1 I think it has eased up, but it didn't happen by itself. Lots of people working behind the scenes to inform schools and businesses what their real limitations are under the law. One very active group, based in Chicago, is affiliated with the ACLU. Before the Libs out there celebrate, they are countering actions of other ACLU lawyers who have been giving "free" advice to school districts telling them they must avoid any and all Christian references in any school event. Even caroling. That is simply not true. Schools, with their politically-connected lawyers who just happen to be somebody's brother-in-law who went to night school and graduated in the bottom 5% of their class, used to go along with what was said for fear of costly lawsuits. Now they have a second opinion to go by and representation, if they need it. Businesses are responding to customer wishes to hear "Merry Christmas" at least some of the time, and maybe even see the words on a sign or two. It's simply good business. Contrary to what you may have heard, Church leaders didn't pick this time of year to usurp pagan festivities. That is a very old and unfounded accusation--by lapsed Christians. In the very early Church, the birth of Jesus was ignored because His Death and Resurrection of Jesus was our reason for being. About the 4th Century, scholars tried to determine when Jesus might have been born and they used theories of Jewish theologians that held that great prophets always die on the day of birth, or on the day they were conceived. They had enough data to calculate the date of Good Friday, because it is linked to a known event-Passover. The year was figured out as well, from available data. They chose to go with 36 weeks after that date (believing March 25th, the date of Good Friday as his conception), to arrive at what is now December 25th, because of other documents that excluded Springtime from consideration. In the 4th Century AD, there were no competing celebrations in Rome (where they worked), no matter how many times you have been told otherwise, that needed "countering." Why would celebrating the Winter Soltice preclude celebrating Christmas anyway, or vice versa. The shepherds in the field argument would be weather dependent, wouldn't it? Or would a shepherd pass up free meals for his sheep if the weather was accommodating? Think they might be there this year? Anyway it's as good a date as any, and it leaves enought time to present the life of Christ in the Gospels of the weekly masses before we begin the Passion and Death sequence.

2 In the song, "Walking in a Winter Wonderland," the pc folks have changed the lyric "In the meadow we can build a snowman...and pretend that he is Parson Brown" to "and pretend that he's a circus clown." Sickening. Clowns!