{"id":445,"date":"2011-11-29T12:42:08","date_gmt":"2011-11-29T19:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mikeycunningham.com\/blog\/?p=445"},"modified":"2011-11-29T12:42:08","modified_gmt":"2011-11-29T19:42:08","slug":"happy-holidays-yep-i-said-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mikeycunningham.com\/blog\/2011\/11\/happy-holidays-yep-i-said-it\/","title":{"rendered":"“Happy Holidays” … yep, I said it!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Tis the season… it’s the most wonderful time of the year… oh the weather outside is frightful… it’s beginning to look a lot like… (cue the dramatic ominous music)… THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS!!!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Is there anything more ridiculous?<\/p>\n

Our country has seen a lot of war. Real honest-to-goodness wars against real enemies who want to do real harm – wars that cost real lives, and spend real money, and inspire real protests.<\/p>\n

But at the end of every year, real people spend real time and real energy protesting a war that isn’t<\/strong><\/em> real.<\/p>\n

I will say this as clearly as I can:<\/p>\n

When I say “Happy Holidays” I am NOT<\/strong><\/em> trying to destroy your way of life.<\/p>\n

Some of you may not know me – so for the record, I am a Christian. I celebrate Christmas. I love<\/strong> Christmas. I recognize that Jesus wasn’t born in December, and I don’t care – I’m just glad he was born, and the fact that we celebrate his birth during my favorite season (winter!!) is just a bonus.<\/p>\n

I am a Christian, but I understand grammar. You see, I’ve looked at a calendar before, so I know that there is more than one holiday in December. There are other religious holidays – along with Christmas, there’s Ashura and Hanukkah and the Soltice. There are more modern made-up holidays – like Boxing Day and Kwanzaa and Festivus (for the rest of us!). And there are many more special days – some silly, some serious – that are celebrated in December, leading up to New Year’s Eve (another of my favorites!).<\/p>\n

So when I say “Happy Holidays”, I’m not trying to yank your Jesus away – I’m just being accurate. Note the ‘s’ on the end of “Happy Holidays”. The plural denotes that there are multiple holidays in the season. Remember, there are two types of people in the world: those who are bad at math…<\/p>\n

I am a Christian, but I am not a bully. I have friends who celebrate Christmas. But I also have friends who are Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, athiest, and a couple of wiccans and neo-pagans. They know I’m Christian. They don’t sit around waiting to pounce on me if I don’t mention Christmas in every conversation. “Ooooh, Mikey said ‘Happy Holidays’ – c’mon, let’s go convert him!”<\/p>\n

So, am I really going to freak out and write a letter and boycott a store or restaurant because an employee said “Happy Holidays” when I walked in, or put up a sign that says “Seasons Greetings”? Am I so weak in my faith that I insist that they respect MY<\/strong><\/em> faith above anyone else’s faith? Am I so insecure in my beliefs that I require preferential treatment in order to feel good about myself?<\/p>\n

Most religious traditions have some version of the Golden Rule, but Christianity is the source of the commonly quoted “official” version of it. It seems to me that we should act as though we believe it. If I want others to take me and my beliefs seriously – or at least respectfully – then shouldn’t I do the same?<\/p>\n

“Seasons Greetings” and “Happy Holidays” aren’t an intentional affront to your sensibilities. They aren’t a subtle attack by a vast left-wing cabal working behind the scenes to undermine the basic tenets of your worldview.<\/p>\n

I know this because I rarely miss a cabal meeting.<\/p>\n

They’re simply a recognition that Christians aren’t alone in the world. And if that is enough to undermine the basic tenets of your worldview, maybe there are larger issues for us to discuss… <\/p>\n

So – to those of you who participate, I’d like to say “Merry Christmas.” And to everyone<\/strong><\/em>, “Happy Holidays”… and may we all have a Happy New Year!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tis the season… it’s the most wonderful time of the year… oh the weather outside is frightful… it’s beginning to look a lot like… (cue the dramatic ominous music)… THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS!!! Is there anything more ridiculous? Our country<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mikeypedia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mikeycunningham.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mikeycunningham.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mikeycunningham.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikeycunningham.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikeycunningham.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikeycunningham.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":452,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikeycunningham.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions\/452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mikeycunningham.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikeycunningham.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikeycunningham.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}