The past few years the Merry Christmas debate has been brewing something fierce. Retail stores were being reprimanded for saying “Merry Christmas” so the Christmas season was referred to as the Holiday Season. Afterall Christmas is not the only holiday that falls in December so it makes sense. However, things got a little out of hand. It seemed a war had been started between the Christmas people and the Holiday people. People were getting offended left and right. If you said Merry Christmas to someone who didn’t celebrate it they were annoyed, and if you said Happy Holidays to someone who celebrated Christmas they were confused. You really couldn’t win either way.

It seems that the backlash about Merry Christmas has started to flip the other way, and now the Happy Holidays bandwagon seems to be driving off into the sun set. Merry Christmas is back with a vengence! There is even a Save Merry Christmas campaign. This is getting serious! The war over how to greet people and what can and cannot be promoted in holiday advertising in heating up. Personally, I am not all that concerned. Yes I do celebrate Christmas and I do like hearing Merry Christmas. I never really understood why people got so bent out of shape over it. If someone says Merry Christmas to you and you don’t celebrate it, so what? It is still meant to be a joyful greeting. If someone said Happy Kwanza to me I wouldn’t take it as a bad thing, and I wouldn’t say I don’t do that! I would say thanks and move on. I think the whole thing has gotten a little carried away. I usually stick with Happy Holidays when greeting people just to cover all my bases with the possible holidays they might celebrate. But being that Christmas is one of the most commerical holidays there is and one that brings in millions of dollars for retailers throughout the world, I don’t think it is weird to use the phrase in stores. I think the whole idea of getting into the holiday spirit (regardless of which one you celebrate) should make people a little more relaxed about this whole thing.
Enjoy your holiday season, whatever you celebrate. Tis the season to not get pissed off by the way you are greeted when you walk into Target. Ho ho ho.

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