All We Want For Christmas Is A Return To Civility

All We Want For Christmas Is A Return To Civility Authored by William Brooks via The Epoch Times, For many folks raised in the northern United States and Canada, the Christmas season evokes vivid childhood memories: fresh snowfalls, frosted windowpanes, the scent of a pine tree in a warm living room, and neighbourhoods aglow with coloured lights against the early evening darkness. We recall midnight carol services followed by exciting Christmas mornings, the thrill of unwrapping a new pair of skates, and the delicious aroma of a roasting turkey. For almost everyone, Christmas was a season of goodwill-a time when families reunited, neighbours dropped by for eggnog, and communities felt briefly stitched together by shared customs rather than pulled apart by grievance. Those memories help explain why Andy Williams’s early 1960s hit could so confidently proclaim, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” Such fond recollections now sit in sharp contrast to the Decembers we inhabit today. What was once a broadly shared cultural moment increasingly feels caught in a vortex of political resentment, culture-war skirmishes, and competing claims over the public space. The season that once wrapped communities in a common warmth now exposes society’s fault lines. Christmas has not disappeared-its lights still shines-but the bonds that once united us are harder to distinguish amid the confusion of post-modern diversity. During the Christmas season, expressions of hostility toward people of faith have become a familiar part of our present-day ideological battles. Scholars have long documented the opposition of adversarial intellectual movements toward the influence of Christian values in public life. In the United States, organizations such as the Satanic Temple and the Freedom From Religion Foundation openly work to challenge the presence of Christian symbols and traditions in civic settings. Legal arguments invoking the Constitution’s Establishment Clause are routinely used to confine Christmas displays and pageants to private spaces. In Canada, grievances have taken a more troubling turn. Over the past several years, specious allegations related to the history of indigenous residential schools contributed to an atmosphere in which more than 100 Christian churches have been vandalized or burned , from Kamloops, British Columbia, to Halifax, Nova Scotia. One cannot ignore that the Judeo-Christian traditions, which once healed social divisions, have become a target for discord . Even the most familiar religious symbols provoke dispute. What used to be shared feelings of peace and joy are now pulled into broader conflicts over identity and power. Sentiments that were once widely shared appear sharply divided, and scores of young people are being conscripted into the pathological legions of a troubled age. Restoring the Spirit of Christmas Whatever one’s views on history or accountability, the globalization of violence against people of faith and places of worship reveals how deeply polarized our cultural landscape has become. In an era when division dominates headlines, restoring the spirit of Christmas will require something countercultural: a deliberate return to civility. As we approach 2026-a year likely to bring continued economic, political, and global uncertainty-individuals...

Preview: ~500 words