So what should I say tommorrow?

[sqbr]

I like wishing people a merry Christmas. But I know that as a Christian-encultured atheist I'm a lot more comfortable with Christmas as a secular holiday than people from other cultural or religious backgrounds.

I'm not sure the American "Happy Holidays" is an improvement: it assumes that everyone has a holiday around this time, which is fine if you're jewish(*) or (most types of?) pagan but not so much if you're Buddhist or Muslim etc, as are a great many of the people I know who are members of a religion other than Christianity (eg it's reasonableness as a greeting assumes the sort of religious demographics you get in America but not here(**)). And saying it tommorrow feels like "I'm wishing you a merry Christmas but giving it a veneer of inclusiveness."

Worse along these lines is "Happy Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/whatever", imo.

I like "A merry Christmas to those who celebrate it and a generally happy day to everyone else" and similar.

What are other people's thoughts?

(*)Though apparently Hanukkah isn't that big of a deal compared to some of the other holidays?
(**)Plus Americans have Thanksgiving. We all have New Years I guess, but I don't think people mean "Happy new year" when they say "Happy Holidays".

Comments

[sqbr]

The problem with that argument is it's so convenient for us as people who do celebrate Christmas, you know? I'm not 100% sure that everyone who doesn't celebrate Christmas would find the experience quite so positive (I mean, they might, but I don't think we're in a position to judge)

[sami]

Except that observing Christmas is, in fact, something that is very strong in our culture, including secular culture, and I don't think that it would be even vaguely approaching fair to make that into a Bad Thing.

It's one of those areas where I recognise that it is privilege, of a sort, for something that is a part of my personal cultural background to be part of mainstream culture* but the way that privilege needs to be dismantled is to extend it to everyone, not remove it from some.

And I tend to think that anyone who thinks that widespread celebrations of Eid and Diwali would somehow be a negative thing can suck it up. These are joyful and wonderful things, and wanting to limit the amount of joy and wonderment in the world MAKES YOU A BAD PERSON.

* I say "of a sort" because all of the ways in which Christmas is embedded in our culture tend to lead directly to Christmas being one of the most miserable times of the year for me, despite it being a joyful point in the religious calendar of my own faith; I find myself wishing that Christmas existed culturally on a level equivalent to Michaelmas, because then I would not, in fact, spend so much time every Christmas persuading myself not to commit suicide.

I'm not sure this is clear :/

[sqbr]

I have been reliably informed that there are particular ways of celebrating Christmas which do exclude/oppress etc people, and since I am not excluded/oppressed by it don't think I'm in a position to say which bits of it are secular and awesome and which bits of it aren't. From the looks of things, saying "Merry Christmas" is, at least in Australia, one of the ok bits. But since I'm not one of the group being hegemonised(*) I don't think it's safe to trust my own judgement or that of anyone else who does celebrate Christmas (since we can't know what it's like to hear "Merry Christmas" when you don't celebrate it). So I asked those who don't.

(*)Is that a word?