Too many of my stories start with, “today on Facebook”, and I’m afraid this one does as well.
Today, in my Facebook feed, a high school acquaintance proudly and defiantly proclaimed that SHE would not be proclaiming “Happy Holidays” to any customers she saw at work. It would be all “Merry Christmas”s for her, political correctness be damned.
Well la-te-da, I thought, and kept scrolling.
We have mostly learned by now that to argue on the internet, no matter how logical and supported your stance, is to wage a losing battle. But that stuff wears on me, too. When I wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom I end up thinking about it, and then my person says, “What are you thinking about over there” and, good God, I’m not going to say “Facebook”, because he already thinks I’m obsessed with Facebook, so then I have to make up something like work or bills or death. But what I’m thinking about is this girl yelling “Merry Christmas” at everyone she encounters, in a misguided assertion of faith.
Let’s skip right past the irony of the fact that Christmas is meant to be the celebration of an impoverished savior born in a manger, but has morphed into the single most consumerist holiday in existence. No one worried about the snowflakeless Starbucks cup seems terribly worried about that. And yet, the idea that we might wish someone a happy holiday without marking it with the trappings of Christianity is an affront to the religion.
The world is diverse, guys. And the world seems to be trying to be more aware of its diversity, more respectful. It seems, lately and for once, that the loudest voice isn’t the only one to be heard- that we’re actually asking people to shut up so we can hear what the quieter voices have to say. You can do two things in the wake of that. You can respond with fear, yell louder, somehow convinced that the only way to protect your own religion is to tamp down everyone else’s. Or you can make room for everyone else. And what we choose to do is going to depend largely on how we frame that change.
The first step to figuring out a problem, I think, is to try to understand why the other person feels the way that they do. I think that the Merry Christmas Crusaders believe that they’re protecting their religion. In their eyes, it likely seems as if the move from “Merry Christmas” to “Happy Holidays” is a secular world’s attempt to eradicate the “Reason for the Season”.
Take a minute to think about why that’s a very self-involved point of view. That point of view puts you directly in the center of the spinning world. The idea that the world is out to get you, that you are front and center on their minds, are somehow the underdog, the disenfranchised- especially if you just so happen to be the largest and most powerful religion in the country- is to ignore the 20 million other things that are probably occupying their minds and driving their actions. It’s to ignore the religions that are actually being persecuted. It also betrays the privilege of being the predominant religion that expects to see its beliefs mirrored by the greater population. More importantly, it’s just not the case.
Religious persecution exists, but persecution of Christians in this country on any measurable level? Where? I know a lot of non-believers, sure. But anti-Christian? Nope. Those are two entirely different things. The difference is that one chooses not to subscribe, and the other wants it not to be an option.
The idea of saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” has, forgive me, nothing to do with you. In fact, it isn’t a replacement of “Merry Christmas”, it’s an evolution of the phrase. It isn’t meant to push Jesus out of the picture; it’s meant to make room in a holiday season for those who are giving thanks to a different entity. It’s a recognition of the fact that we are diverse and grants respect to that diversity, and the equal importance of all involved. There are a whole host of holidays going on in this time period. Christmas, Hannukah, Winter Solstice. This year, a Muslim holiday called Prophet’s Day falls in December.
If you’re adamantly against Happy Holidays, my question, and it isn’t rhetorical, is this- Why are you wishing someone a Merry Christmas to begin with? What is your goal with that statement?
Isn’t it because you’re wishing them happiness during the season? That’s sort of the common thought, isn’t it?
If that’s not your intention when you say it- if you don’t truly wish happiness on the people you’re bestowing your graciousness on- then I invite you to stop saying it. Really. It’s not supposed to be a filler. If it was just a filler, why would you yourself be so upset between the semantics of Christmas vs. Holidays
And if you do mean it, if you really do wish them happiness during this time, then you ought to be just fine with Happy Holidays, because it shouldn’t matter to you whether they find their happiness in the same place that you find yours. If you’re only willing to wish on them the sort of happiness that is valid and meaningful to you, then you’re not wishing them happiness at all. You are saying, in essence, “I wish you a happy time this holiday season, as long as it looks like the kind of happy time I have deemed acceptable.” I hope that you are a big enough person to love and worship who you love, and to let others do the same, and to wish them happiness in that pursuit.
And it’s not that anyone is offended by your “Merry Christmas”. It’s that, if they’re celebrating Kwanzaa or Ramadan or Hannukah, it means nothing to them. So why are you saying it? How would you, as a Christian, respond if someone wished you a Happy Hannukah?
My second question would be this: If those specific words- Merry Christmas- are so very meaningful and important to you, what, beyond speaking words, have you done this holiday season that is actually representative of that, and of the weight you place on this holiday? Sure, some people could make a list. But my guess is that the vast majority of people will struggle to come up with something. Cutting down a tree? Not based in Christianity. Actually based in pre-Christian traditions of keeping bad spirits away. Seeing Santa? Not Christian. Buying presents? Certainly not a reflection of the first Christmas. Don’t you think that the actual carrying out of these ideals is more powerful than yelling “Merry Christmas” at whoever’s face appears in front of you during the month of December?
The fair response that I’m bound to get for that is, “Well, what have YOU done?”
Absolutely nothing. Fair disclosure, I wouldn’t call myself a Christian- not because I don’t like Christianity, or reject Jesus, or anything like that. Quite honestly, I don’t have any idea what I believe in. But I don’t call myself a Christian because I don’t do a damn thing to exercise Christianity. Nothing. Calling myself Christian would be unfair to actual Christians.
In middle school, I went through two years of religious classes and was confirmed in the Lutheran church. Today, I have a gym membership, which I pay $10 a month for, and those two things have a lot in common. Signing up for a gym membership and occasionally going doesn’t make me fit. It makes me someone who pays $10 a month for the opportunity to access a gym. I went through catechism classes because it was important to my mother. I guess I could say that I’m Lutheran, but it doesn’t mean anything, if you saw the sort of Lutheran I am. The transformation is in the action. Saying Merry Christmas doesn’t make you a Christian either. If speaking the word Christ was all you had to do to be a Christian, I’m pretty sure we’d have a lot more converts.
No one is saying you have to be a perfect Christian. I am about the last person who would be chosen to judge that contest. But if you’re truly worried about Christmas being lost to the secular masses, why don’t you act on and spread that faith by actually doing something that reflects Christianity, instead of arguing over the design of a coffee cup. You know, like accepting others, regardless of their religion, sins, beliefs, lifestyle, etc., and wishing them a good holiday season.
Quite frankly, I don’t care if you do that. I don’t care if you’re as terrible a Lutheran as I am. But I do care if you’re pushing your beliefs on someone else and refusing to make room for all the people who are celebrating things at the same time you are by refusing such a simple action as saying the words “Happy Holidays”. What in the world happened to “Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Man”? Doesn’t the phrase “Happy Holidays” encompass that entire idea? And if you don’t want that- if you only want to wish a good season on people who believe the exact thing that you do- then you’re as bad a Christian as I am.
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