Editor’s Note: Below is an edited version of a story I wrote in 2007 – I don’t intend to edit or rewrite this particular piece again but hope to reference back to it as the years pass by. Changes made include grammar, contextual, intent, and situational edits. The original Politically Correct Holiday greetings post can be referenced here.
In today’s society, everything seems to be too politically correct (PC) – especially when it comes to contentious issues, such as ‘religious’ holidays, especially those in December. Please use Bogopolis.com‘s guide below to wish a person a ‘PC’ Christmas.
Happy Winter Solstice
This greeting allows a person to be non-descript (and non-committal) in their season greeting. Alternatives to this may include, Happy Winter Festival Season or Happy Wintertime. The latter allows you to be as generic as possible and not offend somebody who might take offense to Wiccan (read: religious) connotations of the first two.
Happy [insert religious holiday here]
Many will use other religious holidays to reference the Christmas holiday, thus making the situation in of itself politically incorrect. These holiday greetings could include: Happy Hannukah, Happy Eid ul-Adha, and Merry Kwanzaa. While respectful in their own rights – when combined with Christmas these greetings may come off as politically incorrect and cause tension if a person wants to separate holidays and traditions. (It’s probably best to keep the greetings separate and find a better way to say what you want to say.)
Happy Boxing Day
First off, Boxing day is an England tradition. Second, does anybody really care what Boxing Day is? That’s what I thought…
Happy Yuletide Season with wishes of warmth and joy
Seriously, that is way too long and a little not with the times. Others that don’t correctly fit, include: Happy New Years (skip the week and season altogether), Happy National Purchasing Season, Happy Saturnalia Day, and Happy (Baby) Jesus Day. (Actually, the last one is ‘the same’ as Christmas but may be less offensive to to those who wish to depolarize Christmas as a religious holiday.)
Happy Holidays
This seems to be the most popular choice of those, in America, who the Mexicans call Personas de Policticos Incorrecto (people who are incorrect – OK, I may have just made that up…). This greeting allows co-workers, shop owners, baristas, bloggers, journalists, commentators, sportscasters, talk show hosts, everyday people, cab drivers, bell ringers, ticket counter agents, restaurant workers, well-wishers on the streets, and you and I to say what we want to say without taking a chance to say what we really want to say regarding the holiday season. However, Bogopolis.com believes that even this term in of itself is politically incorrect. This greeting forces us to dumb down our traditions, shopping behaviors, our personal preferences, our faith – to a global level eliminating everything that our world stands for: diversity.
As an alternative, Bogopolis.com offers the following way to wish a person a Merry Christmas and still be politically correct:
Merry Christmas!
Over the centuries, Christmas has lost a lot of it’s religious meaning and become more of a secular holiday in today’s global marketplace. Yes, Christmas is a religious holiday in which Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, who we believe to be our savior – but the global truth is that we were not the first ones to claim a winter holiday for our religion. Christmas has become and continues to be a global holiday, which means something different to everybody. Christmas should not be recognized as a mere Christian holiday, but as a celebration of family, a time we celebrate the past year with loved ones and prepare for the new. Christmas is truly about love (and let’s not forget about receiving gifts!) and the time we have with each other.
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