Happy holidays!<\/p>\n
I really mean that, for everyone reading this. My season\u2019s greeting isn\u2019t a political statement, nor \u2014 in keeping with the spirit of the season \u2014 should it be. And yet \u2026 too many folks from the preternaturally divisive president on down insist on making it so. As soon as Thanksgiving ends, the culture war of words begins.<\/p>\n
A friend, shopping for his family\u2019s Christmas dinner, was leaving a Washington-area grocery store when he saw a man pass a Salvation Army bell-ringer who was wishing shoppers \u201cMerry Christmas.\u201d The man reached his SUV, then spun around and returned to the woman.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause you said \u2018Merry Christmas\u2019 and not \u2018Happy Holidays,\u2019 I\u2019m giving you money,\u201d he told her, adding, \u201cAmerica\u2019s back!\u201d<\/p>\n
A small victory in the counteroffensive against the purported war on Christmas! I hope the man\u2019s donation was commensurate with the big point he apparently wanted to make, but I doubt it was. Because that would be a lot of money.<\/p>\n
If people like him really want everyone to have a merry Christmas, they\u2019d stop the culture-warring about a nonexistent war on Christmas.<\/p>\n
Until I was 18, each December I said \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d exclusively. But nearly everyone I knew in my working-class world was Catholic \u2014 relatives, classmates at the local Catholic school and most of our neighbors in the closely built houses of our community. A number of Protestants lived on the block, but just one Jewish family, next door. I envied that family\u2019s four kids at the holidays because they got Hanukkah and Christmas gifts (one parent was raised Christian). I was sorry they didn\u2019t get to enjoy the other traditions of a religious Christmas \u2014 the centuries-old hymns, the large cr\u00e8che, a church sanctuary brimming with flowers, garlands and candles, the wafting incense \u2014 but I knew they had their own cherished rituals through the year.<\/p>\n
The priests and nuns so prominent in my childhood endured the commercialization of Christmas, but they fought back nonetheless. Annually I\u2019d enter a contest sponsored by the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic men\u2019s group, that asked students from parochial elementary schools citywide to design a poster with the theme \u201cKeep Christ in Christmas.\u201d<\/a> I never received glad tidings that I\u2019d won.<\/p>\n And then, when I went away to college in a big city, suddenly I had Jewish and nonreligious friends and one who was Muslim. I came to appreciate firsthand the country\u2019s diversity (another term that\u2019s become a fighting word in these polarized times). I started saying \u201cHappy Holidays\u201d at Christmastime, as a gesture of inclusiveness and respect for others of different faiths or no faith. I reserved \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d for individuals and groups that I knew or assumed to be fellow Christians.<\/p>\n That\u2019s been my practice for decades. My career has been in mass media, which by definition serves a large, diverse audience, including people of varied or no religions. It makes sense for broadcasters, newspapers, news sites and other media outlets, as well as other corporations, to favor an inclusive phrase such as \u201cHappy holidays\u201d or \u201cSeason\u2019s greetings.\u201d<\/p>\n Besides, given the happy confluence of religious holidays in December, along with New Year\u2019s Eve, ecumenical greetings shouldn\u2019t be objectionable. Seems pretty Christian-like to me. Jesus Christ was Jewish, after all (and a poor refugee for a time <\/a>, having fled with his family to escape violence in their homeland). I hardly think that Christ would care whether someone said \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d or \u201cHappy holidays.\u201d (The root of \u201choliday\u201d is \u201choly day.\u201d Just sayin\u2019.)<\/p>\n Happy holidays, Merry Christmas: They aren\u2019t political statements. Unless you want them to be.<\/p>\n President Trump wants them to be. He\u2019s not the first to exploit the matter for political gain. Some on the right<\/a> have been doing so for my entire life, though the claims of a societal war on Christmas really picked up only in the past two decades, \u201cthanks\u201d especially to<\/a> Bill O\u2019Reilly<\/a> and Fox News<\/a> and to Republican politicians eager to score points among their evangelical voters. In 2005, President George W. Bush, despite calling himself a born-again Christian, got lots of lumps of coal<\/a> from conservative Christians when he sent out cards wishing more than a million supporters a happy \u201choliday season.\u201d<\/p>\n Ten years later, Trump \u2014 who rarely darkens the door of a church \u2014 took his escalator ride toward the presidency and soon made clear that he wouldn\u2019t make Bush\u2019s mistake. Even at summertime MAGA rallies, Trump rails against those who don\u2019t say \u201cMerry Christmas.\u201d In 2015, he told appreciative rally-goers, \u201cIf I become president, we\u2019re all going to be saying \u2018Merry Christmas\u2019 again, that I can tell you.\u201d<\/p>\n He\u2019s still telling us. Last week, Jimmy Kimmel ran video clips<\/a> of Trump doing so every year since 2015, including this month. For the panderer in chief, it\u2019s the gift that keeps on giving. \u201cYou weren\u2019t allowed to say \u2018Merry Christmas,\u2019\u201d he claimed last year. \u201cI got it back.\u201d<\/p>\n Once again Trump claims to have solved a problem that existed only in his mind.<\/p>\n For a guy who\u2019s so censorious about holiday greetings, however, Trump\u2019s own annual messages on social media are about as un-Christ-like as you could devise. What would Jesus do? He wouldn\u2019t come up with doozies like those Trump posted<\/a> on Christmas in 2024<\/a> assailing President Obama, \u201cRadical Left Lunatics\u201d and \u201cSleepy Joe Biden\u201d and wishing the people Biden had just pardoned to \u201cGO TO HELL!\u201d He\u2019d wished the same for Biden on Christmas in 2023.<\/p>\n The sentiment behind \u201cHappy holidays,\u201d much like what most of those who say \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d intend, is kind and heartfelt \u2014 a spirit we should all aspire to embrace and extend to strangers through the other 11 months of the year as well.<\/p>\n Which is why I feel sorry for the president and for that man at the suburban grocery who conditioned his contribution for the needy on whether a bell-ringer said \u201cMerry Christmas.\u201d Their carping at Christmas suggests something un-merry within them. Let the rest of us be happy at the holidays and wish the same to one and all.<\/p>\n Bluesky: @jackiecalmes<\/a>
Threads: @jkcalmes<\/a>
X: @jackiekcalmes<\/a><\/p>\n