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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.
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.
