I too was taken aback at the level of vitriol in Keillor’s posting. I said to one person that he seemed to have the same flu he mentioned in the post having had in a previous year. To another UU I said, “No problem. I’m buzzed off”

There are times I don’t appreciate the amount of anti-Christian sentiment in UU circles. I have taken a UU minister’s son to task for blatantly baiting some local Christian young adults and consciously work to get along with my conservative and many-times fundamentalist Christian neighbors.

On the other side of the coin, however, I can understand the pain that some UU’s feel. Many come from backgrounds where their staunch Christian families have shunned them for who they are or their inability to blindly follow the faith of their parents. Unitarian Universalism has opened a way for them to embody their spiritual nature without having to wear an uncomfortable creed.

As you say, Christmas is many things to many people. I recently saw a Japanese movie where followers of Shinto were celebrating a Christmas dinner with a tree, lights and other symbols of Christmas. I doubt they were celebrating Christ’s birth but bringing forth other underlying emotions and myths that embody the “Christmas Spirit”

If for Garrison Keillor, Christmas can only a be a Christian holiday, good for him. However, it would be helpful for the Christmas Spirit, and particularly the Christian Christmas Spirit, if he and others could acknowledge that for many of us, the holiday has meaning far beyond a Christian interpretation.

– Caroline