Here we are again, the Holiday Season! I love it! BUT……sometimes the overuse of “holiday” drives me nuts. I have no problem with it, really, but when the use of it is illogical and sounds strangely weird, like in “Holiday Cookie Jar” it just ruins the spirit of the season for me. Okay, maybe it doesn’t ruin it, but it makes me think about things I would prefer to not think about….. So here goes….
If you live in the USA, how offended (if at all) are you when someone says…Happy (blank)?
Here’s my issue: If you Google search “Hanukkah Cookie Jar” or “Kwanzaa Cookie Jar” you get a big zero on the hit list. You get a few nice recipes, that’s it. Google “Christmas Cookie Jar” and you realize that this thing DOES exist, and it is used quite often.
My only issue is when organizations paint “Holiday” over everything EVEN if it makes ZERO sense and sounds ridiculous. What would be wrong with a respectful “Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!”, or even ‘gag’, “Christmas and Winter Holiday Cookie Jar”, or just “Cookie Jar!”. How about “Christmas and Holiday gift wrap”, or “Christmas and Holiday Party”. All I’m asking is that the majority is recognized and not omitted. Is that wrong?
It is my opinion that there wouldn’t be a “Holiday Party” celebrated like it is today if there was no Christmas. Am I missing something?
PLEASE let me know your thoughts!
Filed under: Politics, Short Thoughts | Tagged: Atheism, atheist, Buddhism, Christianity, christmas, cookies, God, hanukkah, Hinduism, Holiday, Islam, Jehovah's Witnesses, Jesus, Jewish, kwanzaa, Muslim, party, Thoughts, Wicca
Thanks for the comment. And I completely agree with this. You can be respectful and not completely alliegnate a whole group of people. It’s not like they are changing christmas for something else, just expanding it. And in all honesty, I think the majority it is still the “christmas” season. It’s like when people talk about taking “God” off of our money, out of our schools, and court houses. The spirit in which this country was created is losing something when we do this. This country was founded by people seeking [fleeing] religious persecution. We don’t persecute people who are of other religions simply because we say Merry Christmas. Personally, when someone says any kind of “pleasantry” I take it in a Christian context. When someone says have a blessed day, I think they mean it and want God to bless me. If someone was to say Happy Hanukkah I wouldn’t be offended, they don’t know me, so I would take it in the spirit it ws intended and go on. I would like for other people to consider the same from me. If you don’t practice christmas, then take my Merry christmas for what is it meant, and that I truelly want you to have a blessed season. Thank you for this post! Have a blessed day!
You are welcome. Great points!
Tree, have you read my post on this topic?
Frankly, if anyone gets offended by someone saying “Merry Christmas” to them, then they’re very silly.
Although I would say to Armyguardwife, to call a lot of things that weren’t added until the 1950s “the spirit in which this country was created”, then we have a very different view of when the country was created.
“It’s like when people talk about taking “God” off of our money, out of our schools, and court houses.”
As well it should. It was all put there thanks to that lovely bit of our history, McCarthyism.
Hey Morse,
I think I commented on one of your posts about this. Can’t recall off hand exactly what all you said.
I received an email from a museum I support and it was Holiday this and Holiday that, but when it came to Holiday Cookie Jar I had to say something…
Okay, I reread your post and feel that the main reason companies have changed what they say during this season is out of fear of offending the “imaginary people” that both you and I don’t think exist (you know, the people that are offended with Merry Christmas). This fear of offending issue is what I have read about, heard about etc. Again, overall it just seems very silly. There is no such thing as a Holiday Cookie Jar in my mind. It seems very apparent that most companies have simply directed their marketing departments to do a “Replace…” function between Holiday and Christmas. The blanket change with no apparent intelligent discussion regarding this change is what I am against…. Especially, if the discussion only entails the fear of offending the negligible public that actually cares negatively about Christmas in lieu of the large majority that cares positively for the holiday… Either way, for some reason it IS fun to discuss isn’t it? That make sense?
And, I would defend armyguardwife’s notion of the “spirit” of this country being one founded on Godly beliefs. It is well argued whether the Founding Fathers were “Christian” etc, but I think it cannot be argued that they were monotheistic. Isn’t the whole point behind placing “In God we Trust” on various national money and monuments (via McCarthyism or not) all about the idea we are a nation that has faith in some higher power versus Communism’s Atheistic premise. I guess I don’t see how these thoughts are different now, versus 1950 or the 1800’s. FYI “In God we Trust” or the like was first added in the 1860’s. I enjoyed reading this link
http://www.treas.gov/education/fact-sheets/currency/in-god-we-trust.shtml
If we want to talk about the spirit of this Thanksgiving holiday, we should not that many of the first settlers were specifically leaving a country that had far too much church in their state.
I happen to find the “In God We Trust” motto to be inaccurate and more than a little hypocritical.
Because we obviously don’t trust in god. if we did, we wouldn’t go to war, we wouldn’t set up hospitals and schools or invest in infrastructure. We would trust all that to god. But we don’t.
E Pluribus Unum is much more fitting and appropriate, I think.
The problem with McCarthyism is they concentrated on the ‘godlessness’ of the USSR when that was not the problem. The problem was their totalitarian regime coupled with a fake form of communism. But that’s too difficult to explain to the American people. Atheists are much easier to attack, and so that’s what McCarthy did.
In a monotheistic worldview, it simply limits the belief system to one ‘god’. Although typically associated with the Abrahamic religions, I would suggest that the “God” on our money would either be considered “Jehovah God” or some other god that isn’t the one described in the Bible. I think many people ‘think’ they know who this ‘God we trust” is, but they have mearly invented a god in their mind that fits their own standards. This is a concept that is truly misunderstood by many people.
Now, I believe your comment is assuming this reference is absolutely the God of the Bible. So…as a Christian I would say that the godlessness of the USSR was most definitely part of the problem (my opinon). However…..
No hospitals, schools? Please enlighten me.
It doesn’t particularly matter to me which god is supposed to be represented by the motto. Any would be inaccurate and inappropriate in a secular country like ours.
As a Christian I’m sure you would say that their atheism was bad. But their atheism had nothing to do with their totalitarianism. If I were to guess, I’d say their atheism was used as a way to strip the power of the church and replace it with their own.
And thus it’s the totalitarianism and desire for absolute power that is the problem, not the atheism.
If you trust in god, why build a hospital? You trust god. So obviously he’ll heal the people who need to be healed.
I agree on the society points, I’m just saying that from my viewpoint the absence of God is the start down a road that has been well traveled and shown to fail, no matter what the intentions of the “…ism” we are talking about (In this case Communism, Totalitarianaism, etc). The idea is sound in thought, but shown to eventually be a failure when put into action.
If I trust God, why do anything? My need to go to the bathroom should take care of itself. We have a brain, God never told us not to use it! Jesus proclaimed that we are to help the needy, the poor, the destitute, the sick and even the rich. I don’t see how “help” can be viewed as only praying.
I see God will heal, help, bless and condemn and he does it through people as well as supernaturally. These ideas are well recorded throughout the Bible.