I’m sure you remember when Donald John Trump was campaigning for president and he said he would require business employees to wish their customers a “Merry Christmas.”

As if he had the authority to do such a thing.

If he’s elected president, the Republican nominee said, he would bring Christmas back into play. No more “Happy Holidays” for that guy. Swell. 

It’s as if Christmas ever disappeared. Which it didn’t. It never has. It never will in a society such as ours where we place so much emphasis on Christmas, whether in the secular, gift-buying, retail frenzy sense or in the spiritual, Christian-based celebration.

What is likely to annoy me in the extreme would be to hear the president make this Merry Christmas brouhaha — a figment of POTUS’s imagination — part of the myriad holiday events in which he will take part.

That would ruin the event. Tree lighting ceremonies well could become platforms for the president to make idiotic declarations about how he is bringing “Merry Christmas” back from the dead.

I am a baptized Christian, a believer in the reason we celebrate Christmas in the first place. However, I never — ever! — have taken offense when someone wishes me a “Happy Holidays.” That individual is likely a stranger. He or she doesn’t know a thing about me. He or she might not want to offend me by wishing me a greeting aimed at those who worship a certain way. For that matter, that person might be a flaming atheist who cannot bring herself or himself to mentioning Christmas in any fashion. I would have no idea.

I am OK with that. Honest. It doesn’t matter one bit to me.

Therefore, I find all this Merry Christmas vs. Happy Holidays kerfuffle to be a made-up, phony, bogus, dubious controversy.

We likely will be able to rest assured that the president of the United States is intent on ensuring that it stays at the top of people’s minds.