Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays?

In today's world, it isn't uncommon for me to encounter someone, who makes a snide remark when I use the word "Christmas." They will say something like, "are you sure you don't mean the holidays?" They are of course referring to what some call the secularization of Christmas. In reality the practice of some commercial businesses using "holidays" instead of Christmas is their concern that they continue to appeal to someone of the Jewish faith or the other faiths, which do not celebrate Christmas. After all, the demographics of this country are changing and there is no state Christian religion in this country.

Some 20 years ago I was the manager of New Echota Historic Site near Calhoun, Ga. One year we began a tradition of holding a Christmas program in the restored home of Samuel A. Worcester, a New England missionary. The Rev. Worcester was a Congregationalist. I began doing some further research into Christmas in the Cherokee Nation, but could find no reference to Christmas in Worcester's diary. Since the Moravian missionaries, who also resided in the Cherokee Nation, kept extensive diaries, I moved to them to see what I could find. They wrote frequently during December of their Christmas preparations and celebrations.

It was then that I recalled a book I had read in graduate school, "Paul Revere and the World He Lived In" by Esther Forbes. On page 31 of that book Forbes writes, "...Paul found a way to make money for himself out of another church. Christ was Episcopal, a denomination that smelt a little to the Congregationalist of idolatry and brimstone, but even more sweetly (as other small Puritans remembered) of Christmas greens. Christmas was carefully not observed in such churches as Cockerel, but the Congregationalist children loved to sneak off to the Episcopal churches at Christmas-time and smell the greens." Cockerel was the Revere family church and, obviously, Congregational. Thus, the reason the Congregationalist, Worcester, made no reference to Christmas.

The staunch Puritan, Presbyterian, and Congregationalists of the time would have a major hissey-fit (southern for temper tantrum, usually by a female) if they could see today's world and what Christmas has become both to the secular and the Christian world. It is interesting that in their past they had seen Christmas celebrated in many ways, much like it is today, with much revelry. They felt that it was far too secular and refused to take part in such a celebration. What is that expression? History repeats itself?

Now, today, when we have much revelry and a major emphasis on gifts and the economy of Christmas, many people, especially those of the more conservative churches, decry the failure to refer to Christmas, when discussing this holiday. Instead of following the lead of the Congregationalists and backing away from a celebration, as they have done with Halloween, these folks seem to embrace the secular, celebratory and economic aspects of the holiday and demand that it be referred to as Christmas. At the same time they express concern for the over-secularization of it.

I have, for many years, wished my friends and co-workers "happy holidays" or to "have a safe holiday season," referring, of course, to both Christmas and New Year's. People raise their eyebrows at me, when I do this. I mean nothing derogatory. It's just easier than saying "merry Christmas and a happy New Year," over and over.

Since people are critical of my "heathen" behavior, it makes me even more likely to continue it. I don't like people reading too much into what I say. One of my blog readers, or maybe former blog readers, (I think she has given up on me, since she couldn't convert me to an Anti-Obama-ite.) is always reading much more into what I have written than she should. I am usually pretty blunt, and there is nothing more between the lines. So, with Christmas. I frequently refer to Christmas, but I might also refer to the "holidays." Please do not read something that isn't there.