Why It’s OK To Say Both ‘Happy Holidays’ And ‘Merry Christmas’
(ANALYSIS) For a stretch of recent American history, there was really only one major cultural skirmish over Christmas. It began quietly in the 1990s, in both shopping malls and corporate boardrooms, when the push toward a more visibly multicultural public produced a paradoxical result.
In the attempt to welcome many traditions, American life became strangely monocultural, stripping explicit references to Christmas from December in favor of the softened, catch-all phrase “Happy Holidays.”
Employees at large retail chains were instructed to avoid “Merry Christmas,” a greeting now deemed too specific and too religious. What emerged was designed to include everyone by addressing no one in particular, to give a greeting that was universal because it had been smoothed of meaning. “Happy Holidays,” once an innocuous phrase, became a symbol in a newly branded American cultural war.
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Yet the irony is that “holiday” is a more profoundly Christian-rooted word than many of the phrases it replaced. Its etymology is not obscure. It is exactly what it sounds like: “Holy day,” or “hallowed day.” To speak of a “holiday” is already to speak of the sacred — a day set aside for God. In that sense, “Happy Holidays” has always carried a quiet echo from the church calendar, even if the modern speaker rarely knows it.
“Happy Holidays” and “Merry Christmas” don’t need to be rivals. In fact, they can be what they were before this silly conflict — two ways of wishing goodwill to a neighbor or friend during the shortest days of the year, and the calendar reminds us that some days are holy.
There’s no doubt that the principal holy day each December is Christmas. Whatever one’s religious commitments or lack thereof, Christmas has shaped American life more deeply than any other religious feast. School calendars turn around it. Travel patterns obey it. The rhythms of commerce, art, household ritual and even national mythology all bend toward Dec. 25. One need not be Christian to be swept into the cultural gravity of the day, just as one need not be Irish Catholic to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.
It is entirely reasonable to interpret “Happy Holidays” not as a secular displacement of Christmas, but a seasonal greeting. Christmas isn’t limited to a single day. For most Christians, the season of Advent ends on Dec. 24, but the season stretches to the Epiphany on Jan. 6.
Even for those who do not track the liturgical calendar that closely, the period between Christmas Day and New Year’s has long been understood as a single festive corridor. To say “Happy Holidays” is to include St. Stephen’s Day on Dec. 26, the Feast of the Holy Family, and the Marian celebration of Jan. 1, known for centuries as the Feast of the Circumcision and now the Solemnity of Mary.
A 2024 YouGov survey found that 86% of Americans plan to celebrate Christmas or another winter holiday. The share of Americans who agree there is a “war on Christmas” fell to 23% from 39% since December 2022. Among Republicans, 36% believe there is a war on Christmas – down from 59% in 2022.
The retreat from “Merry Christmas” starting in the ‘90s was not really a theological shift, but a cultural one. American institutions, anxious about appearing insensitive, adopted a linguistic change. But American culture, as it often does, responded by making the phrase itself a battleground. Suddenly, what a cashier said while scanning a barcode became a referendum on identity, religion, inclusion and tradition.
Looking back, this Christmas culture war – further fueled by Fox News in the early 2000s – appears quaint compared to the polarized debates that now shape American discourse. But it was an early sign of something important: A nation struggling to navigate pluralism without losing its soul. Most people have grasped what the policies overlooked: That a person saying “Merry Christmas” is not erasing anyone else’s holiday, just as a neighbor saying “Happy Hanukkah” is not demanding that you convert to Judaism.
Perhaps that is why, over time, resistance to this corporate edict grew. Many Americans, including those who were not Christian, found the new linguistic regime unnecessarily antiseptic. The pendulum has slightly swung back. In the past decade, “Merry Christmas” has reasserted itself in public life, not in defiance of diversity but alongside it.
The phrase “Happy Holidays” may deserve a gentler interpretation than either side of this debate has often allowed. Its linguistic roots remind us that even neutral language can carry echoes of what’s sacred. Its usage this month reflects not a rejection of Christmas, but an acknowledgment of the season’s holiness.
Clemente Lisi is executive editor at Religion Unplugged.