Much has been said and is being said about the appropriate way to address the Christmas season. Happy holidays. Merry Christmas. It seems like one of those Congressional gridlock issues. You are some kind of abhorrent heathen if you say "Happy holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas". First of all, it is a holiday. Get over it. The word originally meant "Holy-day". Christmas as a day of remembrance didn't happen for more than three hundred years after Jesus lived, died, and came back to life. The particulars are lost in antiquity but the best we can deduce is that somewhere in the fourth century CE, or AD, if that makes it easier, an actual Christmas observance became an historical fact, as much as can be known about historical facts at the time. A case can easily be made for the celebration of the birth Christ to be called a Holy Day. So the word has changed after a long while to sound like "Holiday".
Then consensus arose in the organized church - such as it was at the time - that since Christ's conception took place on March 25 then his birth must have taken place on December 25? Right? I mean, do the math. I'm not sure how we figured all that out to the exact date – but there you go.
I'm not trying to be flip about the Christmas season, but not to put too fine a point on things, Christ was never in the Christmas we now see all around us at this time of year. In latter times, it became a great shopping idea and then there is the Christmas tree, gifts, the office party and Santa Clause.
Just so happens that the Jewish Festival of Lights, Hanukknah, falls within an acceptable range of December 25 enough to be considered part off the "holiday ( Holy Day ) season". So what's the big deal? Happy Holidays! You want to make it Merry Christmas, great! You want to make it Happy Hanukkah, great! You want to be right and everyone else wrong? I hear they are taking new members over at the Taliban headquarters.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS to each and everyone of you.
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