Happy Holidays Vs. Merry Christmas
In the business world, it makes perfect sense to use Happy Holidays. For one, the holidays seem to blend together this time of year. We have Thanksgiving, Hanukah, Christmas, Eid al-Adha, Islamic New Year, Rohatsu, Kwanzaa, Bodhi Day, Winter Solstice, Saturnalia, Yule, Fesivus, Omisoka and New Years in addition to the many other celebrations people have this time of year. In fact, it's getting so huge that the holiday season has extended to Halloween. Plenty of stores are decorating with trees, wreaths and paper snowflakes before the Halloween costumes are even off the shelves. This is the holiday season.
When watching television, it's perfectly normal to expect to see Happy Holidays this time of year. The television audience isn't just made up of Christians celebrating Christmas. There are also Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus in the audience as well as other cultures and peoples who do not necessarily fall under any specific religion. There are agnostics and atheists as well. They love to celebrate this time of year, but they don't hold the notion that Jesus Christ is the reason for the season. They see a wonderful time of year with family gatherings and great food. It's a gift giving season to them and they don't expect to have religion shoved down their throats when that's not the reason they celebrate the holidays with everyone else.
Christmas has long become a dual holiday anyway. Santa Clause and Rudolph have long been staples of Christmas and non-religious families have the right to enjoy Christmas with those unique traditions in mind. Saint Nick climbs down the chimney and puts gifts under the tree. Then, he eats the cookies and drinks the milk before going to the next house. Regardless if you have a chimney or not, he brings gifts to every home throughout the world in one night.
Of course, our kids are growing up on us quicker than we ever thought. One year when my daughter was much younger, I put the gifts under the tree the night before and my daughter watched me. She couldn't go to sleep later that night so I brought her in my room to go to sleep. She kept getting up and looking out the window because she thought she could hear Santa. The next morning, she said that Santa didn't come. When I asked her why she thought that, she said that the gifts under the tree were the same ones as the night before. I learned my lesson and she learned something too.
But regardless of what you think, Santa Claus is part of the season. Not only that, but so are Dreidals and Menorahs, fig trees and feasts, drums and jewelry, prayerstick making and rabbit hunts. Christians don't own the holiday season. They have a day that they celebrate as the birth of Jesus. That's there's. But, it's not the only thing going on this time of year. Christians need to be more understanding of the fact that they aren't the only people in this world, even though they can't seem to get past the notion that they are the only ones who know any truth.
Merry Christmas is a greeting Christians should use to greet others who celebrate the same holiday. But, they would do themselves a great service by learning more about the world around them. What they call secular, I call our world. It's a better place when you learn to enjoy it.
Published by Michael Allen
Michael Allen is the author of Thoughts and Reconsideration, A Danger to Society and When You Miss Me. His works show his wide range of writing from a novel to a children s book, and now a journey in poetry.... View profile
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99 Comments
Post a CommentThat's a good point, Katherinet! I found it slightly ironic that my article inflamed a war when it was intended to bring peace. I wrote another article addressing those issues.
Instead of fighitng over this sillieness we as christians should be helping the less fourtunate ! I belive that Christ would want us to do some good.
Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Christ. It doesn't matter what the actual date was, we choose December 25 to celebrate (should be everyday). It is the same at Easter when we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. It is what it is and the phrase "happy holidays" doesn't change what the holiday stands for. Glory to God and merry Christmas!
The poster right before this post (Jim) seems rather angry. Why try to pull apart someone's beliefs because you can't tolerate them? Seems like an issue between you and your, might I say, god...
First, I don't care if someone say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays to me becuase they just want to wish you happiness. However, I am offended by many religious bigots here. If you are such a true believer and your god is so real, do you even know the history of your religion. Here are some example.
First, December 25th was a Roman holiday not the "so called" Lord's birthday. The Romans made it Christmas after they adopted Christianity. Second, Bible was commissioned by the Roman. The Roman gathered the religious scholars to discuss which script should be in the "so-called" Bible.
I can go on and on about the history of Christianity. Before believing in something, study it first.
Re: Grinch 12/16
First let me say, Mr. Allen, thank you for your service to our country as a Marine.
To Grinch,I wholeheartedly agree with your statement. It is part of my beef also when I wrote on 12/15. The retailers or MORE than willing to cash in on Christmas but then say they don't want to offend "others" by using the word Christmas. Such a double standard.
As the founder of Grinch List, I spent a few years engaged in dialog with corporations and organizations on the topic of censorship. The common response that I and the thousands who came to our site received was these corporations and organizations thought by mentioning "Christmas" would be offensive to some. Interestingly, they are more than willing to rake in the billion$ each year from Christmas. More interesting is the same organizations merchandise/promote Kwanza, Hanukkah, Chinese New Year, etc., though that is much more exclusionary.
It's akin to remnaming the 4th of July because there are many in this country aren't citizens and might feel left out or, god forbid, offended.
Think about it - when organizations make a concerted effort to call a Christmas tree a holiday tree; Christmas lights -holiday lights; Santa a symbol of the season, etc. they are doing nothing more than engaging in cultural highjacking and the worst kind of censorship. They'll mention it/tolerate it if we can all agree to call it something more palatable.
The intolerant thing about all of this is that some are more than willing to go out of their way to celebrate Kwanza, African American History month, Asian, Pacific Islander month, etc. because it's politically correct. However, mention Christmas to someone (again the far majority) and the pockets of intolerance rear their ugly heads...
Keep this in mind, retailers make 70-80% of their revenues in Christmas sales - not Jack Frost sales, Hanukkah sales, winter solstice sales, yet you and they don't want to be sensitive to one particular culture - the very culture that they attempt to exploit every year for their Christmas dollars
I guess I'll have to address the grammatical error in my article. Yes, it is an error. It's an oversight on my part. I've been publishing for years, on this site for about four now. That's literally about a million sentences, a million more words...a guess-timation. First, in perspective I'm tracking a 3.99 in most University classes with that error-rate. Second, I'm human. I try to be perfect and my other articles on here have never received any grammatical correction. But, I'm only human. Get the point of the article. Don't get hung up on a grammatical error when I never correct the horrendous grammatical errors I see all over the place, especially the misspelled words and missing punctuation in your correction of my grammar.