Holiday Euphemisms
Happy Holidays!
What? You think I’m jumping the gun by just a few months? Then, obviously, you’re not looking at a calendar. Rosh Hashanah begins on September 12th at sundown, and both Yom Kippur and Ramadan start on September 21st. And, apparently, Japan celebrates Respect for the Aged Day on September 17th.
Yet “Happy Holidays” is an unnecessary euphemism in September, because if you want to wish someone a Happy Respect for the Aged Day, you don’t have to do it in code words. You can actually mention the holiday in your greeting without fear of reprisal. Same with “Happy Halloween” or “Happy Thanksgiving” or “Happy Valentine’s Day.”
Can you see where I’m going with this?
The reason I really hate the expression “Happy Holidays” is that it turns “Merry Christmas” into a political statement. “Merry Christmas” no longer just means “I hope your Christmas is a merry one.” It now also means “SCREW the P.C. police! I’ll wish you a Merry Christmas if I damn well want to! The A.C.L.U. can’t tell me what to do!!”
Christmas shouldn’t be a time to pick a fight. It should be Christmastime – not “winter break” or “the holiday season.” And “Merry Christmas” should mean just what it says. I’m not sure how we can get back to that.
“Happy Holidays” defenders insist that they’re more tolerant and kind, because their greeting is more inclusive. Except that it isn’t. Polls show that over 95% of Americans celebrate Christmas. You’d be hard-pressed to say the same thing about, say, Halloween or Valentine’s Day, yet no one has to vaguely acknowledge a “holiday” in order to avoid giving offense to the fundamentalists who think October 31 is the day children dress up to unwittingly worship Satan.
Ah, say the H.H. Defenders, but there are more holidays being celebrated than Christmas in December! What about Hanukkah? Or Kwanzaa? Huh? HUH?!!
What about them? If you want to wish me a Happy Hanukkah, do it! I would certainly appreciate the sentiment. And, believe it or not, I’ve been wished Happy Hanukkah a number of times in my life, because I grew up in a Southern California neighborhood that was predominantly Jewish. We used to get Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah off from school. It was great – we usually went to Disneyland on Yom Kippur. And I was always jealous of my friends who got to eat their peanut butter sandwiches on Motzah during Passover. (Not sure why, though. Motzah tastes like cardboard.)
We sang Hanukkah songs in my fifth grade chorus. And not just namby-pamby songs about dreidels and such. I still remember one song with a haunting, strange Hebrew melody:
The song started with talk of “mama lighting the Menorah” and “Papa reading from the Torah.” And I, a good little Mormon boy, sang along cheerfully without even considering a lawsuit! I even had a solo during the song “Eight Bright Candles of Hanukkah.” How cool was that? I’m very grateful that I was raised to appreciate a religious culture different from my own.
And, by the way, Hanukkah is a relatively minor Jewish holiday – essentially the celebration of a military victory. The real holidays – the High Holy Days - take place this month, and nobody makes any ballyhoo over them in the culture at large. Hanukkah’s secular importance has exploded in order to compete with Christmas, and many of my Jewish friends celebrated both, so as not to miss out on Santa’s loot.
Once upon a time, when you said “Merry Christmas” to a Jew, they took it as a message saying “I hope your December 25th is a merry day,” not “convert to Christianity or burn in hell, heathen!” Actually, I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a Jew – or anyone of any other religion – who would take offense at being wished a Merry Christmas. Except Jehovah’s Witnesses, but they hate everything holidayish.
And then there’s the Kwanzaa people.
Kwanzaa sucks. I have no patience for Kwanzaa. It has no religious significance or history. It was created forty years ago by someone trying to stick it to Christmas - a Bizarro Christmas for Atheists. Why should I have an ounce of respect for a holiday that was created in anger to stir up the kind of P.C. resentment to even the mere mention of Christmas that we see today?
Yet here’s the rub: if you wish me a Happy Kwanzaa, I’ll take it in stride! It will make me smile! Because at least Happy Kwanzaa doesn’t devalue the very existence of Christmas the way “Happy Holidays” does.
Some see my attitude as unnecessarily belligerent. As columnist Anna Quindlen wrote last year:
She gets it exactly wrong. It’s not that my faith depends on seeing the baby Jesus in Wal-Mart ads. It's that she's so skittish about Christian intolerance that she won't even allow us to mention Christmas by name. Is it too much to ask for some direct reference to the holiday I’m supposed to be happy about? I’m tired of having to pretend that Christmas doesn’t matter as much as it so clearly does. I am disgusted with Christmas TV ads filled with Santa Claus and Christmas trees that end with “Happy Holidays” because mentioning the word “Christmas” might offend Anna Quindlen.
When people say “Happy Holidays,” they’re not being inclusive. They’re running scared. They mean “Merry Christmas,” but they’re afraid of looking intolerant by actually saying it.
So where does that leave me?
Grumpy? Intolerant? Embittered? Not really. I still love Christmas and everything about it. when someone wishes me Happy Holidays, I smile, wish them a Merry Christmas, and hope the politics don’t get in the way.
In the meantime, Happy Respect for the Aged Day.
What? You think I’m jumping the gun by just a few months? Then, obviously, you’re not looking at a calendar. Rosh Hashanah begins on September 12th at sundown, and both Yom Kippur and Ramadan start on September 21st. And, apparently, Japan celebrates Respect for the Aged Day on September 17th.
Yet “Happy Holidays” is an unnecessary euphemism in September, because if you want to wish someone a Happy Respect for the Aged Day, you don’t have to do it in code words. You can actually mention the holiday in your greeting without fear of reprisal. Same with “Happy Halloween” or “Happy Thanksgiving” or “Happy Valentine’s Day.”
Can you see where I’m going with this?
The reason I really hate the expression “Happy Holidays” is that it turns “Merry Christmas” into a political statement. “Merry Christmas” no longer just means “I hope your Christmas is a merry one.” It now also means “SCREW the P.C. police! I’ll wish you a Merry Christmas if I damn well want to! The A.C.L.U. can’t tell me what to do!!”
Christmas shouldn’t be a time to pick a fight. It should be Christmastime – not “winter break” or “the holiday season.” And “Merry Christmas” should mean just what it says. I’m not sure how we can get back to that.
“Happy Holidays” defenders insist that they’re more tolerant and kind, because their greeting is more inclusive. Except that it isn’t. Polls show that over 95% of Americans celebrate Christmas. You’d be hard-pressed to say the same thing about, say, Halloween or Valentine’s Day, yet no one has to vaguely acknowledge a “holiday” in order to avoid giving offense to the fundamentalists who think October 31 is the day children dress up to unwittingly worship Satan.
Ah, say the H.H. Defenders, but there are more holidays being celebrated than Christmas in December! What about Hanukkah? Or Kwanzaa? Huh? HUH?!!
What about them? If you want to wish me a Happy Hanukkah, do it! I would certainly appreciate the sentiment. And, believe it or not, I’ve been wished Happy Hanukkah a number of times in my life, because I grew up in a Southern California neighborhood that was predominantly Jewish. We used to get Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah off from school. It was great – we usually went to Disneyland on Yom Kippur. And I was always jealous of my friends who got to eat their peanut butter sandwiches on Motzah during Passover. (Not sure why, though. Motzah tastes like cardboard.)
We sang Hanukkah songs in my fifth grade chorus. And not just namby-pamby songs about dreidels and such. I still remember one song with a haunting, strange Hebrew melody:
May your days and nights
Be a feast of lights
The eternal flame, may it glow in you
And the Holy One, may He know in you
Only love
The song started with talk of “mama lighting the Menorah” and “Papa reading from the Torah.” And I, a good little Mormon boy, sang along cheerfully without even considering a lawsuit! I even had a solo during the song “Eight Bright Candles of Hanukkah.” How cool was that? I’m very grateful that I was raised to appreciate a religious culture different from my own.
And, by the way, Hanukkah is a relatively minor Jewish holiday – essentially the celebration of a military victory. The real holidays – the High Holy Days - take place this month, and nobody makes any ballyhoo over them in the culture at large. Hanukkah’s secular importance has exploded in order to compete with Christmas, and many of my Jewish friends celebrated both, so as not to miss out on Santa’s loot.
Once upon a time, when you said “Merry Christmas” to a Jew, they took it as a message saying “I hope your December 25th is a merry day,” not “convert to Christianity or burn in hell, heathen!” Actually, I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a Jew – or anyone of any other religion – who would take offense at being wished a Merry Christmas. Except Jehovah’s Witnesses, but they hate everything holidayish.
And then there’s the Kwanzaa people.
Kwanzaa sucks. I have no patience for Kwanzaa. It has no religious significance or history. It was created forty years ago by someone trying to stick it to Christmas - a Bizarro Christmas for Atheists. Why should I have an ounce of respect for a holiday that was created in anger to stir up the kind of P.C. resentment to even the mere mention of Christmas that we see today?
Yet here’s the rub: if you wish me a Happy Kwanzaa, I’ll take it in stride! It will make me smile! Because at least Happy Kwanzaa doesn’t devalue the very existence of Christmas the way “Happy Holidays” does.
Some see my attitude as unnecessarily belligerent. As columnist Anna Quindlen wrote last year:
It is surprising to discover that some believe the enduring power of the story of the child born in Bethlehem to be so shaky that it must be shored up by plastic creches in town squares and middle-school concerts. Apparently, conservative critics are also exercised by the fact that various discount stores have failed to pay homage to the baby in the manger, in their advertisements, their labeling and even their in-store greetings.
She gets it exactly wrong. It’s not that my faith depends on seeing the baby Jesus in Wal-Mart ads. It's that she's so skittish about Christian intolerance that she won't even allow us to mention Christmas by name. Is it too much to ask for some direct reference to the holiday I’m supposed to be happy about? I’m tired of having to pretend that Christmas doesn’t matter as much as it so clearly does. I am disgusted with Christmas TV ads filled with Santa Claus and Christmas trees that end with “Happy Holidays” because mentioning the word “Christmas” might offend Anna Quindlen.
When people say “Happy Holidays,” they’re not being inclusive. They’re running scared. They mean “Merry Christmas,” but they’re afraid of looking intolerant by actually saying it.
So where does that leave me?
Grumpy? Intolerant? Embittered? Not really. I still love Christmas and everything about it. when someone wishes me Happy Holidays, I smile, wish them a Merry Christmas, and hope the politics don’t get in the way.
In the meantime, Happy Respect for the Aged Day.
posted by Elder Samuel Bennett | 8:18 AM
10 Comments:
PC Liberals are a canker on the bottom lip of America. Basically, they suck, and only tannic acid makes them go away.
Signed,
non-Religious Dude
Kwanzaa s*cks
Tannic acid would do wonders for Kwanzaa, too.
Hey, I remember the Eight Bright Candles of Hannukah! We sang it in elementary school, too. It's an awesome song.
Happy High Holy Days.
When I say Happy Holidays I mean happy Christmas and New Years, the two holidays that come right after each other. Thanksgiving is also in there. There are three major holidays in five weeks, that's why it's called the holiday season, and that's why people say happy holidays. You really had no clue?
When I wished you happy holidays and you just smiled and offered me a Merry Christmas, I just thought you were a nasty jerk who wouldn't wish me a Happy New Year too.
Yeah, well, Happy New Year. So there.
Thanks.
And I hope you have a good weekend.
(That means Saturday *and* Sunday)
Love the blog. Agree 100%.
HERES SOMETHING I WROTE LAST CHRISTMAS:
I`m all for diversity, but the retailer's standpoint is the one I despise most — it is of utmost hypocrisy. Although Christmas is "oh but a mere one of several" other holidays in November and December, it is blatantly obvious that Christmas is the only holiday that retailers are referring to (albeit this is never acknowledged) in the months leading to December. In TV commercials, we always see Santa and decorated trees, yet never see menorahs, dreidels or otherwise. Retailers offer "shipping deadline dates" for December 25, which is Christmas Day, and offer no such dates for other holidays. Retailers certainly want to promote Christmas, for financial and cultural reasons, but do not want to actually acknowledge the term, "Christmas", because of connotations with the oh-so-icky Jesus. So although they use "holiday" in place of "Christmas", it is nonetheless blatantly obvious that they are not making any attempt to "include" any other holidays in their Christmas-geared promotions. A perfect example of the retailer double standard is with a 2006 Sprint Wireless TV commercial, which was aired the day after Christmas last year. The commercial stated—on December 26—that "the holidays are over". Oh, really? The ever-so-diverse-amount of holidays are over on December 26, the day after Christmas? What about the much-talked-about Kwanzaa, which begins December 26, or New Year's Day, which is a week away?
As you can see, it is this kind of behavior that makes it blatantly obvious that although retailers don't say "Christmas", they are all gearing to only Christmas and want Christmas money, and only "care" about respecting and treating other holidays equally until December 26, at which point the "holiday season" is over for them, no matter how many holidays are actually left to occur. Instead of respecting everyone, retailers are disrespecting everyone. If you celebrate Christmas, your holiday is exploited by retailers and is the obvious center of all the huff, yet is censored and never acknowledged. If you celebrate another holiday, your winter holiday will only be respected if it falls before Christmas, and yet will still never be specifically mentioned anyway. Retailers use their generic, non-specific theme all the way to Christmas, claiming that they're being diverse, all the while not ever referring to any actual reason for celebration, nor continuing their "holiday" promotions anytime past December 25. The least retailers can do is be honest, and admit that it is Christmas they are promoting. The final truth is this: using "holiday" when referring even to such specific of things as shipping deadlines for December 25, will never make non-Christmas observers feel any more appreciated than if "Christmas" had been in its place. All "holiday" will do is make the season more impersonal and generic, as well as tick off a great amount of the 96% of us that do celebrate Christmas, and should equally tick off the remaining 4% that believe respect should be something that is genuine.
Dreidle, dreidle, dreidle
I made it out of clay
And when it's dry and ready
Oh dreidle I will play.
I suppose I was never much bothered about Happy Holidays as opposed to Merry Christmas, because I have always had a difficult time attaching any religious significance to Christmas (I'm sure you can figure out all of the arguments). Christmas is for Santa, elves, presents, etc., but not much for Christ. Give me pagan Easter anytime! (oops... I meant to say Spring Break).
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home