I love the holidays and the pointless ridiculousness that stems from a sentiment.
My good friend posted this link on his Facebook page about a young lady who was suspended from school for posting a racist tirade on her Facebook page regarding the concept of celebrating Christmas and how anyone who doesn’t want to say “Merry Christmas” can “Go back to their own F***ing country” and that we should dress as Santa and scream it at minorities.
Personally, I find this outrage at the lack of “Merry Christmas” hilarious. First of all, no one ever wants to defend the religious connotations surrounding this particular day, they choose to defend the commercialism (don’t get me wrong, a holiday that combines baking, entertaining and shopping is pretty much the greatest day ever if you’re me) while putting down those who refrain for religious reasons. Something about that tickles my funny bone.
Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s delightful that we treat humanity with general disdain until the Christmas season, when we pretend to give a crap and wish each other well with a greeting card sentiment for about six weeks out of the year. Cynical? A little bit, but let’s be frank; how many of us on a daily basis thank the Tim Horton’s clerk who served our order and gave us correct change in a prompt and timely manner (I do)? Meanwhile, we’re fighting for the right to wish them a Merry Christmas as opposed to a Happy Holiday? Really? Why don’t we stop with this silliness and focus on our daily manners? Wish people well every single day. What is it about Santa that makes us suddenly want to wish everyone well? Are we still genetically predisposed to believe that we’re being watched during the holiday season and somehow our present haul will be larger if we wish people a Merry Christmas? Maybe we should institute a new rule that unless you REALLY care about little Baby Jesus’s birthday, you should stick with the generic holiday greeting.
What amuses me is the number of people who will (like this student) tell those who choose not to celebrate Christmas to “go back to their own country”. I cannot stress this enough; unless you are First Nations, then you can go back to your ancestors’ country. When our ancestors settled this country, we most certainly did not adopt the holidays and traditions of the First Nations. In fact, we forced our ideals, traditions and God on them and told them to take it or get smallpoxed. What makes our tradtions so much more important than those who have chosen to make Canada their home or better yet, those who were here first? By historical precident alone, our holidays, tradtions and God should be scrapped in favour of whomever came here next, right?
Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, have a good one, does it really matter? Just smile and say thank you and carry on with your day. In the end, the words mean nothing if you’re just saying it for the sake of saying it. So, much like I love you, I’m sorry or I promise, unless you mean it with your whole heart, perhaps you should just say nothing at all.
The Misadventures of MHC 