Joy to the World

[mizkit]

I’ve been seeing that “It’s Merry Christmas, not Happy Holidays!” thing going around again, and…

…look. I was young and totally ethnocentric once. When “Happy Holidays” started to intrude on my awareness, I thought it was silly. We celebrated Christmas. Everybody I knew celebrated Christmas. It was ridiculous to use the phrase “Happy Holidays”

Comments

[indiana_j]

...have you cross posted this to FB because I feel such a strong need to share this (/beat some people over the head...)! This was exactly what I've been thinking!

[mizkit]

It was someone's post on FB that caused me to write it. I fear it might be too pointed for me to repost it there, but you can certainly link to it. :)

[martianmooncrab]

when they return to human sacrifice at the Winter Solstice...

[deborahblakehps]

LOL...I was planning to do that this year...

[deborahblakehps]

I grew up Jewish and became a Pagan as an adult. "Merry Christmas" has never been appropriate for me. I'm polite and always say, "Thank you, you too" to the folks who wish me a Merry Christmas, but you'd better believe that my cards say "Happy holidays."

A Pagan friend sent out a holiday card last year with his kids' pictures and the words "Happy Everything!" I kind of liked it :-)

[merlinofchaos]

To be fair, the vast majority of the people really prosecuting the War on Christmas are the people offended that we're "taking Christ out of Christmas" (never mind that the church put Christ into a pagan holiday in order to subsume it) and it's really about religion.

There are a few people who, due to youth or simple "everyone around me" bias don't really see it as a religious issue, but the ones *really* pushing it? They do. It's them trying to make the world us (Christians) against them (non-Christians, particularly atheists) and guiding the dialogue along that path.

The ones who don't understand it can grow up and get over it (yay for those who do) but the ones who do?

Well. They're the same people offended if you don't say the "Under God" part of the pledge of allegiance. They'll come up with all kinds of ways to try and defend it but it always boils down to evangelism and how, to them, "Freedom of religion" really means "Freedom to spread my religion as wide as possible."

But I'm not bitter. Or anything.

[la_marquise_de_]

I tend to say something like 'I hope you have a good time over the holiday season' because while I like the idea of Happy Holidays, it sounds a bit too American for me.