This past week, I scanned the food section of The New York Times online for Christmas recipes. Scrolling from top to bottom, I found “Desserts That Bring the Party, but Not the Fuss,” “A Festive Cake With a Big Reveal,” “A Seafood Pie for the Feast” and even “The Golden Crunch of Churros for Hanukkah.”

But there was not a single solitary recipe for anything bearing the name “Christmas.”

On Wednesday, I perused all of the seasonal shopping ads in the print editions of the New York Post, New York Times, Daily News and Wall Street Journal. In hundreds of newspaper pages, seven days before the year’s biggest catalyst for shopping, there was just one measly instance of the word “Christmas” — in an ad from jeweler David Webb wishing Times’ readers “A Very Merry” one. Meanwhile words like “Holiday” and “Season’s Greetings” were as abundant as Santa’s elves.

And though the shopping websites for Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s are full of “Christmas” mentions, the name’s hard to find on their selling floors.

Imagine if before Memorial Day, Labor Day, Independence Day, Presidents Day or Martin Luther King Day, retailers didn’t name the actual holiday — but a “Three-Day Weekend Blowout Sale”? Yes, all these calendar events are legal, federal holidays. But so is Christmas Day, Dec. 25.

It’s even stranger given the great bulk of “holiday shopping” means shopping for Christmas — not for Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus or New Year’s Eve. What is going on? Is everyone too afraid that an offended consumer will make a scene? Maybe! Comic Whitney Cummings recently said that a TV show intern complained to Human Resources last year because Cummings said, “Bye, guys. Merry Christmas” on her way out of the studio.

Now, I’m not going to argue this is a “war on Christmas.” Despite warnings from the far-right that the far-left means to stamp out every trace of the holiday’s religious origins, no sane person thinks that Christmas Eve Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral could one day be axed from the airwaves. Or that Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” will be banned from schools and cinemas. And “Christmas madness,” the period when retailers blast out Burl Ives’ “Holly Jolly” tune and alternating sales pitches, goes on longer and louder every year. If there was a petition to wage war on that, I’d gladly sign up.

And yet, and yet. Even as a born-and-raised but non-observant Catholic, I still detect a subtle Yuletide chill that’s unrelated to the weather. Instead of a war on “Christmas,” we have developed a studious avoidance of the word, as though its mere mention will easily distress Americans of any denomination.

At Christmas parties in New York, avoiding the C-word has become a conscious thing. The “polite” aversion to using it pops up even at extended-family gatherings. Guests scan faces before deciding to say “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays” — even in rooms where gold angels hang from the tree. Might I trigger a single Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Scientologist or an all-around non-believer who might be in the crowd?

In the 1960s, there was sound reason to banish faith-based holiday rituals from public schools where non-Christian kids might feel uncomfortable. I remember “O Holy Night,” “Joy to the World” and a token Hanukkah tune being replaced by secular holiday music at festive concerts when I was in seventh grade. But, today’s aversion to the word “Christmas” goes deeper. Far from a “microagression,” it’s a big fat macro-insult to the 65 percent of Americans — and 60 percent of New Yorkers — who identify as Christian, according to Pew Research Center.

What, exactly, are we so afraid of? Nobody’s hurt that Rockefeller Center still bravely calls its mighty crowd-pleaser a Christmas tree. The Yuletide isn’t an imposition on those who don’t share the faith, but a celebration of shared joy for all.

So to everyone, I say Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!