Merry Christmas!
I wish all my readers a very Merry Christmas!
If you think greetings such as “Happy Holidays” or “Season’s Greetings” are poor substitutes for “Merry Christmas,” you’ve got company.
A USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday finds that 69% of adults surveyed say “Merry Christmas” is the greeting they most likely would use this time of year when first meeting someone. That’s up from 56% in 2004. Only 29% would opt for “Happy Holidays,” down from 41% in 2004.
The “Merry Christmas” preference appears to cross religious boundaries, including non-Christians and respondents who say they have no religious affiliations. USATODAY.com
December 25th, 2005 at 11:29 am
A very Merry Christmas to you and Nancy!
December 27th, 2005 at 9:31 am
I recall that many years before there was such a thing as “political correctness”, many Christmas cards and other media used the term “happy holidays”. It was common and accepted and was taken as virtually the same thing as saying “merry christmas”, but had the added benefit of including the greeting “happy new year”, because it, by being plural, covered both holidays. I fail to understand how its use can be considered to degrade using the word “Christmas”, and methinks some make too big a deal out of what amounts to nothing. I for one, enjoy hearing “happy holidays”, and I rather strongly suspect many others do as well.
December 27th, 2005 at 4:06 pm
I don’t know about political correctness and all of that, as if that would surprise any of you. I just know that in the Midwest where I was raised, we said “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.” I never heard the verbal greeting, “Happy Holidays” until recently, and then only once.
I don’t consider “Happy Holidays” degrading but then neither do I object to someone saying “Merry Christmas,” “Happy Hanukkah”, “Happy Kwanzaa”, or just plain old “Seasons Greetings.” It’s about whatever you may celebrate at this time of year.