Tuesday, December 9, 2014

I Will Not have a Happy Holiday this Year

I Will Not have a Happy Holiday this Year

I know that there are people out there in a faith community who are not Christian and are trudging through the Christmas season being sensitive about being wished a Merry Christmas.  There are also some Christian denominations that do not celebrate Christmas at all.  And then of course, there are those who do not believe in a higher power.  There are also Christian denominations that tend to believe anything that they want and have joined the political correctness bandwagon.

I am none of the above.

More than four decades ago I wrote an essay as a freshman college student about the death of Christmas.  I suppose if I looked hard enough I could find it.  I mention this only because the death of Christmas was evident back then even to a college freshman student.  Otherwise I would claim that my essay was prophetic.

In the past few years I have grown increasingly intolerant of having happy holidays thrust upon me.  Oh, I can understand why store clerks and those who don’t know who I am being a little leery of wishing everybody a Merry Christmas, but on the other hand it has been Christmas for so many years.  And, please don’t feed me the line about Christmas being a pagan holiday hijacked by Christians.  (Or, is it Easter?  Is it both?)  If you want to celebrate a pagan holiday, please feel free to do so.  In the meantime, Christmas happens to be a Christian holiday and has been since the fourth century A.D. and is celebrated by billions of people around the world.  Granted, Christmas wasn’t quite as commercial as it is today.  O.K., it wasn’t even close to being as commercial as it is today.  The point is that Christmas has been around for a very long, long time.  And yes, I realize that the actual birth of Christ took place in the spring, but I celebrate Christmas with the rest of the world on December 25 each and every year.  Regardless, Christmas was declared a federal holiday in 1885.  Of course, at the rate we are going I wouldn’t be surprised if Congress would deholidayize it.  (No, it is not a real word.  I just made it up.  It is called “wordsmithing”.)

My intolerance of everybody else’s intolerance came to a boiling point a few years ago.  Ever since then when somebody wishes me a Happy Holiday I respond with “Merry Christmas” instead of some other greeting. 

Christmas parties at work were part of the social practice for many, many years.  When I accepted a new position at work I also accepted the privilege of bankrolling the annual Christmas party as a means of showing my appreciation for the work that everybody was doing.  It should not surprise you to know that it took a substantial lump out of my billfold.  Then one foggy Christmas Eve….  No, wait!  That isn’t quite right.  Then one year as we prepared for the annual Christmas party a subordinate supervisor objected to calling it a “Christmas” party.  A rather lengthy discussion took place and then an ultimatum was delivered to me by the supervisor.  “If it is a Christmas party then I will not go.”

I found an excuse to be busy on the day and time of the “holiday” party—the one that I funded.

Was I being childish?  Perhaps I was although I didn’t take my ball and go home.  I just went home.  Well, actually I went to another office and caught up on some other work.

Retirees are invited to the annual “holiday” party and I went the first year after I retired hoping to spend time with people that I had come to love and appreciate.  It just did not feel right.  I didn’t go the next year and I will not go this year—or next year.  I have drawn a bright line that I do not intend to cross.  “Bah, Humbug!” you say?  I wonder how Jacob Marley would respond.

Will I go to any “holiday” parties?  Sure I will, that is if I am invited.  At least I’ll go to holiday parties that are not built around Christmas.  Of course the only other holiday party that takes place this time of year would be a New Year’s Eve party.  But then, people call them New Year’s Eve parties and not holiday parties.  And, I don’t stay up to midnight anymore anyway.  (The Chinese should object to calling the parties that take place on December 31st as New Year’s Eve parties.)

Will I be offended if you send me a holiday greeting card?  No.  It is getting increasingly difficult to find greeting cards that say Merry Christmas.  Not only that but if you want to have a holiday instead of Christmas then have at it.  As for me and my house we will celebrate Christmas.  In fact, we will have a Very Merry Christmas.  I hope you do, too.







No comments:

Post a Comment