Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas?

Are you a Happy Holidays kind of person or a Merry Christmas person?  If you are former, phooey on you.  If you are the later, keep up the good work!

For a number of years now the far Left has been attacking Christmas.  And they are still at it.

Catholic Stand has published a number of articles over the years about the Left’s attempt to secularize Christmas (here, here, and here, for instance).  I suspect the Left has also been trying to formulate a plan to de-Christianize Easter.  So far, however, praise the Lord, they haven’t been able to come up with anything that works.

The attack on Christmas started in the 1980s.  Atheists and Satanists tried to have Nativity scenes (creches) banned from government (i.e., public) property.  The tactic was only partially successful.  They did succeed in getting the Christmas Season to be referred to as the ‘Holiday Season.’

But they lost the bigger battle.  Nativity scenes are allowed (Lynch v. Donnelly, 1984) on government property as long as they are part of a display erected to “celebrate the Holiday recognized by Congress and national tradition and to depict the origins of that Holiday.”

But the left takes its victories where they can.  So, now we hear a lot of “Happy Holidays” during the Advent and Christmas Seasons. “Merry Christmas” – the greeting that acknowledges the real reason for the season – is slowly fading away.

Capitulating to the Left

Recently the Detroit Catholic diocesan newspaper published an article about how to respond when someone says ‘Happy Holidays.’  The article advised people to respond “in kind,” so as not to “stir up unnecessary hostility.”  I completely disagree with this advice.

The “Happy Holidays” greeting / response is capitulation, poor and simple.  It is an acknowledgement that we are no longer celebrating the birth of Our Lord and Savior during the Christmas Season.  And just like with the attempt to eliminate Nativity scenes from public property, eliminating “Merry Christmas” as a greeting during the Christmas Season flies in the face of the Supreme Court ruling in Lynch v. Donnelly:

“To forbid the use of this one passive symbol while hymns and carols are sung and played in public places including schools, and while Congress and state legislatures open public sessions with prayers, would be an overreaction contrary to this Nation’s history and this Court’s holdings.”

Just as a Nativity scene/creche is a symbol that acknowledges the reason for the season, so, too, does the greeting “Merry Christmas.”

Despite what the far Left, or their enablers, have been trying to do, the United States is still a Christian nation.  In fact, there are more Christians in the entire world than practitioners of any other religion.

According to worldpopulationreview.com, “Christmas is celebrated in some capacity by nearly every country in the world (see full table at page bottom) and billions of people across the globe. Christmas is both a religious and a cultural/secular holiday, incorporating not only the birth of Christ but also many nonreligious traditions such as gift-giving, the decoration of trees, gathering with loved ones, and a general sentiment of peace and good will.”

Other Holidays are not Christmas

There are other holidays, such as Hanukkah, celebrated by other cultures and religions during the month of December, but none of these holidays are as baked into our culture as is Christmas.  None of these other holidays holds a candle to the importance of Christmas in Western Culture.

Christmas is why we put up Christmas trees (they are not ‘holiday trees’).

And Christmas is the reason we put up Christmas lights (they are not holiday lights) and decorate our homes and even businesses.

Christmas is also the reason radio stations play Christmas music (it’s not holiday music) and why we sing Christmas Carols.

And Christmas is why broadcasters show Christmas movies so often during December and feature Christmas Specials (no, they are not ‘holiday specials’).

Christmas is also the reason everything shuts down on December 25.

And Christmas is the reason people go to church on December 25, even if they don’t go to church the rest of the year, except for Easter Sunday.

So let’s stop all this Happy Holidays nonsense.  Let’s not capitulate to the far Left and their enablers who say a secular greeting is less offensive.

Just As an Aside . . .

The Left’s hypocrisy is almost boundless, and it is eminently so in this instance.  Catholics and other Christians must be tolerant of the disbelief and immorality exhibited by so many on the Left, yet the Left refuses to tolerate the beliefs and morals given to the entire world by God.  We must forgo the belief that the Son of God made man was born to redeem us 2,000 years ago.

This push, in recent years, to over-sensitize people to what others find “offensive” is a bunch of garbage.  Its sole aim is to indoctrinate people with leftist ideologies, and perhaps even to demasculinize men.

In years gone by, people were actually more tolerant than they are today.  People told Irish jokes, Polish jokes, Italian jokes, Swedish jokes, and many other ethnic and cultural jokes with abandon.  Everyone knew they were just jokes, meant to poke fun and elicit a laugh or a chuckle.  If you said “Merry Christmas” to someone who was Jewish, the person would likely respond “And a Happy Hanukkah to you!”  No offense meant, none taken.

But try telling an ethnic joke today (unless it’s a redneck joke – about the kind of folks who cling to their Bibles and guns), and you are almost certain to hear someone say “That’s offensive to the (insert ethnicity here).”  This is because our government schools have taught our children to be “overly” sensitive for many years now.  A better phrase is thin-skinned.  This is why we have restrictive speech codes on college campuses and have “therapy dogs.”

Say ‘No’ to Secularization

The constant haranguing and propaganda from the Left has overly influenced too many Catholics and Christians.  They are allowing themselves to be beaten down.  More people need to recognize it for what it is – propaganda aimed at paganizing Orthodox Catholics and Christians.  It is a blatant attempt to secularize the country.  It is the devil’s propaganda aimed at de-Christianizing the world.

Now don’t get me wrong, there are some things about which everyone should be more aware.  We should not be tolerant of bullying or degrading racist humor.  But the Left has become dictatorial on what should and should not be tolerated.  And theirs is anything but a wise and benevolent dictatorship.

Merry Christmas!

So the next time someone wishes you “Happy Holidays,” reply with “And just what holidays are you celebrating?”  Chances are the response will be a dumbstruck look, or an insincere “all of them.”

Then simply respond, “Well, at this time of year almost the entire world is celebrating Christmas, just as I am.  So Merry Christmas to you!”

Of course, if the response to your question is “Christmas,” you can happily reply, “Well then, a very Merry Christmas to you, too!”