Merry Christmas?

First of all, I know its been a really long time since I posted anything. I don't feel that its inexcusable, however, since I do this in my free time for fun. At least I have a blog(J. Morgan).

So, there is this whole controversy about saying "Happy Holidays" or "Merry Christmas" going on right now. In fact, its so important that polls are being taken and headlines written. This, of course, begs the question "who cares?" And the obvious answer is given: the average American. But why? If I say "Merry Christmas" to someone who doesn't celebrate Christmas, should they be offended? I celebrate Christmas, but if I have a friend who is Jewish should I say "Merry Christmas" to him because I celebrate Christmas, or "Happy Hanukkah" because he celebrates Hanukkah? And what does he say in return? Either way someone is saying something about something they don't celebrate. Quite a dilemma if this sort of thing bothers you. I don't think most of us really care, though.

I think the real problem is that the media has made it an issue. If the media had no coverage at all and my store said "happy holidays!" I doubt the community would be upset. Conversely, if I said "Merry Christmas" some people might get upset, but not enough to warrant headlines. Its my store, I'll say what I want.

But here is the bottom line: sales clerks can't know what holiday each person celebrates. My solution would be just to say "have a nice day" and avoid the whole problem. But apparently that's not an option. So, they can give a generic "happy holidays" to cover everything. That was good last year, but this year its making people mad. Many evangelical groups are labeling this an "attack on Christmas," which is dumb. Its not an attack on anything, its trying not to tell people to enjoy a holiday they don't celebrate.

On the other hand, the majority of Americans celebrate Christmas. I know this because I celebrate Christmas and I'm normal. Its a valid statistical method ;) Christmas is the traditional holiday at this time of the year, as far as American culture goes. So if you want to maximize your chances of actually saying the right thing you should go with Christmas. If you start saying "Happy Kwanzaa" odds are you're going to be off with most people. And I guess this would upset them.

What is really interesting, in my opinion, is that "Happy Holidays" seems to be the preferred term of people who favor secularization of our culture. Yes, its neutral between every celebration, but it also seems to appease atheists who don't celebrate anything at this time of the year. This is strange to me because, as I'm sure everyone knows, holidays are supposed to be holy days. Atheists don't have any holy days. So telling them to have happy holidays should be just as offensive as telling me to enjoy Ramadan. Which I usually do, even though I don't celebrate anything. Its just a nice time of the year, you know?

Anyway, I think this shows that the whole debate is dumb. Its stupid that its making headlines and probably tells us something about our culture. The purpose of this post is just to put something up on my blog, though, so I'm not going to try to figure out what it tells us now, if ever. So, I hope you enjoy all the holy and non-holy days in between now and when you die. Until then, keep getting mad about stupid things so I can have something to write about on my blog when I don't have any real ideas.