No offense, but 'Merry Christmas'

I hope you won't be offended by this.

It could make you glad.

It could make you mad.

Who knows, but here goes:

Merry Christmas.

There, I said it.

If you are offended by this, well, you are trying too hard to be offended. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I thought about saying "happy holiday," but not really.

I considered saying "happy new year," but I'll save that for next week.

It's Dec. 23, and, yep, I've definitely made up my mind.

I'm sticking with Merry Christmas.

So deal with it.

My "Merry Christmas" comes with a little attitude.

"Merry Christmas" just seems like the thing to say since the reason we — and by "we" I mean about 2 billion people — even celebrate this time of year is because of the birth of Jesus Christ.

It's not because the new year will soon be here.

It's not because, from Dec. 24 through Jan. 1, we have one extended holiday.

Or that we watch football games almost nonstop for two weeks.

Those are all footnotes to the main event, the original, the big show, the reason 2 billion revere this time of year.

So: Merry Christmas.

I expect this will elicit a few nasty letters, but there it is. No apologies will be forthcoming.

If you happen to be atheist or Jewish or Muslim, I mean no offense.

You can wish me happy Hanukkah, and I don't care.

You can wish me happy Ramadan, and I won't get upset.

You can wish me happy Kwanzaa, too. Doesn't matter.

You can say, "happy Festivus" to the rest of us, and I get it. I speak Seinfeldian, too.

If you don't wish to wish me anything at all (or whatever it is atheists say to each other), I can handle it.