Column: We should stop being offended by Season’s Greetings

If you celebrate Christmas, you should feel comfortable saying Season’s Greetings.

If you got this far without immediately jumping to the comment section in outrage, stick with me. You’ll understand why.

A while back, this publication ran an article on the Giving Tree and how you could include a card of Season’s Greetings with the gift.

Someone took offense at that phrasing and asked: “Why Not Merry Christmas?”

Although our article was not being literal, and we informed the reader that the card could say whatever they liked, it caused me to reflect on the BS that is the War on Christmas (TM).

There is no movement for people to refrain from saying Merry Christmas. No one cares.

We said it twice this past weekend in big, bold letters on the screen at our FREE Family Movie Night. The PC Police did not come to lock us up.

No one is stopping you from saying Merry Christmas. No one is trying to stop you from saying Merry Christmas. You can say Merry Christmas.

But you should feel entirely at ease saying Season’s Greetings.

Christmas is a Christian holiday. Yeah. Yeah. You can prattle on about its pagan origins, but this column isn’t about that. It’s about Christmas, which isn’t even the most important Christian holiday. That’s Easter.

But many people who never set foot inside a church save for weddings and funerals get all worked up about Season’s Greetings and Happy Holidays. They act as if it was some new thing being jammed down our throats by the politically correct to ruin Christmas and make the Baby Jesus cry.

It isn’t, and neither Season’s Greetings or Happy Holidays are new.

The phrase Season’s Greetings dates back to the late 1800s and was commonly seen in shop windows and on Christmas cards by the 1920s.

And no one got bent out of shape about it. Hard to say what the reaction would have been if the giant soul-sucking rage machine that is Facebook existed back in the ’20s.

Quite simply, the phrase Season’s Greetings reflected the festive season of late November and December when friends and family gathered to spread the milk of human kindness to one another and to reflect on the “reason for the season if they were of the Christian faith.”

For many Christians, the “Season” in Season’s Greetings is a reflection of Christmastide. No, that’s not detergent to wash your ugly Christmas sweater. Christmastide is the 12 days from Christmas to Epiphany Eve and historically includes several minor Christian feasts.

Yeah, that 12 Days of Christmas song has real meaning rooted in a real Christmas tradition.

So there you have it, Season’s Greetings is an old phrase to capture an old concept – enjoying the holiday season and being good to one another.

And before I go, all of the above about Season’s Greetings also applies to Happy Holidays.

Wishing you all the warmth and joy the Christmas holiday season brings.

Season’s Greetings.

SD

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4 Comments

  1. And we wonder why major social media doesn’t want to held accountable to fact check. People wouldn’t be able to so easily spread bs to incite outrage of non existent circumstances. Ratings would plummet. At least Jerry threw in a lie detector test occasionally.

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