The holidays

For some reason, Christians get all upset if you tell them 'Happy Holidays!' instead of 'Merry Christmas!' And I understand the reasoning, I mean for them it's all about the one day. Oh, except of course for their OTHER holidays, Easter, Good Friday, all of that. I get it. But not everyone believes in or celebrates Christmas. Hell, Christmas as we know and celebrate it isn't even a Christian holiday anymore. I'll expand on that in a moment, but there is another thought. What about the Jewish population? Shall we wish them a Merry Christmas, even though for them it's all about Hanukkah? Or let me phrase it differently, are Christian's not upset when a Muslim wishes them a happy Arba'een, or when a Pagan or a Wiccan wishes them joy this Yule? What about Kwanzaa?

So, most people don't know much about the history of Christmas. For Christians, it's the day they chose to celebrate the birth of the Christ, their messiah. Here's the thing though, the day was specifically chosen to correspond with several "Pagan" holidays so that they could still enjoy their holiday, while nominally claiming to be Christian and avoid persecution. It's an ugly story, and there are dozens of books on the subject, so I'm not going to get into everything. One of those holidays was a week long event that concluded on the 25th of December. This festival, Saturnalia, was a Roman holiday that commemorated the dedication of the temple of Saturn, the Roman god of agriculture and harvest. During this event, there was no law, people could do whatever they wanted. At the end of the event, all debts were forgiven and no charges were pressed. As you can imagine, this wasn't really the best of times to be weak or an unprotected woman, but the wealthy were more often than not victims on this day as well as anyone the public had a strong dislike for.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand. Happy Holidays! If someone is wishing you happy times, why get offended? Simply said, Happy Holidays is a nice way of saying, "I don't know that I believe what you believe, and I have no clue what you believe, so I hope your holiday, whatever it shall be, is a good one!" Happy Holidays everyone, and may your god, God, gods, goddess, goddesses, god and goddess, or other watch over you this holiday season.