What's wrong with "Merry Christmas"?

[Carol]

Susan:
> 
> 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!
>
Carol responds:

Except that Hanukkah this year began at sunset on December 4 and
ended, if my calculations are correct, on the evening of December 12.
(In 2005, it was different as the first day of Hanukkah was December
25, but, stil, Hanukkah hadn't begun yet when the clerks were wishing
the shoppers "Happy holidays." And I doubt that the store clerks who
are wishing their customers "Happy holidays" as they come to the
counter with purchases obviously intended as gifts are thinking about
Yule or are even familiar with the customs involved. 95 or 96 percent
of Americans celebrate Christmas, and I'm willing to bet that most of
the people who are wished "Happy holidays" are *Christmas* shoppers.
But the store managers, afraid of offending a small minority of their
customers, even those buying Christmas trees or Christmas decorations,
instruct their employees to ignore the very holiday that the vast
majority of those customers are planning to celebrate. (Obviously,
they're not celebrating Hanukkah when it's already over with.)

Carol, who would rather be wished a sincere Happy *Father's* Day when
she's obviously not a father, or a happy Ramadan or happy Kwanzaa,
which she doesn't celebrate, than a generic, empty, meaningless "Happy
Holidays" by someone who is afraid to offend me by naming a holiday
which ought to be synonymous with peace on Earth, goodwill to men,
erm, humankind