May the Peace of Christmas be with You

I will be sending out my “official” Christmas card this week. Its not a picture of myself and my wife on the steps of the City Chambers with pictures of my venerable predecessor behind us. Its a picture of the City Nativity Scene which we blessed again this year. It sits at the bottom of the Mound, just on Princes Street, Edinburgh's main shopping centre, an appropriate reminder of the Christmas story in the heart of the marketplace. The idea that I, or anyone else would send a Christmas card that doesn’t mention faith for fear of offence is bonkers. Every year the first Christmas card I get is from the Pakistan Society, a Muslim organisation, followed closely by good wishes from many other of the faith communities. If they can recognise my faith communities celebrations and I theirs, as I do, why can't those who don't hold to any faith be equally respectful? I question whether those who claim that others “might be offended” have asked these mysterious others. I think that it is they themselves who choose to take offence. For me that is their choice not my doing. I don’t take offence at their lack of belief in a divinity and I refuse to hide my own faith for such spurious reasons. To them and to everyone else I would say simply, as I have in my card, “may the peace of Christmas be with you” .