Merry Christmas?

Merry Christmas!

Really? With Omicron raging, backing up Delta, with homicides exploding, authoritarianism gaining ground here and there, our racial crisis still unresolved, with its parallel effect — woke notions that merit and math are racist.

Yes, even with that.

Not for families who have lost a loved one, but that is true every year, and some war years have been much, much worse. Not to go all historical on you, but this is when the Nazis made their last effort in the Battle of the Bulge breakthrough that killed thousands of Americans. 

What are the pluses for Christmas 2021?

Our volunteer warriors are not under direct attack anywhere, although they stand ready.

Given that it has caught haymaker after haymaker for two years, our economy is relatively strong. There are more jobs than there are people to fill them. Wages paid by many large companies are increasing. As the virus mutates, so do our scientists with new vaccines and pills. 

Millions are able to work from home, and many will continue to do that after everything settles down. (That may not be a 100% win, but people will have options.)

We are a deeply divided nation, but that is better than being united in a wrong cause.

Yes, inflation is a concern, but that will eventually increase the interest rates that will benefit people who save. So there is even a silver lining to inflation.

I don’t want to get into politics here, because if I did I would offend both sides. I am a middelist, who rejects the extreme ideas of both Left and Right. I was not happy with Donald J. Trump, and I am not happy with Joe Biden. I was happy for the safe and customary transfer of power that contradicted the hysterics who doubted The Donald would leave the Oval Office. 

His role in January 6 is murky, and I do not convict without evidence.

Several whites with guns, including police officers, have been convicted of killing Blacks, which ought to quiet BLM some, or at least offer them food for thought that, no, America is not as systemically racist and white supremacist as they claimed.

The facts speak louder than their protest posters.

Does that mean there is no racism left in the American character?

Of course not.

No nation is without its haters. 

The mark of a good nation is the steps it takes to keep the haters in a corner, where they can make noise, but not affect outcomes.

And America is a good nation.

As I was finishing this, a staffer who works in my building told me he wished a resident “Merry Christmas,” and she replied with an edge in her voice, “I’m Jewish.”

So am I, and so was Jesus. It takes a particular kind of harpy to hiss when receiving a well-intended greeting from another.

Because America is a nation that observes Christmas as a federal holiday, a national holiday, it is as inclusive as it can be.

In America, Christmas is for everyone — Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist.

Merry Christmas to all, and my hopes for a happier New Year.