Happy Holidays!! or merry christmas?

which do you say?

It depends on who I am talking to.

I wish a Merry Christmas to people who I know are Christian and who celebrate Christmas as the anniversary of the birth of Christ.

I wish a Happy Holidays to people who are not Christian and who celebrate Christmas as a commercial holiday.

If I don't know what someone's belief is, I play it safe and say "Happy Holidays", because it is all purpose and it covers Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Eid'ul-Adha, and those whose New Year is January 1st

For business I use Happy Holidays, unless I know the person is Christian. It's safer that way. I can't afford to lose clients when the economy stinks as bad as it does. Luckily, I work with a few Christian authors and publicists, so I can be myself with them.

With everyone else, even strangers in the mall, it's Merry Christmas.

if i know the person i will say whatever is appropriate...if it's a stranger it's usually happy holidays...

I play it safe and wish a Merry Eid'ul-Adha to everyone.

i say Merry CHRISTmas to everybody. obviously the holiday was created because of Christ and i will say it because of my beliefs. if someone is offended I am sorry, but I will not back down because of that.

I Say Merry Christmas I think people should Keep Christ in Christmas

bethandmanly wrote:

For business I use Happy Holidays, unless I know the person is Christian. It's safer that way. I can't afford to lose clients when the economy stinks as bad as it does. Luckily, I work with a few Christian authors and publicists, so I can be myself with them.

With everyone else, even strangers in the mall, it's Merry Christmas.

Same here Cheryl.

emilyanneoftheprairie wrote:

i say Merry CHRISTmas to everybody. obviously the holiday was created because of Christ and i will say it because of my beliefs. if someone is offended I am sorry, but I will not back down because of that.

Way to go, Emily...I could not agree more with you. My hubby works a second (part-time) job at Best Buy and they're instructed to say "Happy Holidays". He just goes with the flow but he says it does get on his nerves that he has to 'catch' himself from saying "Merry Christmas" to customers. When he stops himself from saying it, it's almost like denouncing his own faith, you know what I mean? That's not right either. When I worked in the school system all this political correct-ness got pretty tiresome too. It's not that I don't respect the holidays of other people, more that I think they're not respecting the holiday I celebrate (which is the vast majority, BTW) if they're actually offended by me mentioning it....

We're living in a weird time where it's unacceptable to offend a few people, but perfectly okay to offend a lot of people. :think:

Rob wrote:

I play it safe and wish a Merry Eid'ul-Adha to everyone.

Oh......and I say Merry Christmas.

Well, somebody certainly doesn't have that jolly ol' Eid'ul-Adha spirit.

I remember that about you.

susansmoose wrote:

if i know the person i will say whatever is appropriate...if it's a stranger it's usually happy holidays...

I'm the exact same way.

I usually use them both, I guess in my pea-brain mind Merry Christmas refers to just Christmas but using the term Happy Holiday's covers me through New Years.

I usually say something like, "Have a great holiday!" or something like that...that covers all the bases, IMO, and doesn't exclude anyone. I know lots of folks who aren't Christian, and saying "Merry Christmas" to them wouldn't feel appropriate to me, and maybe not to them also...I guess it is just a matter of preference, and each individual's personal belief system... :xmastree:

I say Merry Christmas.

I say Merry Christmas to everyone, even the customers at work. I refuse to say "happy holidays"!

LauraIngallsfan wrote:

I say Merry Christmas to everyone, even the customers at work. I refuse to say "happy holidays"!