If I wish you a "Merry X-Mas" do I go to hell?

This morning in the office was pretty normal. A little busier than usual perhaps, but all in all pretty routine. I noticed the receptionists were busy answering phones and when I saw all of our lines light up at once, I thought I'd be helpful and answer one for them. I pushed Line 4 and said "Good morning FCOC can I help you?"

An older sounding lady, I'd guess about 60 years old, asked me if we were having a Christmas day service. "No", I said, "we were having a Christmas Eve service at 5:00 with communion and candle light, but nothing on Sunday." About half way through my explanation, I suddenly remembered all the hot controversy surrounding the no Christmas service cancellations. My friend Betsy has blogged about it, so it has to be big news.

This older, now grumpy sounding lady began to berate me for our apparent lack of reverence for God's most special day so that we can stay home and celebrate Santa Clause. I asked what her name was to see how serious she was about this. She refused to tell me. Surprise! I normally would have said something to the effect of "If you aren't willing to identify yourself, then I'm not going to validate your comments and this conversation is over." BUT - I then thought I'm a short timer here (only 16 days left) and I'm feeling a little feisty this morning - so what the heck. Let's get nasty.

"So you're saying that we shouldn't respect our families and we should all work Christmas morning instead of spending time with our families?"

"No, I'm saying this is God's most special day. Are you canceling Easter services so you can celebrate the Easter Bunny too?" she replied.

"Actually we aren't celebrating Santa Clause. In fact there are a number of people in our congregation who don't recognize Santa at all because they think it detracts from the birth of our savior." I didn't add that I think they are a little over the edge about it too, but that didn't support my point so I left it out.

"Are you giving gifts for Christmas?" She snapped.

"Sure, we exchange gifts in the office, and among various groups in the church."

"Does it say to do that in the Bible?" she said with a increasing snotty voice.

I was so glad I spent the night before sitting on the couch watching the Holiday Seasons music channel on digital cable because it gives cute little facts about the holidays, so I was prepared to end this one when I said in a very academic voice, "No the Bible doesn't say to do that. Exchanging gifts is a tradition starting with the Romans around 300A.D. But there are lots of things we all do that the Bible doesn't tell us directly to do."

Unimpressed, she continued complaining. Come to find out, her church had cancelled its early service which she normally attended and combined it with the late service. She was greatly offended by this blatant lack of reverence. I quickly asked her if Christmas truly was the Lord's most important day and she had her granny panties all in a wad over this, why wasn't she willing to accommodate her schedule by only a few hours so she could celebrate Jesus' birth.

That pretty much ended her argument and she hung up on me. HA!

I'm looking for her editorial in the newspaper which no doubt will rip the idiot that answered the phones. I'm not looking for it so that I can see what she says next, but so I can put an identity with this person and take my shot in the editorial column countering her uninformed, uneducated, puppet of the media personality.