Christmas is "love" -- it truly depicts a story of love and redemption via the Christian story of Jesus. What Americans sometimes fail to see is that there are many such stories in the mythologies of every ethnicity, every religion, every set of tribal legends. Just because you believe in Jesus and his miraculous coming -- doesn't mean that it is the only truth. Many "Native American" stories/myths tell of sacrifice and giving in times of pestilence and pain.
Ancient Celtic stories -- long before the introduction of Christianity to far Northern Europe tell of animal and human sacrifices: given to the main god of that region. In every part of the World there are religions that depict sacrifice. It is arrogant and small-minded to think that the story of Jesus' birth is the only such story. But we are always the victims of our own parochialism.
The God of Israel is a god who sacrificed other people to free the Jews -- at least according the the Biblical legends surrounding the story of Moses. Any religion/myth you can name will have an element of sacrifice. Believe in that -- that the "diversity" of the world as to ethnicity, religion, mores, and practises binds us into one human family. "Sacrifice" given for love's sake -- is the glue that holds civilization itself together.
And so, Merry Christmas; Happy Hanakkah: Blessed Kwanza; Holy Ramadan; Happy Winter Solstice; et al. If there is a God (and I acknowledge deep inside that there is), then all manners of love induced by sacrifice show his/her presence. Even ---
RESISTANCE!
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