What is Christmas about anyway?

From this video, produced by James Dobson's CitizenLink divison, you'd think Christmas was about buying buying buying. The folks over at Focus on the Family seem to take great pleasure in being outraged that "Christmas" is being mentioned less and less in retailers' greetings, catalogs and ads. In fact, we Christians are supposed to find these so-called "efforts to secularize Christmas offensive."

Watch the video now.

Me? I tend to be of the thought that Christmas is about the birth of Christ, about God's gift to humanity, about worshipping a God who has literally walked among us. While we certainly celebrate Christmas in our family by doing traditional things like exchanging gifts, baking cookies and decorating a tree, I have never for a moment tried to define this holiday by what I hear and see at the mall or on the catalogs I get. But apparently Stuart Shepherd who does these "StopLight" videos (remember: he was the same guy who did the "Would it be wrong to pray for rain at the Democratic National Convention?") defines Christmas differently than I do.

Apparently getting outraged that retailers (whose customer base goes beyond just Christians, believe it or not) use a generic holiday greeting rather than "Christmas" is enough reason to be offended and boycott businesses. (yes, there's an actual list .) Personally I get more riled up about fair trade, labor practices and treatment of employees and factory workers in developing countries and so on. But those wise people over at Focus on the Family are obviously the ones who we need to turn to for our "moral compass" and "values." Because if you value celebrating the birth of Christ, what better way than to make sure that Target is saying "Christmas" and not "Holiday"?