Regarding the phrase, "Happy Holidays..."?

as a boy in catholic grade school,long before the age of p.c.,i started using that salutation in deference to my jewish counterparts.

like you, i couldn't see the harm in showing respect for others belief systems,i never felt like it diminished my convictions,it was common courtesy,but at that time no one saw a need to force good manners down our throat,it was a matter of course.

I am going to explain something that I recently learned myself. It helped me.

Merry Christmas has been the norm in addressing wishes during the Christmas season. Now Christmas is actually Christ Mass. Then some time in came Happy Holidays and of course some would say this is not right. But now I believe it to be as I was told; Happy Holy Days. Reason is over the years they just shorted it from have a happy Holy Day to Holiday.

Then we have Xmas, I have been told that this is the greek letter for Christ. If so then it is Christmas in another form.

So for me I say Merry Christmas , Happy Holiday/Holy Day and even Xmas now has a Christ meaning.

Christmas is the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ which the world celebrates each year. God Bless and have a very Merry Christmas.

From my understanding of things....

Happy holidays became increasingly popular over the past 2-3 decades, to give a large timeframe. Blame political correctness, if you want, but some folks became increasingly sensitive to the fact that there's other holidays out there at this time of year. Maybe it was non-Christians who felt left out. Maybe it was retailers who wanted to court non-Christians. Maybe it was folks trying to be inclusive to non-Christians. Maybe some folks decided "Happy Holidays" was shorter than "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year". Maybe it was a combination of the above, and other reasons.

However, it started to become more popular. Some stores started using "Happy Holidays" as their official greetings - I've heard anecdotes about some places suggesting it, I've heard other anecdotes about other stores mandating it. I haven't seen any definative proof one way or the other, but I've seen that cited as a reason for some people to get annoyed.

Somewhere along the line, some people saw the increasing popularity of a phrase other than "Merry Christmas", combined it with the issues regarding public nativities, and decided that it was part of a large scale "War on Christmas." At the forefront was the "Happy Holidays" greeting, because, in their eyes, it was an attempt to "take Christ out of Christmas." Specifically being that, with the ever-increasing materialism of holiday shopping, not explicitly using the name "Christmas" somehow implied an attempt to excise Christ from the holiday, and turn it into a secular gift-giving frenzy.

Personally, I think it's an overreaction. They don't see it as "other religions wanting to have equal air time" - in part because they've long held the comfortable majority, so any upset of the power balance seems threatening. So, being told that a nativity can't sit in town square by itself - that it either has to be part of a multi-religious display or be taken down - stops being about treating everyone fairly and starts being "atheists attacking Christmas."

It's probably not helped by the problems that are plaguing Christianity these days. Membership is dropping, people are finding it lacks relevance, there's priest sex scandals, all sorts of things that seem to be a threat to Christianity. And when surrounded by threats, everything starts to look like a threat - which is what I think is happening here. It's not that other religions practing their beliefs in peace takes anything away from Christianity - but they perceive a crumbling power base, and see a shift from "explicitly Christian" to "multi-plural" as another example of how things are slipping from their grasp. Especially given the Christian mandate to evangelize - it makes it seem like they're "losing".

Wait just a minute! Happy Holidays became the norm because non and anti- Christians said that Merry Christmas offended THEM! Christians have been trying to say Merry Christmas for years while wading through this political correctness bullshyt. WE would LIKE to say Merry Christmas but America has tried to pawn off the phrase Happy Holidays as a generic acceptable way to greet people. So which is it with you liberals? Now you are saying we are offended by happy holidays? Which is it? I sure wish you'd make up your mind.

***I say Merry Christmas, and to hell with any of you who don't like it. And I hope that YOU get everything that you deserve for Christmas and the New Year.

Pax Romana in his bass ackward hate filled way actually did answer this question, or at least part of it. There has, in the past, been a small but noisy group of retarded non christians who decided that "Merry Christmas" would be offensive to them so they began pushing happy holidays.

In conjunction with the fact that retail establisments began to realize that they could also sell hannukah or even quanza products, both holidays that occur this time of year. So their marketing became more pluralistic as well.

Now combine this with the seeming fact that christians have this built in sense of persecution. I'm not talking about all christians of course. but haveing been one for a large part of my life I can positively say that part of the doctrine is that "the world" is evil and doesnt understand us... and that christians have to be "not of this world" like the irony free tshirt shop in the mall markets.

it all adds up to some xtians being offended by happy holidays. Which is of course retarded. If someone wants you to be happy or merry or blessed we should all take it inthe spirit in which it was said. I hope everyone on here has a merry merry christmas!

lol. I have been told "Happy Holidays" since I was a little kid about 40 years ago and it still doesn't offend me one bit. I am also a Christian that doesn't 'split hairs', and do 'witch hunts', and bring others down by being a 'kill joy'! We all need to Chill Out out there and just get some eggnog and a cookie and just stop all the non sense!

as long as no one tramples on my right to say merry Christmas if I want to I don't give a hoot what other people want to say. I would be very upset if an employer did not allow me to say Merry Christmas. I don't think Christians should compromise out of risk of offending people as Jesus already warned us we would never be popular. But honestly there are more important things to argue about.

I wonder if those people who get offended are working today. No, they are not, so this is a holiday regardless if they believe it or not. They should not be offended.

Because they are desperate to feel persecuted.

Karl P.'s my kind of Xtian. Break out the eggnog!

Pax Romano: Are you aware of just how idiotic and contradictory your answer is? You sound pretty offended by "Happy Holidays" to me.

I'm not indulging your desire for a hate-filled fight...maybe later.

But are you aware that holidays is holYdays, that it changed one more time than even you thought. :)