I get a headache trying to figure this out: There is actually a town that doesn't want Santa Claus to light the Christmas tree, because he's too religious.
Santa Claus and the entire accompanying Christmas package -- trees, presents, wreaths, lights, the North Pole and those his many elves -- are so much cultural baggage. It has nothing to do with the story of the Christ child of Bethlehem, of angels appearing to shepherds , and wise men following a star.
Christmas is indisputably a religious holiday, but like Mardi Gras in New Orleans, over the years it has come unmoored from its religious origins. It's become a cultural holiday like Thanksgiving or the Fourth of July, built more or less around the idea of charitable giving and spending time with family.
Step into churches on Christmas Eve and you'll hear parents enjoining their children to remember the True Meaning of Christmas,™ and many other religious folk who want to jettison Santa because he steals the thunder from the Christ child.
I've known Jews who take their children to see Santa and I've interviewed Hindus who celebrate Christmas. There are probably even Muslims who do the same, though the imam I interviewed about that five years ago no doubt would deny any such notion vigorously and indignantly.
I wish the anti-Santa parade and the anti-Christmas parade would march into the same room in Toledo, Ohio, where they can merrily ruin their own Christmases and allow the rest of us to keep the holiday as we wish.
Not that I'm opinionated.
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