While I worked retail during college (in a very diverse urban area), I said Merry Christmas to hundreds (probably thousands) of customers.

During that time, I never once encountered a person who was angry or even remotely offended that I wished them Merry Christmas.

I have however encountered numerous people who were very upset that someone once wished them happy holidays.

I think it’s important to put the “war on Christmas” in context. We are at the tail end of a long period of removing religion from the public sphere, something that has happened more aggressively in the US than in the rest of the world. (Many European countries, after all, still have state-supported churches!) One segment of society has decided that freedom of religion and an inclusive society means freedom from religion, and has been very successful pushing that view in courts. Thus, removal of nativity scenes from public grounds, restrictions on school sponsorship of religious activities, restrictions of state funding of religious-affiliated groups, etc. So when people are mad about “happy holidays” they’re reacting to all of that.

And “happy holidays” is a passive aggressive thing to say. 90% of Americans celebrate Christmas. When people say happy holidays, they mean merry Christmas. “Happy holidays” is a form of erasure—a refusal to acknowledge Christianity without also acknowledging other religions in the same breath.

> When people say happy holidays, they mean merry Christmas. “Happy holidays” is a form of erasure—a refusal to acknowledge Christianity without also acknowledging other religions in the same breath.

This is a bit much. I say “happy holidays” out of respect for the fact that a lot of people I know aren’t Christian, but still enjoy that time of year for whatever reason they choose, be it other religious reasons, nostalgia for family traditions they don’t believe in religiously, or just plain consumerism being fun.

>We are at the tail end of a long period of removing religion from the public sphere, something that has happened more aggressively in the US than in the rest of the world. (Many European countries, after all, still have state-supported churches!)

That's technically true, but it's misleading. Religion is much more important in public life in the US than in most of Europe. For example, this kind of thing wouldn't happen in most European countries: https://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/16/tonights-obam...

I say this as someone who doesn't believe that what most people describe as separation of church and state is required by the constitution btw.

>And “happy holidays” is a passive aggressive thing to say. 90% of Americans celebrate Christmas. When people say happy holidays, they mean merry Christmas. “Happy holidays” is a form of erasure—a refusal to acknowledge Christianity without also acknowledging other religions in the same breath.

Happy Holidays has existed since at least the middle of the 19th century, and has been popular since the 30s--long before people cared about recognizing other religions. Trump even said it publicly fairly often over the years.

The family members I know who have a problem with the "War on Christmas" literally think that globalists are trying to force people to stop celebrating Christmas because that's what their media tells them.

Huh? Bing Crosby sang "Happy Holidays". It's a perfectly, entirely banal thing to say. I'm mystified by the emotional valence conservatives have given it --- and by the notional (and I think fictitious) concern that conservatives have that "Merry Christmas" is unsafe to say, as if every random shop you walked into in Chicago in December wouldn't greet you that way.

One thing I have thinking about recently is that there is a class of hostile behaviors which only seem to manifest online.

This is the stuff that people usually don't have the balls to say in the real world -- only when they're shielded by a computer screen.

For instance last night a friend of mine posted a photo on Facebook of the two of us being out for a drink.

A woman who I have worked with in the past immediately messaged me on Facebook and told me I looked fat in the photo. (I didn't, and I'm not.)

Wtf? I'm sure she never would have had the guts to say that in person.

I think a lot of the worst preachy PC behavior policing, like telling people it's insensitive to wish people a Merry Christmas, happens mostly online or in echo chambers. The majority of people live out their lives being reasonably restrained and trying to get along with other people, then on the Internet they turn into a dick.

Which is one reason why it can seem hostile to some people when the reaction to online anti-Christmas dickery makes it's way onto the walls of a real life restaurant.

They've never experienced said online dickery themselves, so they don't understand the context. If they happen to be the kind of person who says happy holidays, it can feel like an attack on them instead of a response to someone else.

Similarly if you walk into a restaurant and the owner has posters on the wall that all say things like "You'll never make me eat meat.", it might come across as a little hostile to you as a carnivore. Despite the fact that it's a reaction against some online troll, not you.

Also I'm absolutely certain that the reaction against the "War on Christmas" is 10,000 times larger than the actual "War on Christmas."

I had a relative tell me how nice it was to finally be able to say Merry Christmas again the Christmas after Trump was elected. Seriously? Who was stopping you? Obama said it every single year in an official White House Christmas greeting video.

> I think a lot of the worst preachy PC behavior policing, like telling people it's insensitive to wish people a Merry Christmas, happens mostly online or in echo chambers.

For what is worth, the only places I've seen this entire "merry christmas" thing being a problem has been as a backlash against corporations trying to look more inclusive by saying happy holidays in a period where there are multiple holidays being celebrated by multiple religions, but might just be my own filter bubble.

A lot of the war of Christmas is actually fake news made up by very socially conservative bad actors or newspapers trying to sell papers - the Daily Mail is one UK example

Ironically some of the Ultra hard-line puritan sects that colonised America where violently against Christmas

> I have however encountered numerous people who were very upset that someone once wished them happy holidays.

Sadly, we can't run the experiment where you start wishing people Happy Hannukah and measure how that goes.