BTW "Santa's Reindeer get the Hump" appears to have been written in response to this Comment published in the London Times the day before (December 21, 2004)**:

We are committing cultural suicide
Anthony Browne
Christianity is being insidiously erased from the map. It’s time we fought back

Extract:

COMPARE AND contrast 1:
(a) Sikhs storm a theatre in Britain showing a play depicting rape inside a Sikh temple;
(b) The Red Cross bans Nativity scenes in its shops;
Compare and contrast 2:
(a) Christmas trees and decorations are banned in Saudi Arabia;
(b) Christmas trees and decorations are banned in Britain’s Jobcentres.

The extremes that other religions go to preserve their cultural heritage is only matched in Christianity by its extreme death-wish.

Christmas has always stirred passion, attracting opponents and supporters. But until recently banning it has been so culturally offensive that fictional Christophobes entered the English language for their infamy. Ebenezer Scrooge declared “every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly in his heart”. Dr Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas declared that the Grinch’s motivation was “that his heart was two sizes too small”.

But real-life Scrooges and Grinches have banned Christmas before, not because their hearts were too small, but because their bigotry was too great. And now it is happening again."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1072-1410786,00.html

** BTW someone just asked me, in a PM, where I stand with respect to the "separation of church and state". I replied saying I stand resolutely in favor of the separation of church and state, consistent with the U.S. Constitution [and in my country with "the Charter of Rights and Freedoms"]:

But I don't think the celebration of the Christmas season in public buildings such as libraries amounts to the practice of religion in North America. It is a cultural tradition enjoyed as much by atheists and agnostics as it is by Christians.

Perhaps those of non-Christian faiths who oppose such festive traditions in public buildings in North America do not understand this. If they could think of Christmas as a sort of Hallowe'en with a positive message, they could join in the fun -- as they do in the United Arab Emirates which is a state governed by the Islamic law of Sharia, as the writer from Dubai explains.

Personally, I am all in favor of public libraries giving equal space to all major religions to celebrate their important religious festivals so long as it doesn't amount to the practice of religion in a public library. [No preachers or mullahs, thank you, and no sermons or calls to prayer.]

I can only speak for myself, of course, but I think anyone who visits a public library would be enriched by the opportunity to learn about other major religious traditions, just as we are enriched to learn about Native American spiritual traditions.

When we start shuttering Christmas, we start shuttering tolerance.

Tolerance should be a two-way street, it seems to me. We should give it, and expect it, in equal measure.