In 1991 the ACLU sent the Milwaukee police department a letter threatening to sue at Christmas because the police had an informal practice of not serving evictions on Christmas day.
Today's Nativity Scene decorations are not historically accurate, but still should draw us close to Jesus Christ. Mary, Joseph and Jesus were in a cave when Jesus was born, the Magi didn't visit the infant Jesus, and there were no cows in Bethlehem.
In Isaiah 52-53, written over half a millennium before the time of Christ, Israel’s Messiah is not described as a life coach, or social transformer, but as a sacrificial lamb whose role it is to bear our sins and to credit us with his righteousness.
All of our gift giving should seek to form a mindset that helps to (1) rejoice in God as the great and first giver of the greatest gift, (2) seek a mindset of trust, hope, admiration, joy, and affection, and (3) seek the mindset that overflows with joy in giving to others.
The intersection between art and faith in the work of Christina Rossetti is best illustrated in two poems of hers that were eventually set to music and became beloved Christmas carols.
When you die to yourself and you make it about your kids and your spouse, that's when the fruit will come back. It may take a while for the seeds of life to break soil and grow, but the fruit will come.
If you care for your homosexual friends, the loving thing to do would be to tell them to repent and follow Jesus. Don't be flippant about behavior God has promised He will judge.