The “Merry Christmas” Controversy

Conspiracy to Remove Religion from Holiday More Myth Than Reality

For those years when I’ve been motivated enough to actually send Christmas cards, I have bought some that say “Season’s Greetings.” Then I would white-out the first “S” so they read “Eason’s Greetings.” It’s a holiday joke that I never tire of although I’m quite certain that many of the recipients of these card wish that I would find a new gimmick.

Despite what the card may say on the outside, however, I make sure that somewhere on the inside it says “Merry Christmas.”

For the past several years there has been a controversy a-brewin’ about a supposed conspiracy to take the Christ out of Christmas. You hear unsubstantiated reports of chain stores and malls that have required their employees to say “Happy Holidays” to their customers instead of “Merry Christmas” or risk being fired.

This conspiracy claims that corporations believe that to acknowledge Christ during the holiday season would somehow offend the atheists, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and Kwaanzaa-ists in our midst who would then perhaps boycott these stores in large numbers.

Every year this story makes the national news. I personally think it is utter hogwash. Give me one solid case of an employee who was fired for saying “Merry Christmas” and then I will consider it more than an urban myth created by the same folks who brought you the “Adam & Eve, not Adam & Steve” bumper sticker.

The underlying message in this myth seems to be that everyone who is not a devout right-wing Christian resents Christmas and all that it stands for. After a year of using “Happy Holidays” in its advertising, Target has returned to using “Merry Christmas,” partly because of pressure of a threatened boycott by Christian activists, and partly because of the normal rotation of their ad campaign.

Hey, if you’re going to boycott Target this Christmas, it ought to be because it has given The Salvation Army the boot and no longer allows the charity organization to place bell ringers in front of their stores. And that’s not a myth.

I’ll be the first to admit that the holiday season has turned into a gift-crazy capitalist free-for-all in this country. If you don’t incur half of your credit card debt for the entire year buying Christmas presents, you are made to feel like Ebenezer Scrooge. But that doesn’t mean that there is a liberal atheist conspiracy afoot to remove the significance of the birth Christ for those who embrace him as their savior.

Here’s how extreme this controversy has become: Some Charlotte Observer “letters to the editor” writers have recently stated that they don’t like hearing people saying “Feliz Navidad” (Spanish for Merry Christmas, or quite literally “Happy Nativity Day”) and that the phrase is an insulting substitution for “Merry Christmas.” Wow. How xenophobic can you get? Here’s a news flash for those people: If you were transported back in time and got to meet Jesus, shake his hand and say “Merry Christmas,” he probably wouldn’t understand what you were saying. That’s because he primarily spoke Aramaic with maybe some Greek and Latin thrown in depending on what electives he took during his high school days.

When you hear a person who has left his or her home to pursue the American dream say “Feliz Navidad” you should be warmed by the fact that despite language differences, you share a common faith. Remember, a century ago our country was filled to the brim with hardworking people whose primary languages were German, Italian, Chinese, etc. It took about a generation for the melting pot to speak fluent English.

The problem I have with people who insist on creating a Merry Christmas controversy is that they seem to be the same ones who are trying to hijack Christianity in general. They are trying to re-define a wonderful religion by emphasizing what they are against (homosexuals, immigrants, Muslims, etc.) as opposed to what they are for. This annual controversy is a kind of spiritual crowbar that works to keep people apart during a time of year when we should be overlooking political, cultural and religious differences.

I believe that to live in the spirit of Christ is to—as the old song says—“accentuate the positive.” And to be a true Christian Evangelist is to welcome everyone into the tent with the hope that some of them will stay. That’s why Christians should embrace the fact that people of other religions have their holidays around the same time as Christmas.

After all, the Christmas carol “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” says “Peace on Earth, good will toward men,” not “Peace in America, good will toward members of my particular congregation.”