Merry Christmas

Now it's time for 'My Word'...

I am going to call tonight what it is, no matter who it offends.

It is Christmas Eve.

There. I said it. Christmas. Saturday is Christmas, this is the night before Christmas, which we call Christmas Eve.

Look at the papers. All the columnists are talking about these days is how people feel they can't say "Merry Christmas" anymore, and how some are pushing back by saying "Merry Christmas" willy-nilly.

It wasn't always this way.

These were generally acknowledged days of the year for decades, even centuries. It was called the Christmas season — there was Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

But now, we say "Seasons Greetings" and "Happy Holidays
because we're afraid of being the Christian supermajority that oppresses and offends the much smaller religious minorities.

True, there are people we like very much among us who are not Christians and are sometimes evidently discomforted with overt Christianity.

But hey... it is Christmas. Christians believe the day of the birth of Christ is important.

Do the religious minorities in this country really want the religious majority to hide their most sacred day, to observe it in secret in living rooms with curtains drawn, so as to not offend the others?

Look — no offense to the others — but I guess they're going to have to face the fact that there are a lot of Christians in this country who want to say "Merry Christmas" to each other without offending others. And please, let there be no offense taken.

"Happy Holidays" and "Seasons Greetings" to those who aren't Christians...

But for the 85 percent of this country who are Christians, a simple greeting of the season — Merry Christmas. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas Eve, a peaceful Christmas Day and a bountiful Christmas season.

I wish the good parts of all that to everybody else too, but just to exercise a one-time-a-year celebration for those who — like me — were born and raised Christian...

Merry Christmas.

There. I said it.

I'm glad.

Merry Christmas,

And if that's not your deal, happy holidays too.

And that's My Word.

Watch John Gibson weekdays at 5 p.m. ET on "The Big Story" and send your comments to: myword@foxnews.com