Because Nothing Says Joy to the World…

…like an angry spittle-flecked demagogue in need of Insensitivity Training:

Here’s the thing. I say “Merry Christmas”. If I’m talking to a Jewish person and it’s later in the month, I’ll wish them a Happy Hanukkah or a Happy Holidays. If I go to the store and somebody says, “Happy Holidays” I happily accept it and wish them a cheery “Merry Christmas”. I don’t lay awake at night getting angry about the “War on Christmas” or fretting about godless damn libruls who are scheming against it. If some insufferable PC demagogue does something silly like say “holiday tree” (which is as dumb as “holiday menorah”) I laugh. So do most liberals I know, since everybody knows it’s a Christmas tree–including the Jews who strove to restore Christmas trees to Seattle-Tacoma airport when some PC nitwit decided to make a desert and call it peace on earth by banishing even “holiday trees” from the airport.

Here’s reality:  we live in an increasingly post-Christian culture.  We also live in a multi-cultural, multi-faith culture.  Store clerks and other such functionaries aren’t making “war” on Christmas.  They are trying to be friendly, get you through the check out line, and not make trouble or get screamed at by hyper-sensitive people.  So they opt for “Happy Holidays” and hope that some hyper-sensitive adherent of an Abrahamic religion or pagan obsessive or atheist human toothache does not freak out and shout about being oppressed for their failure to hail Eid/Ramadan/Hanukkah/Christmas/the Winter Solstice/freedom from religion.  If we, as Catholics, commemorate Christmas by being joyful about the Incarnation and lightening the burden of intimidation faced by ordinary schleps dealing with the public, that’s an evangelistic win for us.  If we join the chorus of crazy angry religious people yelling at confused post-Christians, we just help to ensure that more people remain or become post-Christian.