Merry Holidays?
Submitted Friday, December 4, 2009 - 2:08:04 PM by Klaitu

It always happens around here this time of year. The age old debate, the preening, the flaunting, the egos.

What am I talking about? I'm talking about the battle between "Merry Christmas" and "Happy Holidays".

Maybe this isn't such a big battle where you are from, but here this thing flairs up each year, and since my community is predominantly Christian, I run into "We say MERRY CHRISTMAS in our house!" a lot. Down here, people proclaim it loud and proud to put it mildly.

SO I got to thinking.. what's the big deal about "Merry Christmas" vs "Happy Holidays"?

Let's start at the beginning. At some point in history, December 25th was just December 25th. Then some sky watchers noticed that the winter solstice happened around this time. (In fact, this year's Winter Solstice happens on December 21)

For primitive sun-worshipping cultures, this was a big deal. They held festivals and whatnot to commemorate the occasion.

Then, when Christians came along to convert the primitive sun-worshippers, they assimilated their holidays in order to make the conversion easier, and so the idea of Christmas was born.

As you probably already know, Christmas is the traditional day to celebrate the birth of Christ, although Christ's birth probably did not occur on this day.

Christmas's main "thunder stealer" in the United States is Hanukkah, a Jewish celebration which comemmorates the consecration of the House of the Holy in Jerusalem after it was desecrated by an invader. Like all Jewish holidays, it's linked to the ancient Hebrew calendar, and so the date floats from anywhere from Thanksgiving to Christmas.

Hanukkah and Christmas don't jive together, primarily because the Jews don't believe in Christ.. though the Christians could celebrate the consecration of a jewish temple before the birth of Christ if they wanted to.

Kwanzaa takes place from December 26 to New Year's day and was invented in 1966 because a political activist felt that black people needed their own holiday since all the other holidays were for "white people". The holiday seems to be losing popularity, as it does not coincide with any actual African holidays.

The other two holidays in the US modern "holiday season" are Thanksgiving and New Year's Day.

In general usage as I have observed, "Merry Christmas" is often used as a greeting or a goodbye in the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and is said to pretty much anyone regardless of their ethnic or religious origins.

This, in turn, irked athiests, Jews, and no doubt other various people who find Christmas to be an offensive holiday, since it's both a national and a Christian holiday. Then, when the 1990's rolled around, Christmas got sucked into the trend of "political correctness".

Political Correctness is the practice of attempting to make words as inoffensive-sounding to as many people as possible. For example: "Visually challenged" and "blind" mean the same thing, but the first is assumed to somehow be less offensive, as if one could take offense at a handicap.

So, in this vein, "Merry Christmas" became "Happy Holidays" in order to try to become as inoffensive to the widest number of people.. though ironically, because of this fact, "Happy Holidays" in itself has now become offensive to Christians.. who are the majority group in the holiday season.

And so, the battle continues to this day.

What do we make of all this?

Personally, I don't really care if you great me with either of expression, I don't find "Happy Holidays" to be offensive. In use, I'm far more likely to throw down a "Merry Christmas" because that's what I'm used to. If someone wants to be offended over my wishing their December 25 doesn't suck, then they can feel free.. though perhaps this is less of an issue for me, as I don't know a single Jewish person, nor do I know anyone who celebrates Kwanzaa.

I suppose this debate will continue for several more years at least. At some point, it will probably be abandoned in favor of the "Should we keep 'In God We Trust' on the money?" debate.