What's wrong with "Merry Christmas"?

[susanmcgee48176]

> 
> When a company that I do business with in the U.S. and the U.K. both 
> send me the same e-greeting card after 5:00pm on Dec. 24th and the 
> one from the U.S. says "Happy Holliday" and the one from the U.K. 
> says "Merry Christmas", that says to me that the corportations in 
> the U.S. are going overboard on political correctness. Just 
> what "holiday" are they talking about? CHRISTMAS! Damn it... call it 
> what it IS.
> 
> Tonks_op
>

Except that Christmas is NOT the only holiday celebrated in December 
in the United States. There is Chanukah and the Winter Solstice/Yule.
That's the whole point!

When you say, the Holiday is Christmas..you are making the people (I 
don't buy the 96% stat from Fox News, but whatever) who do NOT 
celebrate Christmas invisible. You are saying that you are NOT wishing 
them joy of THEIR holiday. ONLY Christmas will be celebrated, DAMN IT!
The rest don't matter, because they are in a minority. I thought that 
the American tradition was protecting the rights of the minority. 

A while back, I ruminated on the fact that I had always considered 
myself a "real" "patriotic" American...but maybe the American 
tradition that *I* value....the one where church and state are 
separated, where religious tolerance (as Jefferson, a founding father 
wrote about so eloquently in the statue of religious tolerance in 
Virginia)......the one where diversity is celebrated, where resistance 
to tyranny is considered valuable...the America of people who buck the 
system, fight for justice, and make real change...maybe that's not the 
SAME America that SOME people value..maybe they value the America of 
the McCarthy Era, the Palmer Raids, the extermination of Native 
Americans, the internment of Japanese Americans, the enslavement of 
African Americans, etc.


What I don't really understand about this ongoing conversation..is the 
lack of charity. When I was brought up as a Roman Catholic I was 
taught that "the greatest" of the virtues was love or charity. To me, 
compassion and caring is one of the paramount values, and I thought 
that was what the Christian religion purported to teach. That would 
mean the utmost respect for other people. If you were applying for a 
job, and someone wanted to be called Mrs. would you call her Miss? 
Probably not...so why not call people what they want to be called, and 
greet them in the way they want be greeted even though they are a 
minority and don't have power over you?

Why insist on YOUR holiday being the norm, enshrined as the MOST 
IMPORTANT and only REAL or valid holiday..why not take personal and 
private joy, celebrate with your co-religionists, and be happy? Why is 
there this need to impose YOUR holiday on EVERYone?

I'm afraid I see no evidence of Christianity being repressed or 
Christians being oppressed here in the United States. The most recent 
news article *I* saw was about a nativity scene being shown at a 
courthouse, so someone put up a Yule/wiccan symbol...guess which 
symbol was vandalized? (I'm happy to post urls, etc.)

If you think oppression or repression is a clerk at a store wishing 
you "Happy Holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas" you have not 
experienced oppression. Oppression is about name-calling, assaults, 
deprivation of family, job, housing, health care, etc. etc. etc. It's 
about depriving someone of the right to celebrate their holiday.

I think Christians are SO used to Christmas being the norm that if it 
is not explicitly mentioned in every other breath, they decide that 
people are "diluting it." I don't think so. I think there is a 
consciousness that is growing in the United States that NOT EVERYONE 
thinks or believes the same things. I think there is a burgeoning 
awareness that courtesy means NOT assuming that everyone is white, or 
Christian, or heteroseuxal.

Christianity is NOT the state religion in the U.S. (as the Muslim 
religion is in some countries)

Also, I'm disheartened that no one heard what I said about some 
people, particularly the homeless, the hungry, those that Christ cared 
about..having a particularly hard time with Christmas, and Christmas 
greetings.....does no one have a care for them?

And, although this is new year for most people in the United States, 
teh Cambodians celebrate new year in April...Vietnamese and Chinese 
celebrate the new year at Tet which is somewhere in January or 
February..not everyone is on the same calendar.

Why is it so difficult to rejoice and delight in our own beliefs and 
heritage, and at the same time, understand that others do not share 
them and that is fine?

In terms of the dilution of Christmas? Here in California (supposedly 
home of diversity), I have been to tne or eleven "holiday" concerts...
for our children. In most of them, there has been no mention of the 
Yule or Solstice....usually a token Chanukah mention (but not always), 
and a TON of Christmas carols, including specifically religious one 
such as "It came upon a midnight clear.." or "We three Kings of Orient 
are..." I see this as oblivious and disrespectful of other 
traditions...but frankly, it's not a battle worth fighting for me 
right now.
How is it repressing Christmas?

How often are there Christian prayers in the Senate and the House of 
Representatives and how often are there prayers from other religions?

I also know of another story about how an Army Chaplain who was 
Christian (I think Presbyterian) decided that he was Wiccan instead, 
and was no longer allowed to be a chaplain (again, I can find the news 
story).

Susan