When I was a kid, one of my favorite outdoor games was tag. One version of tag included a home base where you couldn’t be tagged if you were touching “home.”

Today, law enforcement often plays tag with illegals and their supporters living in sanctuary cities — but it’s no game. Proponents of sanctuary cities view those cities as a home base for illegal aliens.

What if faith-based towns and cities chose to designate nativity scenes and other Christmas traditions in their cities and towns as sanctuary areas?

Here’s how it’s played: In the name of political correctness and inclusivity, a sanctuary city prohibits its police force or municipal employees from inquiring about a person’s immigration status or cooperating with federal immigration enforcement authorities like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or the U.S. Border Patrol.

Presently there are over 300 sanctuary cities, counties, and states in the U.S. that help protect criminal aliens from deportation in the U.S. Many illegals shielded in those progressive sanctuary cities are hardened criminals charged with murder, rape, assault, and other violent crimes.

Sanctuary cities collect millions in federal funding while blatantly thumbing their nose at federal law. Only those who shamelessly pander for votes and who believe there’s no difference between legal and illegal immigration ignore the truth that sanctuary cities present a real danger to thousands of Americans.

Isn’t it ironic that thousands of pajama-clad college kids demand campus safe spaces — while supporters of sanctuary cities are literally gambling with the safety of their fellow citizens?

Related: When People Poke Fun at Christmas, Push Back

The idea of sanctuary cities and ignoring federal law has worked so well for the political Left, one wonders what would happen if hundreds of faith-based communities used that idea as a model to protect traditional Christmas observances and symbols.

What if faith-based towns and cities chose to designate nativity scenes and other Christmas traditions in their cities and towns as sanctuary areas? They could be called “Christmas Sanctuaries,” or “Constitution Sanctuaries.”

Every Christmas season is replete with examples of nose-out-of-joint Scrooges who won’t rest until they have taken the lump of coal from their own hearts and left it in the Christmas stocking of their neighbors. It isn’t enough these grinches shun the Christmas season in their own lives — they insist on trying to ruin it for others as well.

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A recent example: On Dec. 12, the small Indiana town of Knightstown was forced to remove a cross from the top of a large evergreen tree in the town square because the threat of an ACLU lawsuit.  One distressed resident claimed “irreparable harm” because he was “forced to come into direct and unwelcome contact” with the cross on top of the tree as he drove through town.

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Last Christmas, an Indiana high school in Elkhart was banned by a judge from using live performers in a nativity scene — something the community had been doing for decades. The school ended up compromising by using mannequins in place of student actors, but residents of the northern Indiana community weren’t fooled — they knew who the real dummies were.

Every Yuletide it’s déjà vu voodoo: Christian-phobic zealots like the ACLU and the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) harass faith-based communities with limited funding to fight back.

The holiday carping against Christmas traditions by such groups is always the same: They object to nativity scenes on public squares; they rename Christmas trees placed in government buildings holiday trees; and they protest against any Christmas song and imagery with a religious context.

These anti-Christmas proponents have an irrational fear that acknowledging Christ in Christmas will make us a theocracy similar to Iran — except merrier. In other words, observing the holiday set aside to celebrate the birth of God’s son is OK with these paragons of civil virtue, as long as you keep the baby Jesus and God out of it.

With the new sanctuary cities, Americans who love this holiday would be free to host traditional Christmas celebrations on public and school property free of litigation. Christmas carols could be sung again loud and off-key at school pageants. Merry Christmas salutations could be openly exchanged without requiring offenders to don the scarlet letter “C.”

Related: How a Christmas Pageant Revitalized My Faith

These joyful sanctuary communities would provide real safe spaces for those who love Christmas, religious liberty and American freedom.

The Declaration of Independence says our rights come from our Creator. If our elected officials are unable or unwilling to protect our religious liberty, then what could be more American than a grassroots effort by hundreds of communities tired of political correctness and anti-Christmas bigotry rising up to reclaim their public squares?

If sanctuary cities are OK for protecting those here illegally, why not allow similar sanctuary areas for legal, taxpaying citizens wanting to protect time-honored Christmas traditions in their own neighborhoods?

Dean George is a marketing specialist and online content creator for an Indiana telecommunications company. He resides in Nashville, Indiana.