It seems that this year there has been more of a furor over the phrase “Happy Holidays.” Fox News runs stories about “The War On Christmas” and I’ve seen about fifty Facebook status updates with some variation of “It’s NOT Happy Holidays, it’s Merry CHRISTmas!” It was bad enough ten years ago with all the anger over the X in Xmas, which come to find out isn’t a controversy at all, just ignorance. But now some Christians feel the need to sternly correct the minimum-wage cashier at the grocery store who mumbles “Happy Holidays” as she hands over the receipt.
There may be a war on Christmas. I’m pretty sure some people are doing things to diminish Christ’s role. But how should we respond? Yell “It’s CHRISTMAS you &*#$^@#&!” at the top of our lungs? Should we just be nice? Should love and a smile be the take-home message that poor cashier receives or misplaced indignation?
The thing is, Saturnalia was celebrated hundreds of years before Christmas. Lots of other people have celebrated during the winter solstice long before Christians took over December for Christmas. Judaism, from which we have a much of the Christian tradition (btw Jesus was Jewish) celebrated Hanukkah long before Christ was born. If anything, instead of being miffed that people are stealing our holiday maybe we could be a little more humble in our reply of “Merry Christmas” and leave out the angst. Maybe we can give a gift of tenderness?