Happy Christmas Holidays? Or something?

It's finally December, and I can stop feeling ridiculous for listening to nonstop Christmas music. Despite the cold weather, it’s still my favorite time of the year. But there’s something that’s popped up in the past few Decembers that makes me scratch my head. It’s the uproar over “Happy Holidays.”

These are pretty benign, cheerful words on their own. The offense, apparently, is that they remove Christ from Christmas. That it’s another attempt to take God out of our culture. The American Family Association has launched a boycott of stores who use the “Happy Holidays” salutation in place of "Merry Christmas." My local Christian radio station proudly boasts: “It’s not Happy Holidays—it’s Merry Christmas!”

I wonder what Jesus thinks about all this. It’s hard for me to picture Him getting all worked up about it. I’m thinking Jesus is pretty secure in the fact that Christmas is all about Him. It also makes me wonder about the dual responsibilities of Christians to stand up for truth and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Without question, there is a time to rise up, at any cost, and speak out boldly in favor of biblical truth. Where would we be if the disciples and early Christians hadn’t done this? What would our world look like if people like William Wilberforce and Abraham Lincoln hadn’t taken an unpopular stand for truth? The examples are endless.

But is “Happy Holidays” an assault on truth—something we need to jump in the ring with? Or is it simply a convenient phrase for a multicultural society? Here’s what I learned on Wikipedia: “Though Christmas has been celebrated since the 4th century AD, the first known usage of any Christmastime greeting, ‘Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year’ was in an informal letter written by an English admiral in 1699. The same phrase appeared in the first Christmas card, produced in England in 1843, and in the popular secular carol We Wish You a Merry Christmas.”

For centuries, Christians presumably honored Jesus and celebrated His birth without any catch phrase at all. But today, it seems like “Merry Christmas” is as important to us as the virgin birth. So much so that people are willing to picket uncooperative businesses and lecture sales clerks who happen to utter the wrong greeting.

“Truly he taught us to love one another. His law is love and his gospel is peace.” I am beautifully convicted by these words from one of my favorite carols. I’m not saying we all need to hold hands, sing Kumbaya, and embrace whatever feels good to the masses. But I’m just wondering if this isn’t the time to focus more on His message of love—through generosity, kindness, humility, service—rather than demanding people use our pet phrase.

Does anyone think I’m completely missing it? If so, write me. I’d love to hear the other side.