This editorial will appear in the Christmas Day print edition.

Washingtonians are likely to remember this year’s Christmas for the often farcical furor over an obnoxious anti-religious placard in the state Capitol.

Petty arguments and animosity over the holiday’s trappings seem to have become yet another custom of this richest of all American celebrations.

But don’t fret over the health of Christmas. It’s stared down far tougher enemies than a handful of Grinches in arrested adolescence. Like the Puritans – as relentless a band of cultural warriors as the English-speaking world has ever seen.

Many see Christmas as a generic Christian holiday. The Puritans saw it otherwise – as the unholy spawn of paganism and Catholicism, neither of which they were fond of. When they overthrew the British monarchy in the 1640s, they outlawed all Christmas services, sermons, revels, plays and festivities. Even mince pies.

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Followers of this blog will have noticed two new contributors, Richard S. Davis and Karen Irwin.

They differ from the usual suspects – me, Cheryl Tucker and Kim Bradford – in that they are not members of The News Tribune's editorial board. For that matter, they aren't members of The News Tribune's staff.

We're expanding Inside the Editorial Page a little. Dick and Karen have been writing commentary on our printed pages for years, and we've admired their work. We think their posts will enrich this blog.

Dick approaches tax and budget questions from a conservative bent. Check out his profile to the right. He's an exceptionally astute analyst of state issues, especially the Legislature's fiscal practices.

Karen tends toward the liberal end of the spectrum. She's an elegant writer who's already served as one of our guest columnists. We've invariably enjoyed her thoughtful, sometimes comic observations.

We'll be adding more thinkers to this forum as time goes on. We think we've made a good start with Karen and Dick.

For Thursday: Petty arguments and animosity over the holiday's trappings seem to have become yet another custom of this richest of all American celebrations. But don't fret for the health of Christmas. It's stared down far tougher enemies than a handful of Grinches in arrested adolescence.

For Friday: Even when the impossibility of an election makes an appointment necessary, the public shouldn't be excluded. That, unfortunately, is what the Pierce County Council is doing as it replaces county Auditor Pat McCarthy.

Those criticizing Barack Obama’s invitation to Pastor Rick Warren to pray at the inauguration should be more concerned about the actions President Obama takes in the days and months AFTER the inauguration than what one pastor says during the event.

If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to patrick.ocallahan@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.

Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

This is from Dave Seago, our editor emeritus:

The News Tribune's readers probably boggled at the staggeringly long, self-written obituary for Harold R. Snodgrass in Sunday's edition. Filling three-quarters of a page with microscopic type, the piece was titled "My Last Byline."

I'd say that Harold, who served as the Tacoma School District's "publications director" from 1959 to 1981, greatly overestimated public interest in a detailed account of his 82 years on the planet. But his loving widow, Carol Ann, honored his wishes by publishing, at no small expense, Harold's final article.

Despite his obituarial excess, Snodgrass deserves a kind word here. He was exceedingly kind to me when TNT editors assigned me, a green-as-grass reporter just a couple years out of college, to the school beat. One reason he may have been so helpful was that we were
both Lincoln High School graduates and former editors of the school newspaper, only decades apart.

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