Friends, it is the most wonderful time of year again, and this year is truly wonderful, because the War on Christmas is finally over. But as we sit here, roasting chestnuts of victory on the open fire engulfing the homes of our enemies, let us raise our eggnog to honor those friends we lost in these hard-fought battles to restore the right kind of holiday cheer.

The War on Christmas, as you know, was long and filled with hardship. It began with small ambushes, carried out by vigilante committees to attack anyone who refused to say “Happy Holidays” and violent radicals who created Festivus. We responded to these attacks with the dignity required of one of Christendom’s most cherished holidays, by appearing on cable television and shouting at people who already agreed with us about how unfair it all was.

These principled stands held off the onslaught for some time, but we gradually dwindled in numbers as some of our greatest warriors, like Hanson and Macaulay Culkin, were lost. And the reinforcements who replaced them, like Colonel Buddy the Elf, were woefully unprepared for the tactics and sheer force that hit us in waves during the Leningrad-like suffering of eight years of an Obama presidency.

Who can forget the images from news reports of once-proud Nativity scenes reduced to rubble? Who can clear their minds of the stories of hundreds of students taken from pageants and forced to watch A Rugrats Chanukah on loop?

There are some children out there, I hear, who do not know the difference between frankincense and myrrh, because their parents were afraid to tell them in case the other side captured and interrogated the youths. The knowledge was just too dangerous.

Finally, though, we have triumphed. We stand in victory upon the politically correct ruins of multicultural workplace holiday festivities. No longer will bank branches be forced by their customers to place menorahs in their windows. See that line of refugees, trudging away from their ransacked houses into the camps outside of town? They used to celebrate Kwanzaa.

It was thanks to our dedicated legions that we were able to push back the hordes and give us the freedom to enjoy slightly different designs on our Starbucks cups from November to December. Some of our bravest fighters paid the ultimate price. Those who we were able to identify we returned to their families, and we buried those who perished without a name with their comrades, inside yonder mausoleum shaped like a tremendous Christmas tree.

Yet although now is a time for remembrance, I think that they would not want us to be too sad. They have merely moved on to the great manger in the sky.

Instead, let us raise our flagons of eggnog to these warriors. One day we shall see them again, in a holly jolly Valhalla.