What's wrong with "Merry Christmas"?

[Carol]

Heidi:
> 
> If it's a friend or someone who you know doesn't celebrate
Christmas? Then possibly because you're forgetting or ignoring that
they don't celebrate it, which might make them feel that you don't
actually care about their religious beliefs.
> As someone said a few days ago, when it's your birthday you don't
wish everyone else a Happy Birthday; people wish it to you. If you are
speaking to someone who you know celebrates Christmas (or about whom
you can reasonably assume it, like someone buying a Christmas tree or
a slew of ornaments or who's wearing a Santa hat or a reindeer
sweater) then it's lovely to say. If you're saying it to someone who
is, say, wearing a Star of David or a yamulke, or whose basket is full
of blue giftwrap, or when you're leaving their Christmas-tree-free
household on December 22, then your behaviour is closer to
inconsideration than it is to genuine and heartfelt seasonal joy.
> Could you perhaps, next year, try to assume that when someone wishes
you a Happy Holidays, it's genuine and heartfelt, and see if you still
find the phrase as disconcerting as it sounds you have in the past? If
it's six of one and half a dozen of the other, then what's the harm in
doing so?

Carol responds:
"Happy holidays" from a store employee is about as genuine and
heartfelt as "Have a nice day." It's something the clerks are
programmed to say.

No one with a grain of sense would wish a person wearing a yamulke or
Star of David a Merry Christmas, any more than they'd wish a person
wearing a crucifix or a cross a Happy Hanukkah. It makes sense,
however, to wish a person wearing one or the other the appropriate
good wishes during the particular holiday. But when Hanukkah is over
and it's not yet Christmas, it's likely that people buying a lot of
gifts are Christmas shopping. And if that happens not to buy the case
and someone makes the logical assumption that we're buying Christmas
presents when we're not and wishes us a Merry Christmas, there's no
more need to get upset than when someone wishes a middle-aged woman a
happy Mother's Day on the assumption that she's a mother. Would you
get all huffy and say, "I don't have any kids, you moron?" or "How
dare you assume that I'm a mother just because other women my age have
kids?" No. You would courteously accept the good wishes and if the
clerk is a woman, say "Same to you." Or so I hope.

Unless you know that a person doesn't celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah
or whatever, there's nothing wrong with sincerely wishing them a happy
whatever. As I said, you can wish me Happy Kwanzaa or Happy Father's
Day, both of which it's obvious from looking at me are inapplicable,
and I'll smile and say "Thank you" or "Same to you." Or, if it happens
to be near Christmas (which it wouldn't be on Father's Day, granted),
I'll smile and say, "Merry Christmas."

Carol, wishing everyone a Happy New Year, with no offense intended to
those who celebrate the New Year at some other time, and wondering
whether she's the only person who still knows the lyrics to "Auld Lang
Syne"
> 
> - Heidi
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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