I'm not offended when the phrase "Merry Christmas" is replaced with "Happy Holidays". Are you? Should I be? I guess I'm not easily offended and I wonder if I should be more offended by stuff like this. It seems to me there is a lot more important stuff to be concerned with.
7 comments:
I'm not really offended either. I mean, christmas was coopted by the americanism years ago...I feel like I need to go put stuff on my credit card so that people will know I love them because i bought them junk.
i'm editing...remove "the" before americanism. that's better.
In my opinion, people who are offended by the phrase "Happy Holidays" are generally people who have a "persecution complex"
They see this as Christian persecution and feel that this is the shortcut to Heaven (see the beatitudes).
I, however, think that this is quite a stretch...After all, my understanding is that "Holiday" comes from "holy day" or something.
I was going to comment earlier and I am glad I didn't. The other commenters are much smarter than me. So let me just say that I don't think I have ever been offended by anything anybody has ever said or done and I completely agree with what Mr. E-Rock said.
I don't think I am necessarily offended, but it does bother me sometimes. Not when someone at the store says it, bc I don't know where they are coming from (Jewish, atheist, Christian?) and that's totally fine with me. It's the spirit of the season that matters, so when people start throwing fits about Nativity displays and changing Christmas break to winter break, to me it seems like they are hijacking the season. And I don't think I have a persecution complex, I think I have a "Christmas is a national and Christian holiday" complex, its called Christmas on the calendar, so Merry Christmas everybody! And anyone who feels like they have to go buy a bunch of junk to embody the spirit of Christmas is missing the point entirely. Just my opinion, but you asked :)
Jessica, You're right, I did ask and I'm glad you responded. And, I'm not offended by your response, either! I agree with you about trying to be aware that people are all coming from different faiths and I think it's important for Christians to respect that.
Kyle: I doubt you really mean that you have never been offended by anything anyone has ever said? If that's true, I would be worried for you! Certainly, Christians (and people in general) should be offended by things such as racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. This are the issues that should offend us and cause us to act, not the phrase "happy holidays" replacing "Merry Christmas".
i thought of this earlier today- it goes both ways. There are some people who do get offended when people reference christmas by saying christmas break or Merry Christmas or having a Christmas parade... I don't get people who throw fits about that...Basically, I am trying to say that I don't see much reason to get upset about someone saying "Happy Holidays" but I also don't get those who are upset about someone saying "Merry Christmas"
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