the eternal "battleground" for Christmas

Sigh. In considering the attempts by well-intentioned Christian commentators to continuously reiterate to America that "Christmas is the observance of the birth of Jesus Christ, and nothin' else!", it should be clear by now that this "battle" won't ever be "won". The fact is, each person falls into one of the following two fuzzily-defined groups.

• People who are devoted Christians during the rest of the year. This group hardly needs any reminding of the importance of the Lord and Spirit whom they willingly serve each day, do they? Moreover, to this group, Jesus is real and alive and active. Although the mere historical event of His incarnate birth is unquestionably worthy of celebration, it's just one part of a larger, continuing story of His interaction with humanity. The whole issue is relatively insignificant for this group, who don't need to be any more convinced.
  
• People who aren't devoted Christians during the rest of the year. Note that in addition to devotees of other religions (including the "anti-religions") this group includes people who attend church services only on holidays and people who self-identify as Christians or church-goers yet don't exhibit life-permeating faith in Christianity. For this group, the failure to acknowledge the Christian parts of Christmas is probably not one of the core reasons they aren't in the first group! Thus, they aren't likely to transform into year-round devoted Christians just by viewing nativity scenes instead of Christmas trees. Since Christianity isn't a central hub of their lives, it's odd and pretty pointless to expect any item of Christianity to be the central hub of their Christmas festivities. The modern holiday of Christmas in America has Christian roots among others (e.g. European paganism), but this doesn't imply that all Americans who participate must emphasize the bits that are discernibly Christian. One might as well try to insist that everyone who goes to a modern American Mardi Gras must observe Ash Wednesday.
  

The "battle for Christmas" is a distraction. The "popular perception" of Christmas doesn't matter to the church's actual mission. People grudgingly assenting that "true" Christmas is "Christ alone" aren't thereby any closer to salvation.