Last Post of 2007
Mari is awful lazy, and will leave you all with a “holiday”1 post for the rest of the year (Lame, yeah…)
Mari Wishes You A…
If you celebrate Christmas, Happy Christmas2! Hope you get all the stuff you wanted this year under the tree, and if you’re religious, hope you have a deep spiritual experience to remind you about the true meaning of the holiday.
If you celebrate Kwanzaa, Happy Kwanzaa! Hope you really get in touch with your heritage, and foster a deeper understanding of yourself.
If you celebrate Hanukkah, hope it was fun earlier this month, and that you remembered the meaning of the lighting of the candles.
If you celebrate Yule or the winter solstice, hope you had a wonderful holiday and got in touch with your spiritual side.
If you celebrate Boxing Day, enjoy the day off, and if you’re in the UK, good bargains to you! (Actually, just FYI, the practice of after-Christmas discounts has been picked up in the States, too.)
If you celebrate New Year’s on 1 January, hope you have a blast! Hope 2008 treats you extremely well!
If you celebrate お正月, 謹賀新年!
If you celebrate something Mari couldn’t remember or find on Wikipedia, please don’t feel offended. Tell Mari what it is you celebrate! Mari wants to learn about other cultures.
If you don’t celebrate anything, then hopefully you’re having a good week.
Mari, What’s With the “Holiday” Stuff?
Mari supposes this is explaining the first superscript footnote note.
1 Mari celebrates Christmas and New Years (10% Japanese-style3), and is more offended to hear “Happy Holidays” than were she told to have a Happy Hanukkah. Mari doesn’t subscribe to the idea that there’s a War on Christmas. It’s ridiculous to think that because store executives and government officials realize that there are other cultures, and try to conform, that they’re telling the number of people that do celebrate Christmas to take a hike. Despite Mari knowing that the intent with “Happy Holidays” is NOT to offend, Mari is still very much offended.
Mari rationalizes her offense to the blanket term in that Mari sees it as extremely impersonal. Mari, instead of using a blanket term, seeks to actually learn about the many different holidays that the many different cultures and religions of the world celebrate throughout December and early January.
As far as Mari is concerned, it’s more offensive to refuse to learn about another culture by using a generic greeting than it is to say “Happy Christmas” to someone, and have them explain that they don’t actually celebrate Christmas.
What do you celebrate?
What do you think about the term “Happy Holidays”?
2 Mari is totally aware that “Happy Christmas” is the commonly British English version of the greeting, but Mari always thought wishing someone to be truly happy is better than just merry.
3 Mari cleans extensively and tends to prepare food a week in advance or eat only stuff that her mother cooks. Mari also meditates and prays a lot and mentally prepares as much as possible for the coming year. Mari also watches Kouhaku Uta Gassen, but usually a week or two later, depending on the speed of Internet piracy. XDDDDD
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23 December 2007, 20:55
christmas, hanukkah, happy christmas, kohaku, kouhaku uta gassen, kwanzaa, new years, oshougatsu, yuleYou can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
My school went around asking everyone what they were celebrating and they came across Eid. I don’t really know what it is, but I think its a Muslim thing?
Happy Holidays to you too Mari :]
Happy everything to you too. I like how you did that, wishing everyone a happy each holiday. I don’t find “Happy Holidays” offensive, because it is all-inclusive, a short cut way to wish everyone a happy everything.
aaawww. thankyou!! i got my gift that i wanted …. a new logitech webcam orbit!!!
Happy Christmas!
I’m not from the UK, but on the other side of the pond in Canada. Saying Happy rather than Merry makes more sense to me too. But my dumb Canadian friends don’t know what to think of it.
That’s a different (in the good way!) point you make on why ‘Happy Holidays’ could offend. Unfortunately, it’s one of the humans’ flaws to generalize wrongly. IE: Calling everyone who wears dark/black clothing ‘goth’. It’s the same I suppose with “Happy Holidays”. Like you said, they couldn’t be bothered to learn, so let’s just chunk everything together!
As for me, I view “Happy Holidays” as what it literally says: have a nice time with your days off from work/school/etc. ‘Holidays’ meaning your actual holiday off from your daily routine where you can just sit back and relax.
謹賀新年!
Happy Christmas, Mari!
I really like that you listed different celebrations
Personally, I don’t see saying “Happy Holidays” exactly offensive, but just really really impersonal. Still, I say it, because I’m a lazy git 
I love how strong you are about the way you feel about things and that you arn’t afraid to let people know.
As for the Happy Holidays thing…I’ve honestly never thought very much about it. And although saying Happy Christmas still sounds kinda weird to me sometimes..I do like it better than Merry Christmas.
Anyways, I hope you had a Happy Christmas and have a Happy New Year.
Lazy Mari. *pokes*
Hehe, I celebrate the material and good feeling aspect of Christmas. XD
メ リ ー ク リ ス マ ス to you too Mari!!!!!!
i love that you specifically wished each denomination happy holidays, that’s a cute idea. happy new year, heres all the best for 2008!
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