So, its been a while since I posted anything, I'm finally done with School for about a month. So, expect somewhat frequent post for about a month, before they start to trail off again...
Over Thanksgiving dinner my aunt says that she read this article in the paper of a guy that went to the local mall and was startled to find that only a couple stores had "Merry Christmas" in any of their Christmas decorations, instead they had it replaced with "Happy Holidays". She proceeded with some of the normal ignorant "taking Christ out of Christmas" jargon that is all too familiar in Christian circles. Considering the timing (over Thanksgiving dinner) my immediate response was that it was too early to talk about Christmas. She agreed with me but after thinking about it some, I've decided that this is not my main objection to this kind of thinking.
Little did I know that the "Happy Holiday" debate had become a rather hot topic nationally as well as locally. When I came into work today there was a company memo by the clock-in station inviting people to the "Holiday Party". The word "Holiday" had been marked out in pen and someone had written "Christmas" in the margin. An addition comment pointing to the alteration saying "God bless". Is it just me that finds this ridiculous?!?
Why on earth would we look to corporate America to define what our holiday name is advertised as? Retail outlets are mostly just concerned with moving from the red to the black. Their main concern is not taking a loss for the year. And why shouldn't they? If they didn't make money then they'd tank. And to this end they are trying to reach as many people with their advertising as possible. They're trying to be inclusive, they don't want to offend Jewish potential customers. So they use the word "Holiday" which is by the way derived from Holy Day, instead of "Christmas". Why is that such a big deal? Do we except corporate advertising to line up with all of our personal beliefs? Does Sears really care about evangelizing the world? And should we expect them to even respect God at all? Why do we expect non-Christians to act like Christians? Could it be because we are doing such a lousy job of showing the meaning of the Jesus' life that we expect others to make up for our hypocrisy?
I tend to lump these Holiday complainer into the same category as the people that point out that "Santa" is the word "Santa" with the letters rearranged or say Xmas is an attempt to X out Christ from the word Christmas.
All this is simply ridiculous.
Earn a free iPod Shuffle. I only need one more referral, and it could be you.
1 comment:
"Holly" Day? I'm guessing that you meant to type "Holy" instead of "Holly" as that would be the proper etymology of the word "holiday". So, with that in mind, "Happy Holy Days" doesn't sound too bad after all.
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