The War on Chrismahanakwanzaakuh

I realize this post is very late and no longer timely, but I'm still posting it.
Or, It's a Christmas World; You're Just Living in It.
During the commercial breaks of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, I've been know to flip the channel to the O'Reilly Factor. This was where I was first introduced to the War on Christmas.
Initially I was a bit confused by the anger at the use of Happy Holidays and Season's Greetings. These phrases are meant to be inclusionary (and supposedly this is where the anger stems from), but they're not. The "Holiday Season" to me always meant the time from Thanksgiving to New Years. The time when Christmas decorations go up. The time when people shop, when Carols are played on the radio. Advent. The "holidays" weren't Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Solstice, Diwali, or Ramadan. In some European countries, Christmas isn't over until Epiphany; in Sweden St. Lucia Day (Dec. 13) is a big deal. The Eastern Orthodox Christmas is in January.
That isn't to say there haven't attempts at a more inclusionary "Holiday" Season. Marketing attempts. This year I've seen a lot more plastic menorahs in stores and restaurants than I used to. I've always hated them. They're cheap and one or more of the bulbs never works. They look nothing like the real menorahs that my family lights. My elementary school always had a beautiful huge christmas tree in the lobby, and on a small table next to it was one of those unfortunate plastic menorahs. To me, even at the age of eight, it said Christmas is beautiful, joyful and festive; Hannukah is cheap, small and unfortunate.
My Jewish aging hippy parents disapproved of the Holiday Season. Christmas was out of the question. Even Jewish Christmas (a movie and Chinese food) was frowned upon. Hannukah was celebrated in a purposefully austere manner. My parents objected to a minor Jewish holiday being turned into a glorification of commercialism and assimilation. We were reminded that in Israel, Hannukah isn't a big deal, and that when they were growing up, they would be happy to get an orange as a present. A Hanukkah Bush, Hanukkah Harry and a glazed ham were verbotten. Christmas, like happiness, isn't for the Jews.
But we do have our traditions, our holidays; they just aren't in December. We have a drunk holiday (Purim), a symbolic food holiday (Pesach), a starvation holiday (Yom Kippur), even a camping holiday (Sukkot.) I used to try to explain this to my non-Jewish friends, but I stopped after seeing the glazed looks on their faces.
A plastic menorah and a "holiday" season aren't inclusionary. They're cheap, easy ways to dodge the real question of ethnic and religous diversity.