‘Tis the season — to not refer to the “Christmas season” as the Christmas season.

That’s old news. But what’s unfortunately not news to those of us from the Pittsburgh area is the bewildering refusal by some to call a Christmas tree a “Christmas tree.”

Each year, the City of Pittsburgh kicks off the “holiday season” with its “Light Up Night.” The crowning touch is the traditional lighting of the Christmas tree.

For this native Pittsburgher and Christian, however, the moment has been spoiled: It is no longer called the “Christmas tree.” No, it is called the “Unity Tree” — and has been for quite a while.

There’s a curious thing that always baffles me: The Unity Tree comes out only at Christmastime. Why?

The unspoken reason: The Unity Tree is a Christmas tree. And what could be more offensive to Christians than some anonymous power renaming their tree and expecting them to accept this politically correct delusion in silent acquiescence?

I would never dare insult my Jewish friends by calling a menorah anything but a menorah or demanding a public renaming. I respect them, their faith and its symbols.

I can even see the rationale for calling the “Christmas season” the “holiday season.” Other faiths share it (Hanukkah, of course) and it generally encompasses holidays besides Christmas (Thanksgiving and New Year’s).

But how can you call a Christmas tree anything but a Christmas tree?

It isn’t right to demand that the season’s most common symbol be called something else. It disunites Christians from the one symbol that bonds them across differences and denominations.

And it entails going out of the way to arrogantly rename something you have no right to rename.

Yet this happens in Pittsburgh at every Christmastime. Whether the new-speak architects realize it or not, they have — in the name of unity — affronted Christians during their special time.

It has outraged me for years. Yet I’ve come to think the name change is not so bad. Consider:

The Unity Tree now has a sponsor — health-care company Highmark. It’s now the “Highmark Unity Tree.”

A business sponsor is fitting. Commercialism has hijacked the religious holiday. Far more deliberation is done in stores than in churches. As a Christian, I don’t like it, but facts are facts.

Hence, it seems appropriate that the Unity Tree is elevated nearer Black Friday than Christmas morning, a testimony not to Jesus Christ but to materialism. The sponsor of the Christmas tree is Christ; the sponsor of the Unity Tree is business. Yep, no argument from me.

Further, “unity” is a synonym for “diversity.” Among the American left and the campus community in particular, diversity is not only the buzzword but the central object of homage, the contemporary babe in the manger.

Excluding Christ from Christmas is not an act of diversity. It excludes, not includes.

What else is the Unity Tree, really, but a tree that honors not Christ but secularism, commercialism and the sham that is “diversity”• This unholy trinity is truly what Christmas has become.

Yes, Pittsburgh has a symbol, all right — an image that stands apart from Christ. Maybe the do-gooders never intended that. But, hey, once you remove Christ from his place, it’s a slippery slope.

Merry Christmas.

Paul Kengor is a professor of political science at Grove City College. His latest book is “DUPES: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century.”

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