Recently the NYT wrote, based on the work of Fairleigh Dickinson academic Dan Cassino [Email him] who's coming out with a book on it, that the "War On Christmas" was started in 2005 by Fox News, John Gibson, and Bill O'Reilly. [How the ‘War on Christmas’ Controversy Was Created,By Liam Stack, December 19, 2016]

I'm not sure if this is better or worse than Max Blumenthal blaming "White Nationalists"—i.e. Peter Brimelow, who first wrote about this in the 90's for the pre-Purge National Review,  for originating it. They're all wrong—we didn't start the war, we're fighting back.

But of course it goes back farther than that—William F. Buckley editorialized about the same phenomenon in NR in 1957. [Krismas, PDF]

Lawyer Jordan Lorence of the Alliance Defending Freedom responds to the NYT in Controversies | Three reasons why the New York Times' War on Christmas denial is all wrong,  FoxNews.com, December 22, 2016. (Links in original).

Lorence, who has been fighting the War On Christmas on the side of the angels since the Reagan Administration, writes

The New York Times recently published an article purporting to trace the history of the “War on Christmas.”  The article concludes that “there is no evidence of an organized attack on Christmas in the United States,” and expressed skepticism about the “alleged liberal antagonism toward the holiday.”

As the author would tell it, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly stirred up the passions of his viewers based on a book written in 2005 by another Fox News host, John Gibson, entitled “The War on Christmas.”

John Gibson interviewed me for that book, and I detailed the legal battles I and others had fought against Christmas censorship from the mid-1980s.  I even wrote a book in 1987 on the topic that detailed ongoing efforts to suppress celebrating or observing the religious aspects of Christmas – the birth of Jesus Christ.

I can confidently say that the “War on Christmas” was not concocted by people at Fox News in 2005. It really happened. I know because I was there.

He's got chapter and verse, dating from 1985,  with three  main points

1. The "War On Christmas" is real, and started well before Fox News even existed

2. The ACLU filed numerous lawsuits to suppress public observances of Christmas

3. People resisted the "War on Christmas" because they knew firsthand it was real

Lorence wrote on the same subject in 2011, and I blogged on it under the heading “I Feel Like Neil Armstrong Listening To Someone Argue That NASA Faked My Apollo Moon Landing!”, adding that both as a Christian, and as a lawyer, he's obliged to react like Neil Armstrong, not like Buzz Aldrin—seen here punching one of those guys who believes the moon landing was faked.

What I really like about the Lorence article, however, is that it uses the phrase "War On Christmas Denial" in the headline, something we specialize in covering here.

You can just see the next SPLC headline—"Fox Pushes War On Christmas Denial Meme, Invented By VDARE.com's James Fulford In 2007."