Happy Holidays was really never designed to be less offensive. How many of our non-Christian friends are offended by being wished Merry Christmas? How many, even as non-Christians, wish us a Merry Christmas? Happy Holidays was intended by the secular fundamentalists to deny our country’s multi-cultural tradition of not only tolerating different religions but celebrating different religions. In an unsightly escalation of the War on Christmas, a professor in Florida advised this season’s well-wishers to go well beyond dropping the C-word — beyond even “Season’s Greetings” and the nondescript “Happy Holidays” — to say, “Happy Federal Holiday,” before rushing off to celebrate whatever it is one does to commemorate a federal holiday.
If “Happy Federal Holiday” is the way Caesar would co-opt Christmas cheer, “Happy Holidays” is Mammon’s. It’s a phrase that evokes Muzak even more than multiculturalism. Nobody would ever say Happy Federal Holidays to a person they know.
Perhaps the progressive language police live somewhere where everyone is waiting to take offense at something, but this isn’t the America I know, or that most people know. Recently on CNN, Hindu Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard graciously accepted a “Merry Christmas” from Jake Tapper and Wolf Blitzer, who is Jewish. For non-Christians, odds are their friends and neighbors of other faiths know enough about their religious observances to wish them a happy Ramadan, Hanukkah, Festivus, or winter solstice.
The secular fundamentalists’ intention all along was to push Christianity out of the public square in order to more easily promote their secular world view. It’s not a coincidence that when polls ask about Americans’ preference for ‘Happy Holidays,’ versus the more traditional Merry Christmas, it’s in relation to what they would rather hear from a store clerk. ‘Happy Holidays’ is the corn flakes of holiday valedictions — a bland product invented by left-wing quasi-religious fanatics to emasculate religion.
To some people in 21st century secular fundamentalist America, even a holiday is an excuse to make people walk on eggshells.
There’s one man in the presidential race who understands that frustration, and he’s bringing political incorrectness back.
On December 19, Donald Trump told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins that, “One of the things I always say, and I say it lightheartedly but I mean it — it’s actually not supposed to be so lighthearted — and I get standing ovations, especially in Iowa and certain places — is we are going to start saying ‘Merry Christmas’ again.”
Good for Trump.
To most people Merry Christmas comes naturally, and Happy Holidays is an adjustment. If you hear more of the former this year, it could be because Trump’s popularity as a bombastic, sometimes transgressive speaker has started to rub off. To some people, even saying Merry Christmas might feel downright naughty.