Whether one calls it the Christmas or the holiday season, it’s rapidly becoming the stupid season. Every day I get mail from various groups warning that efforts to remove the word Christmas is just one more step toward secularizing our country under the guise of separation of church and state. I also get e-mails from civil libertarians and atheists who accuse me of hysteria when I write about the assault on religion in America.

Last year, the Committee to Save Merry Christmas called for the boycott of Federated stores because it banned the use of the words Merry Christmas by their employees. I refused to shop at Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s last year for another reason – I couldn’t afford them.

I just received an e-mail from the American Family Association signed by its chairman, Donald Widmon. Apparently, Walgreens has apologized for omitting Christmas from its advertising but has promised to resume using the words next year. Mr. Widmon’s message suggested that we send Sears and K-Mart letters asking them to do the same. The latest news is that Target may be restoring Christmas to its late season ads. Apparently, boycotts are working.

I’m pretty conflicted about this issue because Christ has been missing from Christmas for quite some time. While the efforts to erase God from our public areas have finally struck a nerve within the Christian community, it’s foolhardy to think the mere use of certain words constitutes genuine spirituality.

I can understand why stores prefer the generic holiday greeting in lieu of Merry Christmas, which is a celebration of the birth of Christ. My Jewish friends and neighbors never greet me with “Happy Chanukah” because they know I don’t celebrate that holiday. Nor would I wish them a Merry Christmas for the same reason. I send them Season Greetings cards, and to those friends that I know are Christians, I send Nativity cards. Nevertheless, a Christmas tree is still a Christmas tree and calling it something else is ludicrous.

A New York Sun reader and regular correspondent, Dorothy Wachsstock of Queens, recalled her childhood as a Jewish youngster during Christmas in an e-mail: “Growing up as an Orthodox Jew, I loved the Christmas festivities and learned all the Christmas carols in school. I was in the Choir in Jr. High and the Pres. of the G.O. if you know what that is. Why the atheists want to take away this religion scares me … my father, a very devout Jew, never objected as it did my belief in my own religion no harm. It is a religious holiday for Christians and just as we Jews observe our own religious holidays. I wish everyone a Merry Christmas.”

Bless you, Dorothy. You remind me of my own childhood in Spanish Harlem with the Dunetzs, the Lermans, and the Rubens who lived on 110th Street before the neighborhood deteriorated. Just the memory of the warm fresh baked Challah bread they gave our family makes my blood sugar levels spike. The city had Blue Laws in those days, so stores were closed on Sundays but we shopped during the Christmas season for bargains on Orchard Street. The Jewish vendors sold seasonal decorations of all kinds, and wished us a Merry Christmas as we parted.

When did all this change, this camaraderie, this respect for one another’s beliefs? Did it start with Madelyn Murray and is it proceeding with the likes of Michael Newdow and the American Civil Liberties Union? Groups like the American Family Association are up in arms because they can see the writing on the wall and envision the day when the ACLU declares that Christmas as a national holiday is unconstitutional. In the unlikely event that the courts decommission Christmas as a national holiday and scrap all religious holy days, that would also mean the end of days off for Congress and the court system on Sundays and all religious holidays. That will never happen.

Books about this issue are being publicized. The Fox News Channel’s John Gibson and Bill O’Reilly are among those decrying the secularization of the season. But is this just a topic of debate for them or a genuine concern for the future of religious freedom? If secularists have hijacked Christmas, we sure made it a pretty easy job.

How many of those clamoring for a spiritual rebirth of Christmas, actually attend church every Sunday or love and forgive their neighbors as Christ exhorted them to? Once upon a time, the early Christians celebrated this joyous event in secret, in catacombs. Their gifts were tokens of love, not extravagant evidence of one’s wealth, like gift wrapped $50,000 luxury cars.

Before we condemn what’s going on in the public squares, perhaps we should examine how we celebrate Christmas in our homes and our hearts.