Tom Tancredo, the Republican candidate for governor with a history as a plain-talking conservative, has a softer tone for Christmas. But his message is the same.

Tancredo harkens to his childhood Christmases to say there’s nothing wrong with saying Merry Christmas. Conservatives long-fought war on Christmas has not been won just because Donald Trump is in the White House.

Tancredo, who turned 72 the day the video was posted on Facebook last Wednesday, starts by telling us that when he and his wife, Jackie, go to IHOP they turn first to the senior citizens discount.

Then he pivots to his childhood, about getting the Roy Rogers pistol set he’d circled in the Montgomery Ward’s catalog. He played cowboys and Indians with the kids in the neighborhood.

Cue up the shark music from “Jaws.”

“Can you imagine playing cowboys and Indians?” Tancredo’s warm, Christmassy voice continues, while reminding us that those liberals think stereotypes are bad, even for fun and games. “We did. It was great fun.”

He said those days seem “as distant as the Ward’s catalog.”

“I can remember a time when saying ‘Merry Christmas’ was something to which no one took offense,” he reminisces. “I think most people knew there was nothin meant by that salutation but the best intention.”

You can watch the video on Tancredo’s Facebook page by clicking here.