Which side are you on? As if the culture wars needed an additional battlefield, each of us is now required, at this time of year, to line up with those who say “Merry Christmas” or with those who say “Happy holidays.” The former group is far and away the larger, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll on this unlikely topic. It found 69 percent of adults prefer “Merry Christmas,” while 23 percent prefer “Happy holidays.” (The rest presumably hope we all have a “lousy December.”) The inevitable political gap: 85 percent of Republicans prefer “Merry Christmas,” as do 61 percent of Democrats. You’ll recall that some major retailers found themselves boycotted last year for dropping “Christmas” from their public vocabulary. Wal-Mart was careful to get on the popular side of the issue this year, with a spokeswoman saying the store isn’t afraid of the Christmas greeting: “We’ll use it early, and we’ll use it often.” That’ll show ’em.

—Posted by Mark Dolliver