It’s the festive season and with it comes the debate over “Merry Christmas” versus “Happy Holidays.”
In the U.S., a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey revealed 72 percent of adults prefer “Merry Christmas” on signs greeting them with a seasonal message. Only 22 percent wanted “Happy Holidays.”
Are you offended by phrases such as Seasons’ Greetings or Happy Holidays?
Do you say Merry Christmas? If so, why? If not, why not?
Is the whole greeting thing played out of proportion?
December 11th, 2009 at 11:50 am
I tend to say Merry Christmas because it is the holiday that I celebrate. But I am not offended to see happy holidays. After all there are others who celebrate Christmas under different names. I’m not necessarily talking about non-Christians either. Most notably there is Hannukah which is definitely not Christmas but surrounds the same event. I think the goal of happy holidays is to be all inclusive and leave nobody out during the giving season. But on that token if i say merry Christmas I expect people to be wise enough to understand that I am wishing them seasons greetings in my own “language”.
While I think it may be getting close to the “out of proportion” phase, so far I haven’t seen anything to indicate that it has indeed gone beyond a rational point.
December 11th, 2009 at 11:50 am
Merry Christmas is perfect. If others want to wish me well with the greeting of their choice, then that’s fine too.
The idea that we should somehow be insulted by being wished well with the greetings of another religion is ridiculous.
December 11th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
I prefer “Merry Christmas” because of the CHRIST who came about 2000 years ago to save us from sin, and He was the first Christmas more Precious Gift in the whole history.
God bless you.
December 11th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
I don’t care whether someone says “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays”. Or for that matter, “Happy Hannukah” is fine, too! For me, it’s the message being said – the message of good wishes – that matters. Whether the message is “Good day”, I’m happy to hear it! And anyone who worries about being greeted with “Merry Christmas”, they are missing the point of carrying Christmas in their heart.
Like Louis Armstrong sings, I believe no matter the words that are chosen, “they’re really saying ‘I love you’”.
December 12th, 2009 at 8:57 am
I say Merry Christmas to honour the birth of Jesus Christ.
December 13th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
I say and will continue to say Merry Christmas, when people say “Happy Holidays” to me at work I kinda have to hold back from rolling my eyes
December 15th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
I’m always happy to hear Merry Christmas. I find Happy Holidays mildly offensive as a greeting, but prefer it over nothing at all. It bothers me most when stores carefully step around using the word Christmas – when it’s the holiday they are cashing in on!
December 21st, 2009 at 8:54 pm
Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays are both greetings that are cool with me. For people to act so upset and offended when they see or hear Season’s Greetings or Happy Holiday is ridiculous. Also, I think it’s the out of control commercialism that people should be worried about, if you ask me.
Seems to me that those who are truly Christian would welcome friendly greetings that promote goodwill in our world.
December 31st, 2009 at 1:16 am
Merry Christmas, definitely. Jesus is the reason for the season.
January 7th, 2010 at 4:07 am
More and more society expects that we be politically correct all inclusive and non-offensive to all. Not only is this in opposition to our rights of freedom of speech and freedom of religion (as they in a round about way are all expecting us to conform to how they see the world and encouraging us to restrict ourselves to the same)But it strikes me as being against the Word of God as we once again are trying to remove Christ out of Christmas (part of the naturalistic world view)as they have done so many other places and then fill it with something that is secular. enough is enough. To them I just repeat “Merry Christmas May you never forget the reason for the season, JESUS CHRIST!
January 14th, 2010 at 1:50 pm
Ofcourse the only thing is to say MERRY CHRISTMAS! Christmas is THE holiday.
January 16th, 2010 at 8:48 pm
Merry CHRISTmas.
January 16th, 2010 at 8:48 pm
This holiday is to celebrate the birth of CHRIST. So Merry CHRISTmas.
January 17th, 2010 at 12:39 pm
Before Santa came along December 25th was celebrated as the birth of the Christ child this is a relegious day! Merry Christmas is a Religious greeting! There is no reason for changing this tradition.
I would prefer to change Santa Clause Day to December 26th and would be more then happy to say Happy Hollidays!
wouldn’t it be nice if commerce and government stayed out of Religion!!!
February 9th, 2010 at 7:32 am
The two most important Christian events on the calendar are under attack by commercialism.
Personally, every greeting card which arrived at Christmas stating “Happy Holidays” or “Seasons Greetings” got fast tracked to the recycle bin.
Even in stores I encountered many times servers and clerks who reluctantly accepted my correction and wished me “:Merry Christmas” because their boss had told them always to say something like “Seasons Greetings”.
Easter is going the same way where Easter Egg hunts are more important than celebrating the greatest personal sacrifice in the history of the world.
It’s time for us to take back these events and stop folks and the media squeezing out Christ from Christmas and Easter.
February 25th, 2010 at 3:02 am
I too have been a server and cashier, taught to sing out”Thank you for shopping at WalMart” But when it gets such a perfuntory saying, I need to change it up and add “Won’t you please consider shopping with us again?” My creativity frequently brought my Supervisors running to criticize me. Often customers were a little more relaxed as they listened to the words and it promoted repeat customers so my Supervisors stopped the criticism. When it comes to the season of Advent, I make an effort to wish other cultures the happiest of seasons when they are celebrating Divali, Hannakah, etc. As a Christian Student Pastor, I of course believe that Jesus is the reason for the season. But when I see immigrants to Canada celebrating their own High Holidays as well as respecting Christian traditions of putting up a Christmas trees, I do not see it as overt commercialism at all. It is the mark of a people observing the rites of their own faith while repecting the faiths of others they share a country with. If we are to achieve PEACE in this world, we need to live by the precepts of our faith and repect the precepts of other faiths.
March 1st, 2010 at 8:46 am
This is Canada and it is our tradition to say Merry Christmas. Some things don’t need to be changed! We should embrace our own traditions and culture. If anyone says, “Happy Holidays” to me, I reply, “and a Merry Christmas to you too”. It irks me that we are prepared to drop our traditions to keep up with “modern” times.
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:42 am
I’m a little late to this one, but let me be the first to offer an Easter greeting – “Happy Holiday!!”, and for that matter if I miss, let me offer a Canada Day greeting – “Happy Holiday!!”. Hope I made my point – this innocuous little saying fits everywhere there is a holiday, so why is it only contrained to Christmas? It is a generalization and does not specifically reflect any reason for the holiday. If you are into non-descript generalizations then continue to use it. If you like to be more specific and name the holiday then let that be your modus operandi.
Likewise “Seasons Greetings” only has one specific use, as I see it. When a new season is upon us then it would appear that that would be the time to use it. It has nothing to do with holidays.
April 18th, 2010 at 11:00 am
I would say “Merry Christmas” as celebrating Christ’s birth and wishing you to have a merry day. I would say Happy Holidays if you were going on a holiday and I wanted it to be a happy one when ever it fell. Season Greetings to me is greeting someone during the Christmas Season so from around the 15th of Dec to say the 1st of January……..
July 26th, 2010 at 3:46 pm
I think the whole greeting thing is getting blown out of proportion. I welcome any greeting with a smile and a reply. I have no problem with Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Season’s Greetings, Happy Hannukkah, or just plain Hello!