Serious Christians have always been ambivalent about how society celebrates Christmas. It’s hard to get children to focus on the birth of Christ, and what that means, when the arrival of Santa Claus—and all that that portends in the way of hectic getting and spending—is imminent. The quiet subtleties of "Silent Night" are no match for the clang of "Jingle Bells." Now it appears that even the secularized Christmas that Santa represents is too sectarian for some keepers of the nation’s public spaces and commercial places. Wherever you look, references to Christmas have been suppressed in favor of a featureless...