The Christmas shopping season begins today.  Millions are storming the malls trying to get a head start on Christmas shopping.  Or should I say Seasonal shopping?  Or am I supposed to say Holiday shopping?  Hanukah shopping?  Kwanzaa shopping?  Oh I’m so confused.

At least that’s how many people have felt in recent years as political correctness has attacked Christmas and virtually everything Christian.  The absurdity of this crusade to eliminate Christianity from public view can be seen a couple of recent examples.

School children in Texas were instructed to draw a tracing of their foot and then put a message on the drawing.  One little girl wrote “Jesus Loves Me” on hers.  The child’s teacher ripped the tracing off the bulletin board and told the crying student “Don’t ever do this again.”  The little girl got the message, Christianity is not allowed.

Another Texas teacher instructed her class not to write “Merry Christmas” on cards they were sending to soldiers in Iraq .  The reason, she said, was that it might offend the soldier.  (It’s extremely difficult for me to imagine that a soldier from a Christian nation who is being shot at daily by Muslims would find the words “Merry Christmas” offensive.)  This teacher even forbade her students from saying Merry Christmas to each other.

Both of these examples are found in John Gibson’s book “The War on Christmas.”  According to Gibson, people who treat Christian symbols with disdain are acting out a deep-seated hostility toward all things Christians.  They’re often offended by Christianity on an intellectual level.  They think it’s a crutch used by the less intelligent.

This very small, but vocal minority has been amazingly successful in their campaign against anything Christian in public.  However, it appears the pendulum may be swinging back in a more reasonable direction.

Many Christians have finally voiced their disdain for this unwarranted censorship of our faith.  As a result, several major retail chains have decided to put “Merry Christmas” signs back into their stores and advertising this year.

Last year I wrote that I had decided to be offended by stores that purposely leave Christ out of Christmas.  This year, I believe there will be fewer retailers tempted to do so.  So I’m going to go out of my way to patronize the businesses that put “Merry Christmas” signs in their windows and on their advertising circulars.  I’m also going to do my best to personally thank those merchants for keeping Christ in Christmas.

Join me, won’t you?

Mr. Story was my seventh grade history teacher. One thing he said still rings in my memory after all these years. “Socrates was a very wise man who told everyone what to do, so they killed him.”

Mr. Story was playing a little bit loose with the historical facts but it’s a timeless truth that most of us don’t take advice well. Young people in particular are known for resisting sound advice from their elders.

With that in mind, educator Charles Sykes has published a book, “Dumbing Down Our Kids,” giving some very sound advice to young people coming of age in the 21st century environment of fast food and MySpace. Most of his points can be linked to scripture but I will forego the editorializing and simply pass along his eleven rules for modern teens.

Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!
Rule 2: The world won’t care about your self-esteem.
The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school.
You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity.
Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.
Rule 6: If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine
about your mistakes, learn from them.
Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now.
They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how
cool you thought you were.
So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the
closet in your own room.
Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT.
In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer.
This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are
interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.
Rule 10: Television is NOT real life.
In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.

These words of advice were circulated on the internet and erroneously attributed to Microsoft founder Bill Gates; probably with the belief that Gates’ name would lend more credence to the words.

Since it didn’t work for Socrates, it probably wouldn’t have worked for Bill Gates either, but it’s still good advice.

We Christians have an uneasy relationship with Halloween. Most of us have fond memories of Trick or Treating as children. Then about 30 years ago, many pastors and parents began to back away from the observance of the holiday.

That reaction against Halloween came as Satanism and Wicca became more popular. Rock groups in the 70’s and 80’s began openly worshipping Satan and the demonic element of Halloween suddenly seemed too much for Christians to participate in.

This same period gave rise to Rock and Roll seminars as evangelists traveled from church to church playing records backwards and warning against the subliminal demonic messages in the songs. (By way of personal observation, contemporary rap music played forward is far more destructive than anything Zed Zeppelin ever produced backward or forward.)

For Christian parents, the retreat from Halloween was a Catch 22 guilt trip. If we allowed our children to Trick or Treat, we feared we were desensitizing them to evil ideas and entities. If we didn’t allow them to participate, we felt we were depriving them of fun that all of their friends were enjoying and they would thus develop a complex and rebel.

While most Christian parents are aware of their ambivalent guilt feelings, most are not aware of the true history of Halloween. Here’s a short version: The early days of Christianity saw thousands of believers martyred for their faith. They were thrown to the lions in the Roman Coliseum. They were burned at the stake, tortured, crucified, and even forced to freeze to death on frozen lakes.

In 610 A.D., the church designated a holiday to honor these brave Christians. It was called All Saints Day. All Saint’s Day was also called All Hallows Day. The night before was supposed to be a time of cleansing, prayer, and preparation for the holiday. All Hallows Eve eventually was pronounced Halloween.

Originally the day was May 13, but in the eighth century it was moved to November 1 to compete with a pagan ceremony of the Druids and Celts called Samhain. Samhain was the celebration of the dead.

In the succeeding 12 centuries, the holy and pagan roots of Halloween have been alternately emphasized. At times it seemed the pagans had taken it over, at other times, it seemed the church had stamped out the demonic element of the celebration.

My point is that Christians do not need to be the least bit apologetic about celebrating Halloween. Certainly we should refrain from dark costumes and symbols that celebrate the dead, but there are countless ways to make the holiday fun for children and adults alike.

One such example is Cornerstone Church ’s Hallelujah Party at the Grove Civic Center . For 15 years, Cornerstone has offered a safe and fun alternative for children of all ages. In fact, I took a group from our church this year to help just to say thanks to Pastor Bill Lay and all the folks who have worked so hard.

If you’d like more information on this topic, I recommend a Focus On The Family book entitled “Redeeming Halloween, Celebrating Without Selling Out.”