Updated Holiday

I don’t agree with Anne Taylor Fleming (“Christmas Present,” Opinion, Dec. 26) that we should update our Christmas observances. After building a case that we’ve got a good holiday going, wonderfully varied and inclusive, she suddenly wants to narrow and exclude? If we can make room for dim sum, as she happily describes, can’t we leave a little room for a “Dickensian” turkey too? Or was dim sum contrived yesterday?

She says, referring to pine boughs and flocked trees, “Don’t we feel a trifle corny out here on the reputed cutting edge still paying obeisance to such nostalgic old-world imagery?” But what is Christmas if not nostalgic and old world? The name goes back farther than Dickens. Does she want to place nativity scenes under a freeway overpass from now on?

CINDY COTTER

Whittier

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If we were to follow Fleming’s “multicultural” ethnocentric foolishness, we “longtime West Coasters” shouldn’t even eat the white meat on the Christmas turkey.

JAMES KENNEY

Ojai