The Editor, Sir:

'Tis the season for the annual debate: Is Christmas a religious holiday, or has it become merely a cultural tradition? Are we right in wishing others happy holidays, or should we come right out and wish them a Merry Christmas?

Today, amid a politically correct and consumerist Christmas attitude, we are allowing ourselves to be stripped of our traditions, the dearest and most venerable, the oldest and sweetest, the truest and most beautiful, so that carelessly, through neglect, we are abandoning Christ to follow the latest futile fad.

Christmas is not just a holiday we celebrate, but a holy day - the birth of Jesus Christ. The word 'holiday' is a derivative of the term holy day. On its own, happy holidays is merely a term of exclusion signifying nothing other than the happy wish to have the freedom to do as one pleases, that is, to have a holiday from whatever it is that binds. Taken to its logical conclusion, this is a wish for anarchy.

In contrast, Merry Christmas is all inclusive. It's about faith, prayer and offering. It is about rediscovering joy and the solidarity of friendship, the human tenderness of relations and the piety of souls of enchanted children and adults. Just as Jesus Christ came to earth and stripped himself of divine glory in order to become poor for men of all races creeds and colours, so is Merry Christmas an expression of that same holy gesture which we extend at Christmas toward people of all faiths and cultures.

In advancement of faith, family and fraternity, may we all strive to keep Christ in Christmas! Merry Christmas everyone!

I am, etc.,

PAUL KOKOSI

paulkokoski@mountaincable.net

Ontario, Canada