Why do Americans say “merry Christmas,” while the British and denizens of its Commonwealth say “happy Christmas”? Those who Googled that question were directed to this post, which was written for Christmas of 2013:
This post was number 3 for most of the year, but for the last few weeks, page views for this post surged by the thousands, and it made it to #2.
The post began with a quotation and link to a discussion by Matthew Schmitz at First Things, who said that “merry” had connotations of celebratory reveling, which Puritanical folks replaced with the wish that people just be “happy.”
I took issue with that, putting on my English professor hat, to point out that serious revelers in the British Empire tend to say “Happy Christmas” and that everyone says “Happy New Year,” not “Merry New Year.”
I argue that this is more likely one of many examples of Americans preserving an older usage of language after it has passed out of use in England. After all, the British used to say “Merry Christmas,” as we see in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In