It’s really not difficult; the confusion is actually agreeing upon the starting points. I just don’t want to out of hand dismiss Christian objections specifically while being deferential to everyone else. Because as many Westerners we (more or less) are descendants of this Christian culture we can criticize it even if we no longer participate in it. I think we’re at the point though that for many of us “Christianity” is as foreign as Buddhism or Islam as far as having an influence in our lives. And i’m not about to go around telling Jewish people “Happy Holiday” on Rosh Hashanah or Muslims on Ramadan - and be honest, you’re not either. I’m more inclined at least to give consideration to their objections about the silly Merry Christmas thing.
And btw, It’s easier to say Happy Holidays in the past when you know everyone is Christian and believe the same thing as you do anyway.
Well, obviously if you know the people you’re talking to are going to celebrate a particular holiday (Rosh Hashanah, Eid al-Fitr, Diwali, Easter, Pesach, Christmas, whatever), it’s only polite to wish them a Happy $That_thing.
As an aside, I wonder how many of the people who really believe that the “War on Christmas” is a thing are totally cool with hearing people around them use “Feliz Navidad,” or “Felices Pascuas” which after all is the same thing but in another language.
While the concept of a war against Christianity (and Christmas) is insane I think it is safe, IMHO, to say that the Christian world today has changed from what it was 50 years ago. Many of us think that us for the better. Christians blame us for that change. They blame the changes in the christian society for the negatives in our society today, i,e, the gays, the sexual revolution and the violence.
If someone gets offended because someone wishes them Merry Christmas or Happy Hanukkah, etc. and they don’t celebrate that holiday they should really get the hell over themselves. People simply get offended too damn easily. As said by others, I like “Happy Holidays” because it covers the bases (including New Years) and it works as a response to one of the aforementioned greetings if you aren’t a participant.
Which is why it became a thing. Because corporations don’t want to offend even the dumbest fucks and it was a safe, generic message you could use on everything.
But somehow corporations pandering to everyone became a “War on Christmas” or something. Let’s blame the liberal… megacorp owners…
But there’s a difference (at least to me, though intent is invisible) between using it to sanitize and make everything non-religious and simply trying to be inclusive.
To further that point, I think it is awesome for schools to be inclusive and educate students about practices of other religions and their holidays. Through “dreidel, dreidel, dreidel” in with “first Noel”. Rock on. Conversely, taking separation of church and state the point where Christmas pageants become “winter festivals” or similar nonsense is just stupid.
We should celebrate our differences, not hide them.
Isn’t the whole “Happy Holidays” thing just an example of manufactured outrage, though? I mean, I have never in my entire life met a person who gave a fuck whether someone said Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays (and I attended church regularly from 1980 to maybe around 2010 so if anyone was going to get offended, I probably would have run into them).I mean, you see it on Fox, and I’m sure they can dig up a few people here or there who take umbrage, but really, I find it really hard to believe that anyone besides those 3 people, the TV personalities of Fox, and 3 or 4 bloggers give a flying fig.
This is incorrect as a matter of history: “Happy Holidays” was made into a catchphrase back in the day specifically so Jews and Christians could greet each other in a non-sectarian way. It was a way for the Irving Berlins to respond to the Bing Crosbys’ exclamations of “Merry Christmas” in the spirit of the season, without having to say, “Actually, my people don’t believe in that. But I get what you’re saying and reciprocate the general intention.”
Two small pieces of anecdata:
Back in the 90s a guy visiting for a job interview thought the best way to greet his interviewers upon being picked up at the hotel was to tell us how the clerk there had said “Happy Holidays” to him instead of “Happy Christmas.” (He was a Brit who had lived in the States a couple of years.) He had then asked them why, and claimed to be shocked to learn they had been trained to say it because - and I suspect this was him putting his words in their mouth - Merry Christmas wasn’t politically correct.
This earned him a polite explanation from the senior member of the group about how it was actually just sensible customer service when there’s a good chance a given percentage of your customers were Jewish, etc. At the time we ascribed this outburst to him just being clueless about American culture (though later I learned through other channels that he was a fan of Rush Limbaugh, just at the time coming into prominence. So he was probably just an asshole.)
About a decade ago, when the War on Christmas was at its height, some random store clerk responded to my “Happy Holidays” with “I guess we’re not allowed to say Merry Christmas anymore.” This earned him the fish eye from me, but as our transaction was already done, it never went beyond that.
So, some people really do return nonspecific good wishes with grumbling.
I’ve worked places where you could get in trouble for saying “Merry Christmas” to a customer. But that’s more an issue of pandering to the morons. More people were probably “offended” (lets be real, neither group was actually offended by anything) by Happy Holidays, but that didn’t change the company line.
I remember a guy who had a customer who kept saying Merry Christmas to him at the end of a call. Like aggressively, angry about the fact that he said Happy Holidays. He just kept saying Happy Holidays because his favorite thing in the world was pissing off stupid people. I think it went on for like 3 minutes.
I just shrugged and said Merry Christmas when I got those people cause I didn’t give a shit and at the end of the day neither did corporate in those scenarios. Happy Holidays was the default, if someone said something else you could go with it because not pissing people off and kissing their ass was what really mattered.
See how hard this shit is @RichVR & @Scuzz ? I mean I TRY at this human interaction thing, but there are always more rules! When does my “its okay he is just a grumpy old man” free pass kick in?
I hear that all the time in my job. Instead of goodbye at the end of a call, I often get have “have a blessed day.” Sort of irks me though I know it shouldn’t. I feel like someone is trying to imprint their religious faith on me. I feel like saying, “It’s Friday and I just got paid. Is it ok if for just one night I have Satan bless me and go out and have a helluva time? You cool with that as my blessing?”
As someone raised in the church I still will slip into the meaningless Merry Christmas greeting around the holidays. I will also reply with that when someone says it to me. I think so much of religion is just trained behavior.
