Give me seasonal schmaltz-Times Online Comment

I have lived in America long enough to know that I should never grasp the hand of colleagues or friends and wish them the joy and peace of the newborn king in case they turn out to be practising Zoroastrians. But it has got to the point where I worry now about upsetting fellow Christians if I proffer them a limp handshake and that flaccid salute to mushy multiculturalism: “Happy Holidays”.

And yet the truth is I rather like this annual Christmas controversy. For one thing it helps to debunk one of the more absurd myths about America that the rest of the world clings to — that it is firmly in the grip of some theocracy in which schoolchildren learn creationism by rote and White House officials slaughter the fatted calf before drawing up their foreign policy plans.
...
At other times, I can’t quite take all this American idealism and sentimentality. It is just a bit too much at odds with a complex world. As the country’s critics never tire of observing, it can lead to a little too much certainty and self-belief and a deficit of doubt and acknowledgement of error.

But, at this time of year, a bit of simple faith, a bit of uncynical joy and a bit of human hope induced by that unfathomable miracle that happened a couple of thousand years ago, is right on the mark.