Merry Happy Christmas Holidays!

On my last blog, I did a holiday post that I thought I ought to rewrite and repost. There's a subject that keeps coming up around this time of year that we have a tendency to push to the back of our minds. 

"Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays"?

Now, I'm going to be honest, I say "Merry Christmas". Why? First, it's the holiday I grew up with, being raised in Catholicism. Second, it's a country custom. Christmas is a widely celebrated holiday in America, and that's not something you can ignore. In fact, companies advertise for Christmas, make special deals for Christmas, change hours and hire more employees around Christmas, etc. In America, Christmas is the holiday. So we say "Merry Christmas".

To those of you who don't celebrate Christmas, please understand that, when someone says, "Merry Christmas", it's hardly a measure of ill will meant toward you. The truth is, it's impossible to tell by simply looking at someone what religion they are, what they believe in, and what holidays they celebrate. If you're Jewish and someone wishes you a "Merry Christmas", you don't need to get offended. How could they know you were Jewish? Besides, "Merry Christmas", "Happy Holidays", or any other phrase used around this time of year is just wishing you well. No one says anything like this in the hopes of offending someone.

Granted, people who say "Merry Christmas" shouldn't get up-in-arms about people being polite and saying "Happy Holidays", either. If you call your tree a Holiday tree instead of a Christmas tree, that is your decision based on your belief system. Here in America, we have the freedom to do things like that and call our trees whatever we so choose. So, yes, you have the right to say "Merry Christmas", don't abuse it and yell at other people for choosing instead to say "Happy Holidays" because there are numerous other holidays during this time of year.

I'm sure, if you went to a country that didn't celebrate Christmas, but another holiday on a country-wide scale, you would wish each other well for a different holiday all the time. Would you get offended if you were, for example, in India during October, and someone mentioned Diwali and wished you well for the festival, even though that may be something you don't celebrate? Would you then get offended if they didn't wish you a "Merry Christmas" in December while you were there?

The fact that people can fight over the proper way to wish someone well during a time of year irks me greatly. Would you get offended if someone said "Good morning" when, in your part of the world, it was night? No, you shouldn't! Nobody ever means offense, so everyone needs to climb down from their high horses and be happy that someone wants the best for you during this time of year.

No offense? Good. None taken.