If you think the "War on Christmas" meme started recently - think again. Rightwing nutjobs have been using this for years, centuries actually. The alternet article goes over the history

A major bit is the John Birch Society in 1958 who, in a lull of fighting floridation, talked about the UN fanatics who launched an assault on Christmas in 1958.

Further back in history the Calvinists banned Christmas. When the Calvinist/Puritan regimes had control of Scotland and England they banned Christmas. For awhile. It was unpopular (of course). The ban migrated to America along with the Puritan settlers in the early 1600's. However of course the ban was overturned.

The original war on Christmas erupted during the bloody internecine struggle within Christianity that followed in the wake of the Protestant Reformation. Catholics viewed Christmas celebration as fun. Protestants saw Christmas revels as an excuse for all manner of sensual excess including public drunkenness and fornication. In Scotland, Christmas was outlawed for nearly four centuries - by Protestant Calvinists who considered the holiday to be a decadent, "popish" Catholic celebration.

The "war on Christmas" traces back, historically, to Calvinist bans on the celebration of Christmas which began in Geneva and then migrated, with the spread of Calvinist theological views, to Scotland, where Christmas was banned in 1583. As Amy McNeese writes, in an article first published in the Church of Scotland magazine, Life & Work that may be one of the best treatments of the War on Christmas, in an historical account of the Scottish ban on Christmas that only was lifted in the 1950's,

Of course there's something to ponder. Christmas celebrations as they're done today have little to do with anything other than an orgy of excess and consumption and all-around unsustainability. The yearly tree slaughter for example.

Killing Trees? What part of the life of Jesus is celebrated by tree slaughter? Why, Jesus gave a sermon on the beauty of lilies in the field, wouldn't he be galled to see trees being slaughtered supposedly in honor of his birth?

Orgy of eating? Orgy of presents? These things strike me as being similar to the money changers he drove out of the temple.

Perhaps it's worth-while to have a war on Christmas as it's generally celebrated, and steer Christmas back to its original purpose of celebrating the birth and life of a great spiritual teacher?