Ben Stein's Christmas Confession

This was confession is from December 18, 2005, but I believe what he says still has merit.

Herewith at this happy time of year, a few confessions from my beating heart:

I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are.  I see them on the cover of People and Us constantly when I’m buying my dog biscuits.  I still don’t know.  I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores who they are.  They don’t know who Nick and Jessica are, either.  Who are they?  Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they’ve broken up?  Why are they so darned important?  I don’t know who Lindsay Lohan is either, and I don’t care at all about Tom Cruise’s baby.
Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I’m a subversive?  Maybe.  But I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are.  Is this what it means to be no longer young?  Hmmm, not so bad.
Next confession:  I am a Jew and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish, and it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautifully lit-up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees.  I don’t feel threatened.  I don’t feel discriminated against.  That’s what they are – Christmas trees.  It doesn’t bother me a bit when people say ‘Merry Christmas’ to me.  I don’t think they’re slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto.  In fact, I kind of like it.  It shows that we’re all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year.
It doesn’t bother me one bit that there’s a manger scene on display at a key intersection at my beach house in Malibu.  if people want a creche, fine.  The menorah a few hundred yards away is fine, too. 
I do not like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don’t think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians.  I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period.  I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country.  I can’t find it in the Constitution and I don’t like it being shoved down my throat. 
Or maybe I can put it another way.  Where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and aren’t allowed to worship God as we understand him? 
I guess that’s a sign that I’m getting old, too.  But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we used to know went to.