmas trees has struck a particularly sharp chord in 2005, and many have expressed not just disappointment but earnest indignation that sales clerks have been instructed to respect "diversity" of the customer base by greeting customers with "happy holiday," rather than "Merry Christmas."

Alas, most merchants understand the rudiments of customer relations, a long-honored tradition designed to incorporate marketing strategies that encourage customers to feel welcome, which is to say willing to spend their money, regardless of their political, religious or any other nonshopping-related views.

Why the discovery came to the faithfuls' attention only this year is not clear, other than some notable Christian evangelical organizations launched multimedia public awareness campaigns to arouse an uprising against the political correctness of secular humanism.

Actually, laments over the shoving of Christ from Christmas are nothing new. Bumper stickers and yard signs for decades have urged a wayward world to meditate on the reason for the season.

As a number of letters to the editor have pointed out during the recent debate, much of the custom celebrated today -- including the evergreen tree as decoration -- finds roots in ceremonies and trappings of nature-worshiping pagan tribes inhabiting Northern Europe centuries ago.

Christendom really didn't get around to appropriating those particular customs until the 19th century, festiveness being an inspiring ally of commerce.

Christians determined to enforce Jesus' birthday must fairly glow in prosecuting such holy confrontations.

Meanwhile, far from the battlements where conflict and confrontation war against the secular darkness of "happy holiday," other defenders of the Christian faith celebrate the coming of Jesus into the world by turning their attention beyond an ornament-adorned tree to Jesus' instructions:

Love one another.

Feed the hungry.

Shelter the homeless.

Console the sorrowing.

Care for these, the least of my brothers and sisters. That sort of thing.

Rather than parse chip-on-the-shoulder verbal greetings, some Christian organizations all across America have spoken out, such as Sojourners and the National Catholic Rural Life Conference. They spoke as with one voice but without much fanfare, to implore Congress not to abandon the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the ill, the suffering.

Those petitioners pleaded last week with Congress to reject provisions in the federal budget reconciliation bill that would cut food stamps, Medicaid, state child support and other safety net programs, even as the House considered tens of billions of dollars in tax reductions for the nation's wealthiest people.

As Christmas nears, members of Congress and those who elected them should ponder the words of the one who is that day's namesake: Blessed are the merciful, blessed are they who hunger and thirst after justice.

Nowhere in Scripture is it written: "Blessed are those who can pick the most fights in my name."