Christmas!

[soph]

[this is a public post]

Merry Christmas!

mortuus47 has set an interesting poll: The issue of political correctness aside, would you rather hear "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays"?

It's an interesting question. The latest post in jayisgames says:Just a quick update to wish everyone and their loved ones a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanza, or

Comments

[cheesetruck]

I think the whole war on Christmas is crap (:

Incidentally, if you didn't realize it, you just opened up the latest US 'war' can of worms (:

[morti]

Yeah, I'm so glad it hasn't really reached these shores yet. I was watching TV yesterday and all the adverts related to Christmas did say "Merry Christmas" or at least didn't shy away from saying "Christmas". I wondered if that's something that's already been lost in the US and thought it's fairly likely and it's a big shame if that's the case.

[soph]

I hadn't realised, no. But I see now from a Google News search that it's a pretty hot topic.

I'm looking forward to the replies I get, in that case. :D

[soph]

I made this post public, btw. (see below) Just warning you so you have a chance to do something if you didn't want your comment to be public, although I expect it'd be fine.

[morti]

Suits atheists to an extent because they don't have a holiday at all. As I've said before though, I'm happy when anyone celebrates Christmas. After all, this is a wonderful time when Jesus was born and I think anyone should be able to celebrate that regardless of religious affiliation. That's a really weird sentence if read by someone who doesn't "get" Christianity

[morti]

Additionally, is there any chance you could take this post off friends-only so I can point readers of my LJ towards it?

[soph]

Good idea. Done.

[bdonlan]

Quite frankly, I don't care which people say to me. I'd be more likely to say "Merry Christmas" to other people, simply because it's the defining holiday of the area in popular consciousness. If someone complains I'd probably point out that, nowadays, it is mostly a commercial holiday, that I'm in fact an atheist, and they're making rather a big deal out of nothing so would they please stop making such a fuss and enjoy the time off from school/work/whatever instead of annoying others with trivial quibbles over wording?

[fadetogrey]

"Holiday" means "holy day."

*shrug*

If someone celebrates Christmas, I'll wish them a merry Christmas. If not, I'll wish them a good day and a happy holiday(s) of their own. I don't see why it's that big a deal at all, what we call it, all these other things.

[morti]

And "holy" means "set apart from" in a sense.

[ellmyruh]

Those are my thoughts exactly.

To add a bit more: I don't like the fact that everyone is suddenly making it a big deal, because nothing about the holiday has changed. And I think I'm actually going to partially blame the media for this one (which does not happen often, because I see the inside view and think "blame the media" is a lame excuse for people who haven't gotten off their butts and made their own voices heard). I'll even take it a step further and wonder if the issue would have been bigger here last year if Laci Peterson hadn't managed to still be making news.

[soph]

Here in the UK, "holiday" is actually taken to mean any period of time where you would get time off from work or similar, so I guess my post should be taken in that context. That's what I meant when I said about the fact that it's a holiday not being the reason people are happy.