As we moved into December and what for some time has been called “the holiday season,” the Office of Diversity and Inclusion at the University of Tennessee issued a “best practices” directive for the campus to “ensure your holiday party is not a Christmas party in disguise.”

A Christmas party in disguise? Has it come to this?

Aghast state legislators got the directive rescinded, but the Christmas killers will get the last laugh. In fact, they’ve already won. This is the year Christmas died as a public event in the United States.

We know this after touring the historic heart of public Christmas — Fifth Avenue in New York City.

For generations, American families have come to New York in December to swaddle themselves in the glow and spirit of Christmas — shops, restaurants, brownstones, the evergreen trees along Park Avenue, bar mirrors and, most of all, Fifth Avenue’s department-store windows. You couldn’t escape it, and why would you want to?

Read the article “The Year Christmas Died” on google.com.