[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: What's wrong with "Merry Christmas"?

[Heidi Tandy]

On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 2:35 pm, Carol wrote:

> (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."

But neither had Christmas, unless you're assuming that people were only 
wishing customers a Merry Christmas on the 24th of December, which is at 
least Christmas Eve Day.

I could argue that the holiday season - yes, including Chanukah, Yule, 
Kwanza, Christmas and New Year's - starts the day after Thanksgiving and 
ends on New Year's Day. So a whole week of the holiday season is *after* 
Christmas (excluding those who celebrate according to the Eastern 
Orthodox calendar who don't celebrate until January anyway) - and here 
in Miami, it really doesn't end until Three Kings Day, which on January 
6 is about two weeks after the end of Christmas Day.

So stores that put up decorations and signage for the season have an 
economic reason to decorate for the whole of the holiday season, rather 
than change it as one passes and another begins. I don't know about your 
local newspapers or other things that are more ephermal, but ours 
banners the specific holiday on the appropriate day.

> 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.)

Why are obvious presents only for Christmas? People do exchange gifts 
for Kwanza, and some of us are forced to celebrate our birthdays in late 
December and early January. Others of us are taking advantage of the 
sales that usually mesh with Christmas, not with Chanukah, and 
fulfilling the IOUs that our relatives actually got on the holiday.

I do agree with you that if someone is buying a Christmas tree, wishing 
them a Merry Christmas is understandable, especially far before New 
Year's Eve, but if it's generic "presents" then what's wrong with 
wanting to not be presumptive?

Heidi