Merry Hyatt is a teacher in California. She taught fourth-grade for a year and a half in a public school and also taught at a Christian school for a year. Mostly she has been a substitute teacher.

And she thinks children need more Jesus in school.

It's sad and it's wrong to have a Christmas party and not mention Jesus," said Hyatt, who recently moved 600 miles north to Redding. "It's his birthday."

Actually, the early Christians didn't celebrate Christmas at all as they considered birthday celebrations to be pagan. Furthermore, Jesus wasn't born in December.

Clement of Alexandria wrote of an early Christian nativity celebration around 200 AD. The group he wrote of celebrated the nativity on Pachon 25 which corresponds to May 20.

The December 25th date was chosen to commandeer the winter solstice celebrations celebrated by non-Christians.

The substitute teacher in Redding, Calif., says she is tired of working in schools where students aren't allowed to sing Christmas songs that are religious in nature. So she's sponsoring a ballot initiative that would require all public schools in California to give children the opportunity to sing or listen to Christmas carols.

"For years and years, maybe one person has been able to ruin it for an entire school," Hyatt said. "It's not right. I think it's the majority's turn."

Um...no.

For years and years the majority had its turn. Basically, from the founding of America until the early 1960's when the Supreme Court ruled on Engel v. Vitale (1962) and Abington School District v. Schempp (1963).

In 1971, the court further ruled in Lemon v. Kurtzman that any practice sponsored within state run schools must have a secular purpose.

Hyatt doesn't think it will be a problem for non-Christians though:

Although California is one of the most diverse states in the nation, Hyatt believes the number of children opting out would be relatively small. In all of her years of teaching, she says, "I haven't run into a Jewish child."

I'm not sure what is scarier: that Hyatt really believes the entire California school system is only filled with Christian children...or that she seems to think she can identify a Jewish child by sight.

Hyatt said she got the idea for the initiative "from above" one day while she was sitting on her couch. At first, she rejected the notion. "But then I thought about the blessing I might get and I thought, 'Yeah, that would be worth it,'" she said.

Wait.

So she feels that she might receive a divine reward for pushing this initiative? A blessing? And that is what will make it worth it?

That kinda blows away the initial comment that the motivation was to celebrate Jesus's birthday. It turns out, Hyatt wants to use the California school district to try and win cool points with God.

I guess the "war on Christmas" doesn't just involve defeating health care reform but it also extends to forcing children to sing religious songs in school.

But only if Hyatt gets a blessing out of this whole thing. Otherwise, screw it.