I’d say its the opposite… more like you can’t say happy holidays or season’s greetings anymore without someone being offended. If someone wants to say Merry Christmas, fine – but if a corporation / government / larger entity wants to actually be MORE inclusive, it is not an affront to any religion, or a war on any specific holiday. But these days there are long rants on tv about what large corporation may have not mentioned Christmas in their sales flier, or whatever the latest “outrage” is…

I work in retail management, and I wish all my customers as they leave “Have a happy holiday”, was about the most banal thing I could come up with. I live in an area of the midwest that has a large population of Eastern Asian immigrants, many of whom are Buddhists or belong to another non-Christian faith. Plus, I’m non-religious, and while we definitely celebrate Christmas, we don’t have a nativity scene or other religious elements. I think the whole debate is ridiculous, like someone said, if you want to be MORE inclusive why is that a bad thing????

yes, i was with the bloggers on their christmas posts until this one. is it really necessary to defend the christian right to celebrate christmas? it’s EVERYWHERE! starting thanksgiving and running a full month too. i enjoy the lights and the celebratory atmosphere but you have to live in a bubble not to see how very christmas oriented the entire month of december is. i mean, sorry about all the political correctness of understanding religious diversity and all, but this is getting intolerable.

BTW, I’m not referring to Christmas cards, which I really love receiving. I have some really creative friends and I’m always happy to be on their list. I certainly don’t expect them to buy me a different card than the one they’re sending out.

First the “IT’S A CHRISTMAS TREE NOT A HOLIDAY TREE” freakout and now this? Lord (pun intended). Strollerderby bloggers need to turn of Fox News and chill the hell out.

To quote you

“Christians put up a Christmas tree, not a holiday tree.”
No, no you don’t…you put up a PAGAN symbol of the winter solstice which was hijacked by the Church in the same way it hijacked the Pagan spring symbols for Easter.

I also believe if you are going to blog, which is clearly an opinion piece, you should be careful of your sourcing. As an example, you wrote ” Some say ‘Happy Holidays’ has become the phrase of choice for many people.” – Who said that?

This is just so whiny. I’m tired of all these false cries of the poor, persecuted Christians. You sure don’t do your ilk any favors when you gripe about being inclusive to all of society. Way to spread the warm, fuzzy spirit of the season.

“quite”

Blessed Yule!!!

There’s nothing wrong with saying Merry Christmas, as long as you understand that you are not in charge of dictating how people respond. Happy Holidays is an appropriate response to Merry Christmas. Stores are pre-emptively wishing their cusotmers a Happy Holidays, because Christmas has come to mean a lot of things.. One of the things is does NOT mean is “opportunity to bitch incessantly that weird folks are stealing/wrecking/diluting the meaning of what we stole/wrecked/diluted from OTHER folks”.
You are coming out of this debate looking very bad, Danielle. You might want to consider trying a little STFU.

What bothers me most about this debate is that everyone is saying that Christians should stop being “whiny” and just go with the flow!!!! If a jewish person, was insulted or or an african american, everyone would be in an up roar that someone was being anti semetic, or a racist, but when a christian is insulted we are called whiny……I see a very bad double standard going on here!!!! Just sayin!

oh for goodness sakes, being wished anything along the lines of “happy holidays/merry christmas/have a great day” is fine and should be taken in the spirit with which they are intended. the words don’t matter that much, but christians (the majority of americans) should be sensitive to the context of what christmas it. it’s a religious observance that has become a culturally american holiday. that does not mean everyone celebrates it and a little religious respect would be appreciated. stop complaining about the de-christianing of america. there are plenty of non-christians such as myself who enjoy the excitement and happiness of the season, but draw the line at being told we should be more respectful of christian “right[s] to happily observe the day.” you get an entire season. you get a majority support. you don’t have to deal with bigoted ideas about judaism, islam, paganism (etc), or being told you are not american if you don’t believe in god. enjoy the holiday. wish my jewish family a merry christmas. i’ll wish you one right back.

Well, the whole point of wishing anyone “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays” or what have you is being nice to others and caring about them. You really don’t care about how Jews/Muslims/atheists/agnostics/Pagans/Buddhists/Hindus/etc. feel if you insist on telling everyone “Merry Christmas”. “Happy Holidays” sounds lame, but as someone who celebrates Christmas in a secular way, married to a Jewish guy, it’s the best way to show you’re on board with Christmas cheer for everyone, no matter what religion they are. I moved to a very large city in the Bible Belt a few years ago and am sick of the “Jesus is the reason for the season” mentality. It’s not right to exclude large groups of people and make them feel like their choices are inferior because they don’t really believe Jesus’s birthday is December 25th (which scholars disagree with anyway!) or even believe in Jesus being anything other than an ordinary rabbi with revolutionary ideas.

I agree w LittleFrogs about “Happy Holidays” also encompassing New Years (I mean, they’ve been saying this for long before all the diversity and PC-ness here in America)…and I don’t think it’s “lame” to say “Happy Holidays” either…
I think for all of this we need less thinkin’ and more drinkin’—eggnog, wassail…whatever people need to lighten up.

It’s true, ‘happy holidays’ encompassing New Year’s has always been alive and well. My objection is not about the saying itself, it’s the attitude that we should take the Christmas out of the holiday season. We shouldn’t do that for anything, not Hanukkah or Kwanzaa either. Like I said, ‘happy holidays’ is an easy non-denominational good wish covers it all. And a good wish to anyone is never bad. But we also shouldn’t feel compelled to not say or display Christmas either. Like Lisa said, there is a double standard. Why would it matter if a religion is a majority? EVERY religion should celebrate their own holy day proudly, no matter how big or small. Finally, the STFU comments? Very classy!

Christmas has never seemed particularly religous to me. hen I think of Christmas, I think of Santa not jesus. I don’t think people saying “merry christmas” are being religious.

“Why would it matter if a religion is a majority?”

Ok, so let’s add you to the “not so bright” crowd. It matters. No one is saying you can’t say Merry Christmas. It’s annoying that you’re whining as if someone is persecuting you. You are SO entitled, and SO used to being a majority in this country, you can’t even wrap your brain around where everyone else is coming from.

To Manjari, you proved my point…we shouldn’t be able to complain because we are the majority…are you kidding me….and you have the nerve to say I am not bright! I hope you have a wonderful Holiday filled with lots of love and respect for whatever you choose to celebrate since you obviously have none for others!

Lisa, you keep proving my point every time you comment. It’s not that you shouldn’t be able to complain, it’s that you have no REASON to complain. You will never get it, because you are too much a product of the dominant culture. The only reason you think I have no respect for others is because I’m not buying the idea that we should all bow down to YOUR religious holiday (one that is more or less stolen, anyway). Everywhere you go, there are signs of Christmas. There are Christmas carols on every radio station. There are nativity scenes all over public places. Yet you still find a way to feel persecuted. If you don’t get it, then no, you probably aren’t very bright.

Yes, Manjari for the win! The reason Christians don’t get to whine is because, duh, compared to everyone else, you have precious little to whine about! Christmas get a whole season, wherein symbols of their holiday are displayed prominently in public spaces. There are TV specials about how awesome it is. And we all get the day off. Let’s see…what do the Jewish folk in the USA get for Yom Kippur? When was the last Ramadan sing-along you attended? Christianty so thoroughly trumps every other brand of worship/non-worship in the USA that it makes Christians seem petty to complain about anything related to their religion, let alone something as benign as “Happy Holidays.”

“The reason Christians don’t get to whine is because, duh, compared to everyone else, you have precious little to whine about!”

Exactly!

Go go go Manjari!

lol, Maureen. You don’t even know what whining means. I haven’t once said that I’ve been abused in 2011 or any other year. I celebrate Christmas, and it’s my favorite holiday of the year. There are other people who don’t, though, and it really, really is ok for people to say Happy Holidays as a way of being inclusive. You poor, oppressed Christians will live through it somehow.

Not sure where that comment above about Chanukah not being a major religious holiday came from, it sure was in my synagogue! Oh wait, perhaps it was such a major focus because it’s something wonderful to get the kids to have some excitement about and connect them to their faith, just like the pro-merry christmas-ers are arguing about christmas. So, just to step in and blow all the religious diversity arguments out of the water here, I have a jewish father and a catholic mother and was raised jewish. My husband had a born jewish but practicing buddhist father and a protestant mother yet somehow was also raised jewish. We are both agnostic but choose to use the holidays as a time to teach our daughter about her faith backgrounds and allow her to make her own decisions, so we celebrate both hanukah and christmas. On top of that we also have my husbands birthday in december and my daughter’s in january. I take no offence to being wished a merry christmas because again, I think it’s great to show my child cultural diversity and christianity is included in that diversity. If I feel like the merry christmas was said with a tone of a bit of christian elitism (which sounds harsh, I just mean that some folks tend to assume that everyone they meet on the street has accepted christ, yadda yadda yadda) the most I’d ever say is ‘Oh thank you. It’s a busy season what with Hannukah and the little one turning two as well.’. Obviously no one intends to say something like merry christmas to be rude and I would never take it that way. However, I love the idea of saying happy holidays. Since when is a step towards being more inclusive some sort of attack? No one is forcing department stores to switch their focus away from christmas, all the jingles and decorations are still there. It just might make things a little simpler for the child walking through the door wondering why no one seems to know that she’d like some excitement for hannukah as well. At the end of the day, it’s not a big deal. Do what makes you comfortable. Yes, happy holidays is more inclusive and thus, by my thinking, ideal. If you aren’t comfortable with it, don’t say it. No one is forcing you. A walmart greeter saying a phrase you don’t like doesn’t effect what you say. Don’t worry, you can still send out your christmas cards and wish your mom a merry christmas. Perhaps I’m confused, but this seems to be an awfully simple matter to me. Plus, for those that don’t want their holiday infringed on for the rights of others, there was not a single child I knew in hebrew school as a child that didn’t have their parents making up some ‘hannukah harry’ character to replace Santa, a ‘hannukah bush’ to put the presents under, or even had pictures taken with Santa, all so their children wouldn’t feel completely left out of the season. So lets not worry too much about other religions infringing on Christianity, I think the scales are still tipped WAY in favour of christmas infiltrating other religions’ holidays. It’ll likely be that way for a long, long time.

“Not sure where that comment above about Chanukah not being a major religious holiday came from.” It came from reality. Hanukkah is a fun, minor holiday on the Hebrew calendar. It’s not the Jewish Christmas just because it happens to generally fall sometime in December. You’re, of course, welcome to yoru hodge-podge of religious paractices, however contradictory they may be to dogma of each individual religion.

Maureen, yes we Jews feel threatened. That’s what happens after millions of us were murdered less than a century ago simply for being Jewish. Our group is not alone. And we don’t want to promote chanukkah as a commercialization of a historically and religiously important holiday (though as others have said, it’s not as important as our high holidays or weekly Shabbat). Many Christians don’t appreciate the rampant commercialism of Christmas either. The equivalent whininess example would be me complaining about how white people are becoming repressed. I will never understand what it’s like to be non-white in a white world, and would never put aside years of racial marginalization to claim my own discrimination, as you and others have tried to do with religion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SgVuTSPpWw&feature=channel_video_title

“My objection is not about the saying itself, it’s the attitude that we should take the Christmas out of the holiday season.”

So in other words, the right to continue forcing people who don’t observe your religious holiday to acknowledge it, over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over again. It’s not bad enough that I have to hear all the damn songs, get bombed with all the advertising, deal with CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS pumped out at me all December, but that’s not enough – I also have to make sure to pay proper deference to your religion (which, as others have already pointed out, we have to do all year round anyway, with the Christian right dominating our government), because hey, if I don’t, it might make you feel sad. Just another entire month in which I get to be reminded, as I have been ever since I was a small child, that I am a minority, a weirdo, a heathen, a nobody in this Christian country – and I have to make sure not to make you feel sad! Poor you. Poor, poor you.

And if it feels this crappy for me, in my thirties, imagine how terrible it feels for non-Christian children. Shame on you for not seeing your privilege, and not caring.

If you don’t believe in Jesus, why celebrate Christmas?? I don’t understand why people don’t just say, “Thanks” when we say “Merry Christmas!” When people tell me “Happy Holidays” I just say thansk. Why is this so hard? Also, a business that is Christian shouldn’t be ashamed to put Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Honikuh, whatever on a sign… it’s their business! Shame on anyone for saying otherwise!! As for my family, we celebrate the birth of Christ, no Santa, & very modest gift-giving. I will continue to tell people Merry Christmas because it’s not my responsibility to be sensitive to everyone in the world. I have this belief & I will share it with whoever chooses to speak to me!

Bunnytwenty, I couldn’t agree more (as always).

Danielle: please do this for me, and for all of your readers. Take a moment, close your eyes, and think about what it feels like to be a Jewish, Muslim, or atheist child on Christmas. Just try, for a moment, to feel some empathy, and step out of your own worldview. If it helps, think about a time in your life when you felt left out of something fun that everyone else was doing – the time you didn’t get picked for a sports team, or the time that someone picked on you for wearing glasses, or you didn’t wear the right thing to middle school, or the time all the popular PTA moms were at the other table and there was no room for you. Think about a time when you felt strange and different. And then think about how nice it would have felt, in that moment, if instead of ignoring your feelings, someone said something that acknowledged your feelings.

That is what “happy holidays” is for non-Christians in this country – a kind hand reached out to people who are not part of the dominant culture, and especially the kids, who have that left-out feeling all December long. And if you don’t understand that – then there’s no hope for you.

I think a lot of commenters would benefit greatly by walking to the nearest dictionary and looking up the word “ethnocentric”.
/
“I am simply asking why we should feel that we have to purposely not use the term “Merry Christmas’- simple as that.”
/
Because, unless you are actually in church, how on earth can you tell by looking at someone whether or not they celebrate your religious holiday? The Christmas season frequently coincides with Chanukah (creatively referred to as “Honikuh” by Ashley, above, which demonstrates the point far better than anyone else could) as well as occasionally coinciding with Ramadan.
/
If, as you yourself point out, “anyone can be any religion they choose to be or no religion at all”, then you cannot possibly know their belief system from a glance and therefore it simply makes sense and is good manners to be inclusive rather than exclusive. (What ‘Christian thinking’ person would actively choose to exclude people, anyway? ;))
/
Isn’t this a bit like me walking around on my birthday wishing everyone else a happy birthday. Sweet, but a bit simple-minded.

I wish Manjari was a blogger on the site compared to some of the close-minded, in their own bubble of a huge majority and everyone has to be with me.. right? right?? bloggers I’ve been seeing pop up more and more here on Babble.

Honestly, I don’t know why I bother coming here anymore. I used to really enjoy interesting and thought provoking posts about new parenting research/trends/considerations (Apple juice.. who knew???). Now I see posts whining that Christmas is becoming a Holiday and very uninformed and narrow-minded posts about gender identity(don’t get me started, total sidebar). I actually get more out of the comments than the posts themselves nowadays.

Like someone said above, take a moment and put yourself in someone else’s shoes for once(especially kids), but don’t worry you, personally, can still say Merry Christmas all you want – so who cares if other institutions, people, businesses, etc want to be more inclusive of all faiths? Trust me, I get it. I get a little sad that they don’t do Christmas parties and sing Christmas songs at my daughter’s school(because I love me some Christmas songs and I’m not even religious), but then I think of the kids who wouldn’t have any songs celebrating their beliefs and how sad/uncomfortable that would make them feel.

I do like when they offer a combo of all the ways of celebrating the holidays and explain the differences in beliefs to show our kids that yes, we are a melting pot.. and isn’t it wonderful?

We are evolving, and that’s difficult and at first it will seem like “EEK! I’m losing my hold on the rest of the country and I want my stores to say Christmas, damnit!” But eventually, just like we did with understanding ways to be sensitive to race and gender we will eventually get there with religion and sexuality. I hope.

Good discussion!

I was serious about the thought exercise above. Will any of the folks claiming that all the Jews, Muslims, and atheists need to suck it up try it? Or is empathy just too foreign a concept?

I love to see these comments evolve and take shape. And the sniping is spectacular. I don’t think that the author was saying that she feels attacked – or that the Christmas season is under fire. Just that she feels she should be able to say (and celebrate) her beliefs without apology.

I don’t agree with her stance – I think that it is a far more giving and loving gesture to wish those you greet with a “Happy Holidays” in order to give respect to them and their culture.

And for the record – you wish one another a “Joyous Kwanzaa”

Happy Holidays, all!

It’s not a bad thing at all to say Merry Christmas. IF you know the people you are saying it to actually do celebrate Christmas. Happy holidays is an all-inclusive term. You celebrate Christmas. When I wish you “happy holidays”, Christmas is included in those holidays. I do it out of respect for non-Christians. Christmas in this country is inescapable. Put yourself in their shoes for one second. Can you even fathom what it must be like to grow up not celebrating Christmas in this country? And, I’m not saying we should feel sorry for those people, just that we shouldn’t wish them a merry holiday-they-don’t-celebrate. And, one other thing, I don’t hear a single person going around saying, “I get offended when people wish me a merry Christmas, I don’t celebrate it.” But I DO hear A LOT of people saying, “I get offended when people wish me happy holidays, Christmas is the most important one and that’s all people should be saying!” Grow up.

“tenants”? that just undermined every other thing you wrote….

TENET! TENET! TENET! For someone who thinks this discussion is ridiculous, you sure do have a lot to say….

If you are observant in any major branch of Judaism, then the biggest festival religiously is probably Shabbat, (every week!) followed by the High Holy Days, followed by Passover. Stating that might enlighten a few people who seem mystified that Chanukah seems so “small” and that that could or should be changed by an individual. (Just by the way, as a holiday, it hasn’t generated nearly enough material for singalongs).
But frankly, I think Skelly’s point is more of a cultural one. People have tried to mix/morph/mash it to make their own (or other people’s) Jewish kids feel included in December onslaught.
I’d like to say something on behalf of whoever wrote “Honikah.” Sure, I laughed, but we’re romanizing Hebrew here, and there are a lot of ways to go at it. I’ve never seen anyone do it this particular way before, but who am I to say it’s wrong? Whoever you were, don’t be put off. Keep learning. It makes things better.
And Danielle, I’m wondering if you think your post and your responses advanced the spirit of the season?

@Skelly, you can be irritated all you want. Truth be told, I don’t believe in interfaith marriage, nor do I buy that it’s even possible to raise a child to be two different contradictory religions. Jesus cannot both be the Messiah and not be the Messiah, no matter how that inconveniences you. For observant Jews (you know, the ones who don’t celebrate every holiday of every religion equally) Hanukkah is a minor holiday. Fun, yes, but small in both scale and significance. Plenty of Jews take umbrage with the idea that it needs to be played up just because it happens to (usually) fall in December. Get real. Tu Bishvat is fun too, but I’m not taking the day off work or anything. If doing things the way you do works for your family, no one is stopping you from celebrating however you want. I personally find it disrespteful to play act other people’s heartfelt religious rituals be the large or small in scope, so my family and my Jewish kids won’t be doing that. I’m not required to approve of you and my personal convictions proceeded your signing on to Babble and posting on this thread by a good 35 years. I think you’re probably somewhat sensitive to what I said because it’s well known that a large and vocal number of Jews feel the same way. If you want to view that as an “attack”, go to town.

I think she’d have a ball lighting into our family’s Pago-Catholic slant on the HOLIDAY season! We love it though- and oddly enough, we find our Yule Celebration on the 22nd to be far more sacred when comparing the 2. We call it our antidote and always look forward to burning our Yule log and taking a few hours to have some snacks, hot chocolate (kids), wine (adults) and reminisce about the previous year and talk about and outline our goals for the next. We always feel so very invigorated by that one evening in December!

It’s so bizarre how people can justify calling someone else’s observation of religion inauthentic or not-pure-enough or whatever. Everyone picks and chooses what works for them – observe, for instance, how the most observant Evangelical Christians choose to focus on being anti-gay and having oodles of kids but don’t, for instance, observe the kosher laws. Nobody is doing it “right”; everyone does it according to their own faith and choices. And looking down your nose at someone else is just an invitation to have stones thrown at your own glass house.
But hey, there’s a whole lot of crazy going on in this comments section. And I’m still waiting for the author of this post to explain to me how it’s a-ok to make little non-Christian kids feel sad and left out.

I see pagans being mocked. Not to mention the burnings ;-)

“On that note…all you anti-christians out there: When was the last time you watched a tv show or movie where a muslim was being mocked? Athiest? Buddist?” Yes, because Muslims are always portrayed so positively and authentically by the Hollywood establishment. ::eye roll::

“I’ll bet you can find just as large and vocal a number (one hopes not your future inlaws) to chastise people who don’t believe in extending the covenant of brit milah to their kids.” Yes, but who cares? At this point you’re weirdly focused on my kid’s penis, and on circumcision in general. Maybe you’d be better off posting here: http://www.topix.com/forum/chicago/TC7M3GH0SS9K67P25 instead of on a parenting site.

No, you don’t. As has already been pointed out to you, my 6 years old’s penis presents no risk to anyone (an argument which you can’t win and choose to ignore) and the fact that you keep bringing it up is not only inappropriate, but borderline pervy. All I see is a coward who who has a hard on for me and doesn’t have the guts puts her (his?) own experiences with parenting out there. I’m perfectly happy to live with whatever hypocrisy you’ve labelled me with anyway. I’m a real person with a genuine interest in this stuff, not some harpy whose only goal in life is to instruct people to amputate parts of their healthy sons. Now that was “chastisment.” You’d be well served by learning how to recognize it. Please note that it was personal and not merely an expression of my own beliefs and how my family chooses to live. Oh, and Hanukkah is still a minor holiday.

That I wouldn’t know, Goddess.

And no one on this thread, including Skelly, has disagreed with you on Chanukah, for Pete’s sake.
And yes, Goddess, I was thinking that too.

@anon ~ christ, quit bringing up her kid’s penis. it’s strange, regardless of how you feel about circ. And you should both just shut up already. @lindatoo, you seriously have an opinion about everything. a weirdo and a know it all.