With the end of the year approaching, festive items are being stocked on shelves, some saying “merry Christmas” and others saying “happy holidays” Many Americans find themselves unknowingly witness to a vernacular debate. While “merry Christmas” used to be a phatic phrase, one that is meant to be neutral, similar to “see you later,” it has now become polarized. According to NBC, a public survey has shown saying one phrase over the other is symbolic of party affiliation and general political leanings.
“Merry Christmas” is a wish for a nice Christmas, a Christian holiday. Due to the diverse ethnic makeup of the United States, and other Western countries, many feel that “merry Christmas” excludes other religions and cultures that celebrate holidays during December. From a 2016 Public Religion Research Institution survey, it was found that when asked: “Do you think stores and businesses should greet their customers with “happy holidays” or “seasons greetings” instead of “merry Christmas” out of respect for people of different faiths, or not?” 67% of Republicans said “No” and 66% of Democrats said “Yes.”
These phrases have moved from being phatic and a way to maintain social relations. According to sociolinguist Peter Trudgill, “Their primary function now is to characterize the speaker, serving as badges of group identification.” Saying “merry Christmas” places a person in a position of being conservative and “comfortable with Christianity as the default,” or a liberal attempt to be inclusive by saying “happy holidays.”
In a corporate setting, younger generations, employees under 30, have been leaning more towards inclusive language along with “happy holidays” such as “season’s greetings.” There has also been a shift towards more neutral winter colors rather than the red and green of Christmas in decorations. The Guardian New York office had “silver, gold and white lights aplenty, but no red and green anything.”
This shift has been coined the “War on Christmas” as many conservatives see the winter wonderland aesthetic as an erasure of Christmas. In 2013, a Texas legislator began sponsoring a bill that was meant to “protect traditional holiday greetings in public schools [and] said he hoped other states would follow Texas’ example in standing ‘in defense of Christmas.’”
Compared to regions like the United Kingdom where there is no separation of church and state, there has been less disapproval of “merry Christmas” as a personal greeting, theme for corporate decorations or script for school plays. Elaborating on this difference in sentiment, NBC shares, “Christianity suffuses public life in ways that might seem strange to Americans.”
