Ebenezer Scrooge would enjoy Christmas in America this year. Drowning out the sounds of sleigh bells ringing and children singing are the sounds of arguing. At issue is how to greet people, how to decorate main street and how to sell gifts ? all without offending someone.

Religious conservatives are threatening lawsuits and boycotts to insist that store clerks and advertisements say ?Merry Christmas.? Countering are those who argue they are being inclusive and inoffensive with the secular ?Happy Holidays.?

In the middle seem to be most Americans, who not only aren?t offended but find the whole spat rather ridiculous. ?You?d think there might be some Christmas spirit around Christmas time around the issue of Christmas,? said Paul Cantor, a popular culture expert and professor at the University of Virginia.

Sparks flew when US President George W. Bush sent out cards referring to the ?holiday season,? a leading Republican declared the decorated tree on the Capitol lawn a ?Christmas Tree? and not a ?Holiday Tree? and the logger who cut down the tree for the Boston Common was so upset when officials called it a ?Holiday Tree? that he said he?d rather see it fed into a wood chipper.

Conservative groups have marshaled the forces of lawyers volunteering to help anyone fighting for Christmas displays and launched boycotts of retailers whose advertisements fail to say ?Merry Christmas.? A school in Texas found itself in court after teachers asked children to bring white ? rather than red and green ? napkins to a party, while Annapolis, Maryland raised hackles by calling its evergreen boughs and ribbons on public buildings the ?Hanging of the Greens? rather than ?Christmas decorations.?

Fanning the flames are conservative talk show personalities bemoaning the secularization of Christmas. Fox News anchor John Gibson chimed in with a book ??Happy Holidays? and ?Season?s Greetings? are not a substitute for ?Merry Christmas,?? said Manuel Zamorano, head of the Sacramento, California-based Committee to Save Merry Christmas, which organizes store boycotts over holiday advertising. ?Christmas is the holiday and ?Merry Christmas? is what we want to hear,? he said. ?It?s political correctness gone amok.?

The satirical newspaper The Onion wrote a spoof about a judge who declared Christmas unconstitutional, with a photograph purporting to be workers dismantling the famed tree at Rockefeller Center to comply with the judge?s ruling. Making the rounds on the Internet is a series of mock memos from a fake company inviting employees to a Christmas Party, complete with open bar, gift exchange and tree lighting. By the last of the memos, the increasingly beleaguered company is forced to apologize to its Jewish employees, the office alcoholics, Muslims, dieters, pregnant women, gays and lesbians, union members, management, cross-dressers, diabetics and vegetarians. In the end, the party is canceled.

Ellen WULFHORST