Christmas is back in America, but for how long?

OPINION:

In recent weeks, the White House revealed gorgeous Christmas decor with a “Home Is Where the Heart Is” theme, blending family values and patriotism. NBC’s annual “Christmas in Rockefeller” broadcast incorporated traditional songs that honored the well-loved tunes and carols we all love.

My Instagram feed has been filled with exuberant “Christmas is back!“ commentary that has genuinely made me smile.

What moved me most unexpectedly in this season happened right in my neighborhood. At Target, I saw “Merry Christmas” signage, and I personally witnessed a local public high school choir performing hymns that included the actual words “Christ child.”

Then I started to worry. Christmas’ shocking return to mainstream American life this year is evidence that it truly has been under attack. This should alarm us all, regardless of religious beliefs.

As a Christian, let me clarify that my particular concern here has nothing to do with forcing theology on those who don’t share my faith. I’m more worried about Americans who have been pawns in a real-time experiment for how to squash free speech and expression, erase America’s historical foundation and create a seemingly irreparable divide among citizens.

Years ago, Christmas was labeled as “divisive and oppressive,” and the unthinking and uneducated masses complied.

Anyone who has been paying attention knows that America’s cultural fracture began decades ago in our education system. Christmas break became “holiday” or “winter” break, seasonal activities prohibited material with any reference to the historical event that Christmas commemorates, and teachers and students adopted “happy holidays.”

Change the language, erase the history, cancel the culture, break the nation. We parents must joyfully fight to fully restore the importance of Christmas in America.

Christmas certainly is a holy day for the 2 billion Christians who celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, but calling two weeks of no school “Christmas break” is not an assault on those who don’t believe Jesus is the son of God.

“Christmas break” is a logical label for the federal holiday President Grant established in 1870, when he aimed to reunite our divided nation after the bloody but necessary, slavery-ending Civil War.

Perhaps we should defend the word “Christmas” through civics education. Our First Amendment is a great place to start, as one can argue that bullying people to avoid specific words in polite society may be a form of compelled speech.

Our republic allows citizens to worship or not worship as we see fit. The United States was founded by Bible-believing intellectuals who built a nation on Judeo-Christian values, certified that our rights come from God, and created a Bill of Rights that guarantees free speech and expression as well as religious liberty. Try Googling “Was President Ulysses S. Grant religious?” and you’ll find he never joined a church and was not baptized.

Yet he established Christmas as a federal holiday for the United States.

If we agree that erasing history is dangerous, why are we allowing our American historical truth — that the United States was founded upon biblical tenets of intellectual liberty, freedom from slavery, and love for one’s neighbor — to be ignored and erased? For Christians, Christmas is the celebration of Jesus’ miraculous birth. For the rest of Americans, Christmas is a federal holiday established to unite us through challenges, inspire us to be charitable toward those in need and remind us not to act like jerks to one another.

Recognizing that Christmas is a foundational part of American life does not require religious belief, but it does encourage us to treat one another with dignity, respect and forgiveness, despite our differences.

Parents, I dare you to say “Christmas break” the next time you’re on your child’s campus. I encourage you to read a book about why Christmas is meaningful in your kindergartner’s classroom. Take a leap of faith and wish the grocery store clerk “Merry Christmas” when he hands you your receipt. Be courageous and joyful this season, and make sure your children are watching. It might be our only hope for restoring the true spirit of Christmas in America for good.

• Jill Simonian is a California mom, television contributor and director of outreach for PragerU Kids, which provides free, values-based educational content teaching history, civics, financial literacy and character development to K-12 students.