'tis the season to find something to complain about

[hwango]

I don't get the whole "Happy Holidays" vs "Merry Christmas" thing. I keep hearing about Christians and/or other Christmas celebrants complaining about people saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas," and they seem to feel that this practice diminishes their holiday or something.

I have always assumed that "Happy Holidays" was a phrase intended to encompass both Christmas and New Year's Eve, used particularly before Christmas with people that you might not see between the two holidays. As people began to notice that there were actually non-Christmas celebrating people around, I figured that these people had their Winter Holiday of Choice enveloped into the phrase in place of Christmas, so it was safe to use with them as well. Apparently, I was mistaken.

I think it's silly for people to get upset at a person or corporation that says "Happy Holidays" just because it is trying not to assume the holiday orientation of people. However, I also think it's silly for non-Christmas celebrants to flip out if someone wishes them a Merry Christmas. It's not as if people said "Worship Jesus!" or "Surrender to Rampant Commercialism!" or something. I can sort of understand being annoyed that people are assuming that you celebrate a holiday along with them, but can't those people just invoke the holiday of their choice (assuming they have one at all) in response?

And that brings up another issue that I was dwelling on recently - the pervasive idea that everyone has a Christmas-sized hole in their life that must be filled with something. When I was in elementary school, I remember there was the one Jewish child in my class who gave a small presentation about Hanukkah. In retrospect, my perception as a child was that it was a holiday that Jewish people celebrated "instead" of Christmas. This left me with the vague idea that everyone celebrated some sort of Winter holiday that probably involved gift-giving, but that some people chose one other than Christmas based on their religion. Christmas never had a particuarly religious overtone for me as a child or as an adult, so I think I generally assumed that atheists would default to Christmas for some reason. I think this idea is quite widespread today. It seems that if someone says "my religion doesn't include celebrating Christmas," people are likely to ask them "what do you celebrate instead?" It's weird.

Comments

[tankhangen.livejournal.com]

I too find this very odd, its all over the news, and people are so mad over people/corporations using "Happy Holidays" vs. "Merry/Happy Christmas". All I can say is if this is what the religious people are up in arms about their lives must be wonderful, cause I have a list of about a billion things that I think might be more important to complain about before I get down to the bottom of the list, when all other issues have been resolved, and we live in a utopian society, then we can start to nit pick over semantics. Maybe all those complaining should send "Christmas Gifts" to the families of dead soldiers who won't be coming home for any "holidays".

[octophobic.livejournal.com]

Celebrate Happy Cthulhu day instead! It's the one day of the year that if Cthulhu rises he will sate himself on Poy, girly drinks, and Hawaiian roasted pig instead of your eternal soul. Maybe even some Hawaiian pizza too. All bets are off the next day though. No doubt he will feel peckish but instead of left overs he will probably eat his faithful.

I still would love to get a Godzilla or Cthulhu tree topper instead of those lame animated angels.

[magnetophyte.livejournal.com]

We can thank the troublemakers over at Fox News for bringing up this "issue". Anything to keep their stupid viewers distracted from reality.

[tankhangen.livejournal.com]

"FOX News" now there is a contradiction in terms, we can throw that one up there with Jumbo shrimp, Government intelligence, and country music.