All right, so it's officially past Christmas and so war on Christmas is officially over, for this year at least. But when we all really think about it was it ever really a thing.
Happy Holidays, yes I'm talking about people saying Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas. I'm actually talking about people choosing to say Happy Holidays, completely of their own volition. I'm talking about some people saying Happy Holidays and other people saying Merry Christmas. I'm talking about how sometimes a red Starbucks cup is just that, a red Starbucks cup. Not a symbol of the war on Christmas.
Yes, Christmas is a holiday that a lot of people celebrate. It's perfectly okay to celebrate Christmas and even say Merry Christmas to everyone you see during the month of December, whether or not you know them or if they're celebrating anything during the month of December.
If you do celebrate Christmas do me a favor. Imagine if around the time of Christmas nearly every store in your area put up signs, plastered their windows, and put up huge sparkly twinkly decorations. And you recognize that this is a legitimate holiday that people celebrate and that's fine but every day people tell you to 'Have a good time celebrating that holiday that you don't celebrate,' Wouldn't that be kind of annoying?
You're thinking of Hannukah, and so am I. But I'm also thinking of Chinese New Year and Kwanza and Ramadan and Diwali. I'm talking about all the other religions that happen to have holidays in, and around, the month of December. Are they not as important? I mean it's far to say that if you celebrate Christmas it's okay that you aren't really all that knowledgeable about the Hindu religion Diwali but is it too much to ask that you say Happy Holidays because who knows they might celebrate Diwali or Ramadan or Hannukah or Kwanza or Chinese New Year.
There's a chance that they might actually celebrate the Winter Solstice. You know that would be kind of funny because the whole reason Christmas is celebrated in the winter is because Christian missionaries trying to convert pagans moved one of their big holidays, Christmas, to a time around the Winter Solstice, their big holiday, so maybe they'd celebrate Christmas instead. It's true, it's a true historical fact that Jesus Christ wasn't born on December 25th.
It would be even funnier because so many of the Christmas traditions were pagan traditions first. The Christmas tree, even the colors red and green. That doesn't make it wrong to celebrate those parts of Christmas but I don't think it's completely fair to ignore all these other religions, especially if yours borrows so much from another.
At the end of the day sometimes a Starbucks cup is just a Starbucks cup. Anyways, didn't you really go for Starbucks for the stuff that's inside the cup, not the cup itself? Imagine if everywhere you looked people were shoving a different religion in your face and one store changed their merchandise. Like just a little bit. Like it was still really celebrating that holiday that you weren't, just a little less.
It's a red Starbucks cup. It's still really Christmasy. You can still celebrate Christmas. You can even say Merry Christmas if you want, just don't be surprised if someone says, have a great Ramadan back. And if I want to say Happy Holidays I will. Weirdly enough that doesn't affect your decision. Image that.
Happy Holidays.
