The Pursuit

Holiday vs. Christmas

Tuesday, December 4th, 2007 | Thanksgiving, boycott, christmas, holidays, just for fun, philosophy, tradition

I always thought how silly it was that people got so upset at other people who would rather say Happy Holiday instead of Merry Christmas. Until the other day when I was listening to the all Christmas Music station on my way home (some of my favorite music is Christmas music). An ad came on for Home Depot. They wanted you to shop there for your Holiday Gifts, Holiday Tree, Holiday everything. For some reason when I heard the word “Holiday” instead of “Christmas” I realized how completely retarded it sounded. I had never noticed before, and frankly I still don’t care if they decide to use it. But seriously, it just doesn’t “fit.”

The reason why I think it sounds so stupid is because of what the word Holiday actually means and how it is being used. In this case Holiday is being used as the name of a specific day, December 25th. Regardless of it’s origin, December 25th in todays society is traditionally named, Christmas - or at least it was. The word “Holiday,” according to the dictionary means, “a day fixed by law or custom on which ordinary business is suspended in commemoration of some event or in honor of some person.” There are actually nine definitions but they are all pretty much the same. You see the problem I have with people saying Happy Holiday in reference to December 25, is not the fact that they are trying to remove Christmas, its the fact that they want to name a holiday - Holiday.

Basically what they want, is for people to say, “Are you coming over for Holiday?” or “Hey, what are you doing on Holiday?” And then they want people to associate that use with December 25th. Instead of the more specific term “Christmas.” But what about all the other holidays that America celebrates? They celebrate Valentines Day, The 4th of July, Thanksgiving, etc. Should we name them all “Holiday”? How would we know which one we are refering to?

You also have to contend with the etymology of the word of holiday. It is made of two words, Holy and Day. So, in order to not offend all the atheists and non-Christians in America, the big wigs have decided to stop calling December 25 “Christmas” in favor of calling it a “Holy Day.” Granted most of those people probably don’t know the etymology. But isn’t it just as “offensive” to call something Holy for someone who doesn’t believe in Holy things? Or to call a particular day Holy, if the atheist and non-Christian does not think the day is Holy?

I call for all companies who do not want to use the word “Christmas” to pick a new word. I’ll let them decide, but some possibilities might be, Gift Day, Giving Day, and Wonder Day (I think Giving Day would be perfect, since we just celebrated Thanksgiving). I know a lot of you might be thinking, “that’ll never work.” But if you look back in history, you’ll find that the Christmas day did just that. It swooped down and took over a whole different holiday on December 25th.

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