Where’s your Christmas spirit, Mr. POTUS?

Uh, Mr. President . . . you need to rediscover the Christmas spirit you say you possess.

I certainly remember during your winning presidential campaign how you pledged to bring “Merry Christmas” back into style. No more “Happy Holidays” for you. I believe you said that business employees would be required to wish their customers a Merry Christmas if you are elected president  — as if you have the authority to make ’em do such a thing.

Well, here we are. Christmas is practically upon us and your Christmas spirit has morphed into a prideful pledge to shut part of the federal government down by Friday if Congress doesn’t give you the money you want to build that “big, beautiful wall” along our southern border. Your right-wing hatchet man, Stephen Miller, has all but guaranteed you’re intent on following through with it.

I cannot believe you want to shut down the government on the eve of this holy holiday to make some kind of goofy political point. You keep telling us the wall will make us safer, more secure. You don’t seem to care that a wall flies in the face of our American values, that we longer would be a nation that opens its arms to those who seek to “breathe free.”

Don’t take this the wrong way, Mr. President. I do not favor unsecured borders. I do not favor “open borders,” which is your demagogic way of describing how your opponents feel about border security. Good grief, Mr. President, we have plenty of ways to make our border more secure without building that damn wall along the 2,000-mile boundary we share with Mexico.

This nutty notion, though, of shutting down the government at this time of year suggests to me that you didn’t really mean it in 2016 when  you declared your intention to restore “Merry Christmas” as the preferred holiday greeting. That ridiculous notion sought to convey a Christmas-centric idea that you and others declared falsely had been pushed aside in the name of some phony political correctness.

Which is it, Mr. President? Do you really intend to take exclusive ownership at Christmas time, throwing thousands of federal employees out of work when they are wrapping up their holiday shopping? Do you really mean to douse their Christmas spirit with the Grinch-like initiative of shutting down the government that puts beans on their table?

Mr. President, forgive me for saying this, but you, sir, are a phony advocate for Christmas. If you get your way, you’ll still be able to celebrate the holiday with your customary glitz and glitter down yonder in Mar-a-Lago. What about those who are out of work because of your tantrum over building that ridiculous wall?

Happy holidays, Mr. President.