Happy Holidays!
Does that offend you? It shouldn’t.
According to the definition of the word, all you are doing is telling people to enjoy their time off of work. Our lives are too short to get worked up about someone saying Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Blessed Kwanzaa, or whatever else can be celebrated.
Besides, you can’t always tell what another person celebrates. Our American society is a variety of marbles in a bowl. You can’t say the blue ones are Baptist, the green ones are Jewish, or the orange ones are Atheist. What if one of the blue marbles grew up in India, it might be Hindu. If a green marble grew up in Alabama, then it’s likely that marble is Baptist or Methodist. American marbles, no matter what color they are, come from many areas of the world. It’s this mix of cultures that makes saying, “Happy Holidays” relevant to our society today. I cannot tell if someone celebrates a specific holiday just by looking at them, can you? But I do wish them a festive time celebrating their beliefs.
I disagree with people who say that “Happy Holidays” disrespects their religion. In fact, it is just the opposite. I am honoring you with a wish for a happy celebration in your own way. If you were atheist and I said Happy Hannukah, now that might offend you. “Happy Holidays” is a generic way to greet people and wish them well during a time set aside for tradition.
Muddying the waters is Santa and the other “Christmas” traditions. That fat jolly man has been linked with Christmas for so long, how can a beautiful Menorah or the woven Kwanzaa Mkeka Mat compete. People of all religions borrow from these old traditions. Some Jewish families have a “Hanukkah bush” which looks remarkably like a Christmas tree. Many religions exchange gifts for whatever reason, during the “Holiday” season. Children in elementary schools make dreidels, and Kwanzaa mats in art classes. As more marbles are mixed, people learn more about different cultures and experience different traditions. There is nothing wrong with that.
I applaud any family that raises their children in a specific religion, that teaches their children faith and hope within the boundaries of their religious traditions. And, as long as they include a respect for other people and other people’s beliefs, I respect their wishes to say greetings specific to the religion they celebrate. If they tell me, “Merry Christmas” I will answer, “Merry Christmas.” If someone greets me with “Happy Hannukah” I will return the greeting in the same. But if I initiate the greeting, it will always be Happy Holidays.
So, what of the mashing of traditions? It upsets many people for many different reasons. I came across an article where the author found a store display of stuffed Santa bears labeled “Holiday and Hanukkah.” Her fear was that this labeling of blatantly Christmas items lumped with the term “Holiday” would create a false notion that Hanukkah was just Christmas for Jewish people.
I don’t think it was the stores intention to create this false notion. I’m not even sure others would have even had this thought. Probably, the store was doing what they could to be inclusive or offer diversity and had no idea it caused stress in the author. But no matter the reason it was done, could she have helped the store fix what she perceived as a problem? Could she have offered suggestions that would dispel the notion she thought it conveyed? What could she have done to help that store understand why she was upset?
What can we do now to promote understanding of other traditions?
The American bowl of marbles has a long way to go in terms of sifting out how to live together while keeping our cultural traditions. I think, “Happy Holidays,” is a start. It is a wish for happiness to all types of marbles no matter what their color or how they celebrate their unique culture.
· Holiday: a day marked by a general suspension of work in commemoration of an event (Mariam-Webster)
· Holiday: a day fixed by law or custom on which ordinary business is suspended in commemoration of some event or in honor of some person. Any day of exemption from work (distinguished from working day). . Dictionary.com
· Synonyms: Vacation, break, celebration, feast, festival, festivity, gala, layoff, recess, fete, fiesta, jubilee, leave, liberty
Comments