What's wrong with "Merry Christmas"?

[sistermagpie]

> Carol responds:
> 
> The problem with "Happy Holidays" is that it really refers to
> Christmas, the holiday that most Americans celebrate but are 
suddenly
> afraid to name.
> <SNIP>
> 
> Alla:
> 
> Where is the proof that americans are afraid to name it? I see 
quite 
> the contrary so far. If respecting other people holidays is being 
> equaled to being afraid to name Christmas?

Magpie:
Yes, I don't see it as having anything to do with being afraid to 
name Christmas--just to not name it when it's not appropriate. Happy 
Holidays doesn't only refer to Christmas. 

It's possible, I suppose, that it could feel that way. Tonks, for 
instance, mentioned growing up in a world that seemed exclusively 
Christian and so everybody figured that's all anybody celebrated and 
even felt comfortable saying things like "everyone's morals come from 
Christianity." Perhaps if you're suddenly expected to acknowledge 
other people (and that some of them, just like some Christians, might 
even be bitchy about it) might feel somehow disturbing. But feeling 
that way doesn't necessarily mean you ought to feel that way. 

> Carol:
>  Christmas trees have become holiday trees; Christmas
> stamps have become holiday stamps (even though Hanukkah and other
> holidays have their own stamps); Christmas cards have become holiday
> cards. It started with the supposed separation of church and state
> preventing kids from singing true Christmas carols (but not "Jingle
> Bells" or "Santa Claus is Coming to Town") in schools. Now some
> schools are afraid to put up Christmas trees for fear of offending 
> the
> four to six percent of children who don't celebrate Christmas.
> 
> Alla:
> 
> Supposed separation of church and state?

Magpie:
Yes, I don't think anybody's afraid to name the holiday. It's not 
that you're not ever supposed to name Christmas, it's that you don't 
want to priviledge it above something else. Compromises are not going 
to please everyone. It's not always wrong to say Christmas. But I 
still think it's significant that often people are so used to 
Christianity that being neutral becomes the same thing as being 
insulted--when of course that's what other people often learn to 
expect. Just as in countries where Christians are persecuted I'm sure 
Christians wouldn't expect to be greeted with Merry Christmas by 
anyone but other Christians. (I'm tempted to go off on insisting 
on "under God" in the Pledge...)

> Carol:
> I don't know anything about cemeteries objecting to pentacles (could
> someone possibly be mistaking them for pentagrams and mistakenly
> associating Wicca with Satanism?), but it's the same sort of thing.
> Your right to your religious symbols is being threatened, but so is
> the Christian majority's right to put up Nativity scenes, which have
> long been banned in public places (since the 1970s, I think?), but 
> now
> are vandalized if they appear on someone's lawn.
> <SNIP>
> 
> Alla:
> 
> Links please about vandalizing nativity scenes? I mean, I am sure 
it 
> could have happened somewhere sometimes even in the US, but are you 
> saying it is happening on the regular basis?

Magpie:
You can put a Nativity scene up in public--on your lawn where people 
can see it or in front of a church as far as I know. If somebody 
vandalizes it they're the one's breaking the law. There are, 
unfortunately, probably examples of every kind of decoration being 
vandalized. The vandalizing of a Navitiy scene doesn't necessarily 
have anything to do with religious persecution. In my home town 
somebody vandalized somebody's decorations, just tearing all the 
lights down. Totally shitty thing to do, but not religiously 
motivated, I don't think. Still if it is religiously motivated it's 
wrong, but I haven't heard of that happening so often.


-m