It’s that time of year again when the great battle is waged between those celebrating the “Holidays” and those celebrating Christmas. I know it has arrived because I have seen the battle cry set forth by bumper stickers and Facebook updates–soldiers in the battle gathering under the banner of “Put Christ back in Christmas!”

I get where this is coming from. I celebrate the birth of Jesus on December 25. I call the day Christmas. If you are not celebrating the same thing, please don’t call it Christmas. Be bold enough, though, to call it what it is. Whatever you are celebrating that day, call it by its name. If the generic holiday is the best you have, you probably don’t have anything to celebrate and you might as well go to work. Good news, traffic will be light.

You see, Jesus is not an ingredient to be added to some “Holiday” recipe. He is everything or He is absent. This is by His command. We can’t simply take this holiday mess of presents and decorations and TV specials and food and debt and stress and Black Friday brawls and add a dash of baby Jesus and pretend it is Christmas. If the best you can do is squeeze a little manger scene in between the inflatable Santa and the pile of gifts arranged as a monument to materialism, please don’t call it Christmas. This is no more than taking the name of Christ and using it in vain.

Jesus commands this of our lives, holidays included: either it is all about Him or it not at all about Him. It is not possible to keep your self-made, self-centered life and add enough Jesus to make you feel good. It is not possible to keep your celebration of consumption and materialism and add enough Jesus to make you feel good.

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Matthew 16:24-25

If you are not willing to lay it all down and start over with Jesus Christ at the center and lifted high, please don’t attach His name. His name is too precious to cheapen this way. Call it Christmas when your holiday is all about Him. Call yourself Christian when your life is all about Him.