Who believes that The word Merry Christmas has two very different meanings?
How can I lead an op-ed with two such contradictory statements? To make the point that we shouldn’t use the same words to mean different things. For anyone who works with ideas, clarity of language is absolutely essential. Ideas have consequences. Whenever the same word comes to mean two radically different things, how can we wind up with anything other than confusion, hurt feelings, and social controversy? Politics are, of course, full of words that used to mean one thing and now mean something else. “Welfare” , which ought to be about helping people, now means something that doesn’t have much to do with helping anybody. Our “national defense” spending is now international and far beyond mere defense. The word “Christmas”, I would suggest, has suffered the same fate. Christmas was declared a Federal holiday in 1870, through legislation signed by President Ulysses S. Grant. The bill mentioned only four holidays by name: New Year’s Day, July 4th, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Throwing Ch
Holiday greetings are a selection of greetings that are often spoken with good intentions to strangers, family, or friends, in nations around the world, during the months of December and January. Holidays with greetings include Christmas, New Year’s Day, Chinese New Year, Thanksgiving (United States), and Hanukkah. Some greetings are more prevalent than others, depending on the cultural and religious status of any given area. Typically, a greeting consists of the word “Happy” followed by the holiday, such as “Happy Hanukkah” or “Happy New Year”, although the phrase “Merry Christmas” is a notable exception. In the United States, the collective phrase “Happy Holidays” is often used as a generic cover-all greeting for all of the Winter holidays, Thanksgiving, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day. Controversy has arisen in the U.S regarding its usage of the phrase “Happy Holidays”, as an alleged attempt to diminish the Christian elements of Christmas, although its use promotes other holidays
