Focus on the Family, in an effort to be hip and trendy, has a new video short out featuring Stuart Shepard, one of its faux reporters. The cheeky Shepard explains how this year he's celebrating "Tossmass" by discarding all of the catalogs that fail to use religiously correct terminology.

Not to be outdone, the folks at World Net Daily are hawking "Christmas Defense Kits" featuring a bumper sticker that reads, "This is America! And I'm going to say it: `Merry Christmas!'"

How charming. There's nothing like being an obnoxious prig for the holidays.

Lately I've been researching this whole "War on Christmas" thing for a story I'm writing for December's Church & State, and I've noticed a few things. For starters, promoting the "War on Christmas" has become a cottage industry for the Religious Right. These groups make tons of money selling pro-Christmas stuff: buttons, stickers, memos that purport to explain your rights, etc. Keeping the "war" alive is crucial to the Religious Right's bottom line.

Secondly, over the past year, the Religious Right has shifted the discussion from things like battles over Nativity scenes on public property to the language, decorations and even in-store greetings offered by retailers.

Why are the legal eagles of the Religious Right focusing on what stores do instead of government? Simple. The number of battles over holiday symbols is decreasing. The courts have ruled on this matter ad nauseum, and guidelines are in place. Retailers are the new big, fat target for the Religious Right's whiny campaign. The Religious Right needs a new enemy to attack to ensure those dollars flow in and to keep its followers in a constant state of agitation and mock outrage over the latest assaults by the anti-religious fanatics who support church-state separation.

But it's the usual Religious Right con. Most advocates of church-state separation don't spend much time obsessing over what stores are doing or saying in December. When a unit of government takes it upon itself to celebrate the religious aspects of a holiday on everyone's behalf, we have to speak out. But the shops down at the mall aren't part of that. They aren't arms of the government. Some say "Christmas" in their ads and some don't. Who cares? The holiday will come either way. (Remember, the Grinch even stole the last can of Who Hash - yet Christmas still came.)

In fact, one could argue that all of the brouhaha at the mall is a distraction from the central message of Christmas. Does the fact that a giant corporation uses the word "Christmas" in its ads truly mean it is interested in marking the birth of Jesus? Chances are, its real goal is persuading you to bust out the credit cards and spend, spend, spend.

It's sad, really. The Religious Right's holier-than-thou brigade claims to treasure Christmas - and then drafts it as cannon fodder in its culture war, spending three months hawking offensive, in-your-face buttons and stickers that make a mockery of a season that is supposed to be dedicated to peace and love. Is that really what Jesus would do?

For those in the Religious Right who genuinely are offended because the newspaper ad from Best Buy fails to include the word "Christmas" and the temporary clerk at the Sears dares to say "Happy Holidays," I have some advice: This Christmas, ask Santa Claus to bring you a life.