happy christmas!
look folks: "happy holidays" is NOT a secular greeting. it is not a sign of the secularization of christmas. there are NO secular holidays in december. nope not even new year.
a few years ago i said happy new year to a customer. it was december 27 or 30 or something. their immediate response was 'oh that's a nice safe thing we can say. wtf? a. christmas was over. I wasn't avoiding the issue. b. it's only christian new year we're celebrating. so while it was nice of me it wasn't exactly safe.
anyway i was trying to find information on the linguistic divergence of happy and merry christmas and a lot of the links ended up being about merry chrstmas vs. happy holidays. why is this controversial? these phrases -mean different things-. just like merry christmas and happy easter mean different things. happy holidays isn't erasing your religious holiday. it's acknowledging that there are other holidays and you want people to enjoy whichever they celebrate. or all of them. merry christmas says you want someone to enjoy christmas specifically.
you know what is a secularization of christmas? encouraging non christians to celebrate it. but you (people who really believe there is a 'war on christmas') don't rail about that because it's not secularization that really bothers you. it's difference. you don't want to be inclusive of other peoples traditions. you just want them to shut up and be christian already.
the proof is in the way people were upset the gap mentioned many holidays in their ads. even though they specifically mention christmas. the proof is in the media coverage of the supposed war on christmas vs. the media coverage of the commercialization of christmas which doesn't seem to be bugging the masses that much.
and you don't have to give your jewish coworker a "holiday" present. christmas is about giving not receiving and you're the christian one. and giving them a present on dec 23, two weeks after hanukkah passed? you aren't fooling anyone with your ruse of cultural sensitivity there.
me, i'm catholic only culturally (i have no religious beliefs) and i celebrate christmas in a completely secular way. take that christmas! pow! but then again even the non jesus related bits are from old pagan religious practices, so is it really secular? I guess since i don't share those beliefs either i'm secularizing the pagan holidays too.
a few years ago i said happy new year to a customer. it was december 27 or 30 or something. their immediate response was 'oh that's a nice safe thing we can say. wtf? a. christmas was over. I wasn't avoiding the issue. b. it's only christian new year we're celebrating. so while it was nice of me it wasn't exactly safe.
anyway i was trying to find information on the linguistic divergence of happy and merry christmas and a lot of the links ended up being about merry chrstmas vs. happy holidays. why is this controversial? these phrases -mean different things-. just like merry christmas and happy easter mean different things. happy holidays isn't erasing your religious holiday. it's acknowledging that there are other holidays and you want people to enjoy whichever they celebrate. or all of them. merry christmas says you want someone to enjoy christmas specifically.
you know what is a secularization of christmas? encouraging non christians to celebrate it. but you (people who really believe there is a 'war on christmas') don't rail about that because it's not secularization that really bothers you. it's difference. you don't want to be inclusive of other peoples traditions. you just want them to shut up and be christian already.
the proof is in the way people were upset the gap mentioned many holidays in their ads. even though they specifically mention christmas. the proof is in the media coverage of the supposed war on christmas vs. the media coverage of the commercialization of christmas which doesn't seem to be bugging the masses that much.
and you don't have to give your jewish coworker a "holiday" present. christmas is about giving not receiving and you're the christian one. and giving them a present on dec 23, two weeks after hanukkah passed? you aren't fooling anyone with your ruse of cultural sensitivity there.
me, i'm catholic only culturally (i have no religious beliefs) and i celebrate christmas in a completely secular way. take that christmas! pow! but then again even the non jesus related bits are from old pagan religious practices, so is it really secular? I guess since i don't share those beliefs either i'm secularizing the pagan holidays too.